Eva Forsberg

Knowledge sources and autonomy. German and Swedish Teachers’ continuing professional development of assessment knowledge.

This article presents a comparative study of German and Swedish teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) in relation to student assessment. It investigates the sources teachers use to improve their knowledge about assessment and the relationship this has to different national contexts. Assessment, as well as evaluation, defines what counts as valid knowledge and how this can be measured. As such, assessment is a major focus of teaching and specifies constraints and possibilities for teacher practice in the classroom. Teachers are seen as agents in a regulated CPD marketplace, and within this framework teachers make decisions about the knowledge sources they use to educate themselves about assessment. These choices can be seen as expressions of what they perceive as important and relevant in relation to assessment. We argue that this expression of opinion can contribute to an understanding of teachers’ professional autonomy, especially in relation to their decisions about a crucial aspect of their profession. In this way, we propose a way to conceptualize the impact of the national context on teachers’ CPD.

The changing nature of autonomy: Transformations of the late Swedish teaching profession

ABSTRACT This article discusses teacher autonomy in the case of the Swedish teaching profession since the 1980s. It is argued that deregulation, decentralization, and marketization reforms of the 1990s have indeed increased teacher autonomy, but in some respects also led to a increase of complexity in the Swedish school system. In order to handle this complexity, the state intensified a standardization of schooling, which restricts teacher autonomy today. Relevant the papers understanding is that teacher autonomy is always about control, exerted internally by the profession itself and facilitated externally by state standards. The article argues that the restriction of teacher autonomy in recent times is also related to a simplified understanding of the phenomenon in the reforms of the 1990s.

From role models to nations in need of advice: Norway and Sweden under the OECD’s magnifying glass

Abstract By analysing five separate OECD reviews of evaluation and assessment practices with Norway and Sweden as cases, our study illustrates different ways in which a specific international educational reasoning is blended into more context-based national education policies and, as such, works in parallel with internal reforms and agendas. It is evident that an overarching narrative promotes the importance of coherent and integrated systems of evaluation and assessment in order to strengthen social and political endeavours for equity, quality and achievements. The parallel mix of OECD discourses and national discourses creates a combined narrative in which evaluations and assessments appear natural, self-evident and rational as well as highly adaptable to national settings. The study shows that national vertical and/or horizontal developments are intertwined with the OECD policy recommendations, which are quite general in character. In a continuing process of uploading and downloading, within different contexts, policies are elaborated and recontextualised. Evaluations and assessments are part of a contemporary rational paradigm for mapping and promoting performance in national educational systems – what we identify as a comparative curriculum code.

Approaching the space issue in Nordic curriculum theory: national reflections of globalisation in social studies/citizenship textbook pictures in Sweden, England and Germany

This article focuses on globalisation in Nordic curriculum theory by investigating the issue of space. It puts forward an increased interest in the practical levels of schooling and argues that globalisation should be investigated not only as a policy phenomenon but also as instructional matter in different contexts. It presents two perspectives of space, a container and a relational perspective. A distinction between the two perspectives contributes to an understanding of how the world is constructed at different levels of curriculum. The article tests its argument with an explorative social studies and citizenship textbook study in the national contexts of Sweden, England and Germany. It can be shown that all cases differ in their portrayals of globalisation and in the constructions of space-related issues.

Curriculum Vitae – The Course of Life

Curriculum Vitae – The Course of Life is the title of the lecture given by Eva Forsberg as promoter at the Conferment Ceremony at Uppsala University in spring 2015.

Curriculum Code, Arena, and Context: Curriculum and Leadership Research in Sweden

ABSTRACT This article describes the development of the Swedish curriculum-theory tradition with a focus on different curriculum practices, educational message systems, arenas, and curriculum makers. Attention has been paid to different places, spaces, and times in relation to the selection, ordering, and manifestation of knowledge, norms, and values, as well as the management and organization of education. Curriculum and leadership research and changes in Swedish education are described and we introduce the comparative curriculum code as a codification of the contemporary changes in the education system and their consequences for the selection and ordering of knowledge and students.

A Game of Thrones: Organising and Legitimising Knowledge through PISA Research.

This study investigates knowledge structures and scientific communication using bibliometric methods to explore scientific knowledge production and dissemination. The aim is to develop knowledge about this growing field by investigating studies using international large-scale assessment (ILSA) data, with a specific focus on those using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data. As international organisations use ILSA to measure, assess and compare the success of national education systems, it is important to study this specific knowledge to understand how it is organised and legitimised within research. The findings show an interchange of legitimisation, where major actors from the USA and other English-speaking and westernised countries determine the academic discourse. Important epistemic cultures for PISA research are identified: the most important of which are situated within psychology and education. These two research environments are epicentres created by patterns of the referrals to and referencing of articles framing the formulation of PISA knowledge. Finally, it is argued that this particular PISA research is self-referential and self-authorising, which raises questions about whether research accountability leads to ‘a game of thrones’, where rivalry going on within the scientific field concerning how and on what grounds ‘facts’ and ‘truths’ are constructed, as a continuing process with no obvious winner.

