About the project

The Nordic Education Model (NordEd) investigated four aspects of the Nordic education model:

  • Pillar 1: Knowledge - Competing traditions, ideals, and concepts of knowledge in the educational policies, pedagogical idea development, and pedagogical practices of the Nordic countries.
  • Pillar 2: Curricula and Subject Sequences - Struggles over and the development of curricula and subject sequences in Nordic education.
  • Pillar 3: Teacher Cultures and Teacher Education - The emergence of Nordic teacher cultures and teacher education in a comparative perspective.
  • Pillar 4: Policy-making and Reform Work - Nordic school reforms in light of international, regional, and national policy-making and reform work.

The choice of these pillars provided a broad perspective on the emergence and formulation of national education systems. Within all four pillars, emphasis was placed on discursive, normative, and practical conflicts, in order to develop approaches that challenge harmonizing concepts of "the Nordic education model."

The research group

The research group was characterized by great academic diversity and represented a range of different disciplines: Education, gender studies, philosophy, mathematics, music, theology, history, social science, and educational science.

For this reason, the project was also characterized by methodological pluralism, using political network analysis, quantitative and qualitative comparative methods, historical document analysis, conceptual-historical and discourse-analytical approaches, institutional history, intellectual history, and epistemological/philosophical analyses.

The project was led by Professor Inga Bostad and was a collaboration between IPED, ILS, IAKH, IFIKK, STK, IHS, IMV, UB, and TF at the University of Oslo. The project was supported by an international group of advisory experts, and within all four pillars, the project developed Nordic meeting places and networks.