This study seeks to explore the effect of tools of school governance advanced by the global reform agenda (1) on student performance and (2) on reducing the effect of sociodemographic variables on this performance. To do so, we compare two Nordic welfare states with an egalitarian tradition: Sweden and Finland. The Swedish school system has…

The interplay of digital technologies and inequalities are increasingly discussed in contemporary research, mostly focusing on different forms of digital divides and often addressed as a "problem" that societies should face. Hence, digital education and its governance becomes a major arena for addressing inequalities. In this paper, we…

Eco-Schools is the world's largest sustainable school program. Drawing on biopolitical theory and fieldwork conducted in Rwanda, South Africa, Sweden and Uganda, this article explores and compares how Eco-Schools is enacted in contexts marked by widely differing socio-economic living conditions. Attention is drawn to the biopolitical rationalities…

The concept of differentiation holds immense significance in education, touching upon aspects like access, inclusion, justice, and equality. However, it is also a complex and elusive notion, which acquires different meanings across historical and cultural contexts. This article explores the shifting reasoning about differentiation in the Swedish…

Aims: This study investigated which specific socio-demographic characteristics of the family and child health service centre are associated with parents receiving a video guide. The video guide, intended to be offered universally, aimed at promoting language and literacy development. Methods: The video guide included language and literacy…

Transformative learning is important for handling climate change. How to include this kind of learning in formal education is, however, still debated. This article takes a bottom-up approach by learning from young people who make climate-friendly food choices to a high degree. Interviews were performed with Swedish adolescents. By focusing on…

'Public health' investigates the determinants of health, born during the Enlightenment in the seventeenth/eighteenth century. But 'public health' is also policies, aiming at the improvement of a population's health. There is a mutual interchange between public health as science and as politics. A brief historical background is followed by an…

Using discontinuities within the Swedish SAT [scholastic aptitude test] system, we show that additional admission opportunities causally affect college choices. Students with high-educated parents change timing, colleges, and fields in ways that appear consistent with basic economic theory. In contrast, very talented students with low-educated…

The aim of this article is to acquire knowledge regarding children's influence and the construction of gender during free play situations in preschools in different local contexts. Attention is focused on both children's choices and pedagogical practices in which free play takes place. The research draws on ethnographic studies based on…

This article elaborates on previous research showing that educational achievement is negatively related to poor mental health during adolescence and positively related to the family's socioeconomic resources. We examine (i) the potential moderating effects of family resources on the negative relationship between educational achievement and poor…

In this study, the roles of teachers and school administrators in the adaptation of immigrant students to the school organization were investigated. For this purpose, the opinions of teachers and school administrators were taken for the adaptation of immigrant students to the school organization. The interview form used in the research was created…

Background: This study examines the extent to which high alcohol consumption, drug use, and delinquency vary between schools with different socioeconomic characteristics, over and above the pupil's own sociodemographic background. Methods: Analyses are based on data on 5484 ninth-grade students distributed over 93 schools in Stockholm, from the…

Using a randomized placebo controlled design, we examined the direct and follow-up effects (at 6 and 12 months) of a mathematics tablet intervention. Math training focused primarily on basic arithmetic (addition and subtraction facts up to 12), and secondarily on number knowledge and word problems. We investigated the moderating effects of IQ and…

Despite uncertainties regarding the effects of outcome-focused reforms on teaching practices, the political confidence in the potential of such reforms to create educational change remains high. This article problematizes the assumption that two such Swedish reforms (grades and national tests in younger years) can function as an impetus for…

Background: Large-scale cross-national studies designed to measure student achievement use different social, cultural, economic and other background variables to explain observed differences in that achievement. Prior to their inclusion into a prediction model, these variables are commonly scaled into latent background indices. To allow…