In international comparative research on adult education, typologies such as the 'Varieties of Capitalism' approach are applied frequently to justify country-based research designs, or to frame research results. However, the advantage of typologies in reducing institutional complexity becomes a drawback when it comes to explain variations between…

This paper explores how girls' education developed in Norway and Prussia (and later North Rhine-Westphalia, NRW) during the first and second wave of women's political mobilisation. It analyses how organisations and activists of the women's movement were included in different cross-interest coalitions in education politics. The cases are…

In the global academic capitalist race, academics, institutions and countries' symbolic power results from the accumulation of scientific capital. This paper relies on the perspectives of system actors located at the institutional, national and international levels to assess the perceived importance of eight systemic factors in contributing to the…

This paper engages with and reflects on the arguments developed by contributors to the special issue. These papers serve to provide a corrective to English and, on occasion, European perceptions, which often view the Nordic countries as being all of a piece and beacons of progressivism. The contributors provide analyses that not only point to the…

Even though sustainable development concerns a common future "for all," cultural diversity is often absent from teaching and educational policy documents on education for sustainable development in Norway. We present a dialogue sequence from a science class. The empirical material originates from a nine-month ethnographic classroom study…

Few Nordic studies put children's experiences of social inequality at their centre. This article explores the children's perceptions of their education and well-being within two Nordic cities. The participants in this cross-national comparative qualitative study are children living in polarised urban metropolitan areas in Norway and Sweden. Our…

During the Nazi occupation of Norway from 1940 to 1945, Norwegian society was exposed to comprehensive Nazification measures. Considered racially equal, it was intended that the "Germanic" Norwegians would be transformed into a National Socialist people's community. With the establishment of the so-called new order on 25 September 1940,…

Although previous research has contributed to the body of literature in education for democracy by addressing deficits in policies in equalizing students' life chances, less attention has been paid to how accomplishing a democratic mandate in education is constructed and legitimized by educational authorities in national policy documents. In this…

Upon assuming power for the first time in 1935, the Norwegian Labour Party delivered on its promise of a major schooling reform. The reform raised minimum instruction time in less developed rural areas and boosted the resources available to rural schools, reducing class size and increasing teacher salaries. We document that cohorts more…

Questions surrounding mobility and migration are often connected to matters of language, citizenship, socio-economic status and class that are inherently unequal between developed and less-developed nation states. Scholars of geography and demographics have conceptualized both internal and external/international migration with "push" and…

Purpose: This article investigates how school leaders make sense of social justice and democracy in their practice in two settings, a high-stakes testing and accountability context, the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and a low-stakes testing and accountability context, Norway. It demonstrates how leaders view relationships among education,…

Context: Existing studies have explored the association between workplace training and wages suggesting that training participation may have a positive association with wages. However, we still know very little about whether this association varies between men and women. Through its potential positive association with wages, training may balance…

Citizenship education played a crucial role in the 19th century transition from royal sovereignty to democracy in the Nordic region, with folk high schools (FHS) playing an important role. While established to empower the people ("folk") for active participation in society, the contemporary folk high schools have reoriented from their…

The main purpose of this article is to explore and develop a basic understanding of a new formulation of children's learning within ECEC policies in Norway. In the Nordic Countries, one question of importance is the shift in ECEC policy from a social-pedagogical approach and a holistic perspective on children's learning towards a heavier emphasis…

When the purified National Party (NP) came to power in South Africa in 1948, they introduced educational policies based on the ideology of apartheid. At that time 7,183 pupils attended primary education in 110 Lutheran Norwegian mission schools in Zululand and Natal. When the State took over these schools after the passing of the Bantu Education…