Codification of Present Swedish Curriculum Processes : Linking Educational Activities over Time and Space

Codification of present Swedish curriculum processes : linking educational activities over time and space

The Academic Home of Higher Education Research : The Case of Doctoral Theses in Sweden

Drawing on data from 399 Swedish doctoral theses, this chapter explores the epistemological foundations of higher education research. Using an analytical framework whose elements are the institutional organization of researchers and knowledge, the object of study, and the object of knowledge, we found that higher education research is mainly a concern for the older universities and for research subjects within the educational sciences and, secondarily, the social sciences. The prime objects of study are topics related to teaching, followed by issues of system policy, institutional management, and knowledge work. Studies of academic work and quality are almost non-existent, and comparative studies and international perspectives are rare. Regarding the object of knowledge, doctoral students’ choices of research approaches, theories, and methods point to a diversified analytical toolbox, although dominated by text-based analyses and qualitative methods, especially interviews and documentary studies, and a range of learning and institutional theories.

Life and work in academia

T he significance of higher education for individuals and society as well as its size and complexity justify that research on higher education is recognised and developed. In this special issue, we focus on academic citizenship and academic work. Life and work in academia has mostly been described in terms of teaching and research, personalised by academic staff (Boyer, Altbach, & Whitelaw, 1994). These core activities are related to historically developed missions of the university embedded invalues like academic freedom and professional autonomy. Another distinction focuses on the difference between the core and the support system developed to enable teaching, research and public outreach. Academics may very well be engaged in one or several of the university missions and involved in both core activities and support systems. Consequently, there are potentially many complex relations within universities as well as in the interplay between the university and different sectors of society. Still a large number of activities integral to academic life are often left out and to some degree they appear as less visible aspects of the academic culture. Many of these activities can be related to those duties (Kennedy, 1997), responsibilities or virtues of academic faculty that Bruce Macfarlane (2007) includes in academic citizenship. Academics perform services with differing status to several overlapping communities public, discipline-based/professional, institutional, collegial and student community (cf Gordon & Whitchurch, 2010). With massification, marketisation and managerialism, higher education institutions face new situations that challenge academic work and our understanding of it. Even though research on academic work has increased, it is still rather restricted. In an extensive literature review, edited by Kehm and Teichler (2013), several dimensions structuring the academic profession were identified: blurred boundaries of professional identities and the emergence of hybrid professionals overlapping academic and administrative tasks and functions; decommissioning of the academic profession since the 1990s; tensions between academic and managerial values in a context of changing governance of higher education; challenges faced by the traditional structure of academic career paths (Henningsson, Jörnesten, & Geschwind, in press); internationalisation of academic markets and careers; challenges in terms of quality, societal relevance and research excellence calling for new forms of academic work and collaboration with external stakeholders (cf. Fumasoli, Goastellec, & Kehm, 2015). In this special issue of Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, several aspects of stability and change within academia are elaborated on by scholars from various disciplines, scientific fields and institutions from three Nordic countries. Consequently, a number of theoretical perspectives, methodologies and data are being employed. At the same time, there are similarities between the Nordic countries, even beyond European agreements. All Nordic countries are small and open, highly dependent on exchange with the world outside, not least in higher education. They offer free education and all have a high percentage of the population in doctoral education (Elmgren, Forsberg, Lindberg-Sand, & Sonesson, 2016). Furthermore, the Nordic welfare states have in common a tradition of the state as a ‘guardian angel’ of national higher education institutions a situation some regard as challenged today by changed relations between the national state and higher education (cf Nybom, 2007). The Nordic societies are also among the most equal in the world. In sum, these similarities between the Nordic countries lay a foundation for mutual understanding, while the openness makes studies relevant also to the outside. Topics and themes represented in the articles comprise academic values, governance and collegiality, the formation of the scholar, professionalisation, formalisation processes, peer review and socialisation. This variety reflects the landscape of higher education research in general, often described as a multidisciplinary field with no obvious domain within any of the established disciplines (Forsberg & Geschwind, 2016; Teichler, 1992; Tight, 2013). Kerstin Sahlin and Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist discuss governance ideals and practices in their article Collegiality in Modern Universities, in which possibilities and limitations of bureaucracy, management and collegiality are illustrated and compared. In the vivacious debate on collegiality, they have noted an absence of clarification of the concept, leading to less stringent argumentation. They contribute with a principled discussion on what collegiality is, since collegiality might be undermined, not just through influence of new public management but also through undeveloped reflections on collegiality itself. Furthermore, they discuss how collegiality can be maintained and supported, and argue that collegiality cannot remain unchanged and also needs to be complemented by various modes of governance. Efficiency has been an important argument for introducing elements of new public management in academia; however, while the consequences of that have been