Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy最新文献

{"title":"Effect of enabling and coercive bureaucracies and of perceived organizational support during the pandemic on teachers’ intention to leave the profession","authors":"I. Berkovich","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2209924","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2209924","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study examined the effects of enabling and coercive bureaucracies of the government education authority (GEA), and perceived organizational support during the pandemic on teachers’ intention to leave the profession in Israel. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey of 267 Israeli public school teachers (80% women). I used a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses to examine the differential effects of GEA and school-level factors on teachers’ intention to leave the profession, and explored a path model in which school-level factors mediated the effects of GEA. The results indicated that the enabling GEA bureaucratic structure and perceived organizational support during the pandemic negatively predicted teachers’ inclination to leave, whereas its coercive bureaucratic structure positively predicted teachers’ inclination to leave. In addition, the analyses showed that perceived organizational support during the pandemic had the greatest influence on intention to leave, and that the extent of this influence cancelled out and overcame the negative effect of the coercive bureaucratic structure of GEA. Furthermore, the path model indicated that perceived organizational support partially mediated the effects of GEA on teachers’ inclination to leave.","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"161 - 172"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47845962","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The decollegialization of higher education institutions in Sweden","authors":"Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg, J. Boberg","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2192317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2192317","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article surveys current management ideals of higher education institutions, and our analytical focus is on the balance between line management and faculty self-governance. It presents an empirical study of evolving governance structures including all 31 public sector higher education institutions in Sweden. The point of departure is the Autonomy Reform of 2011, which resulted in a deregulation of the Higher Education Act, and a loss of constitutional support for collegial bodies. To assess the consequences of the reform, we have examined collegial bodies and academic leadership posts before the reform (2010) and after (2020). Our findings show escalating line management in the appointment of academic leaders, a diluted role for collegial expertise, and a loss of decision-making authority for collegial bodies. What we observe is the decollegialization of higher education institutions. Our study contributes to the existing literature with an unusually comprehensive and fine-grained analysis of the consequences of new managerial ideals at the local institutional level.","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"126 - 143"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46908272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Government steering and government disruption: co-operation between government and municipal actors in a state-initiated school improvement programme from the municipal actors’ perspective","authors":"Malin Kronqvist Håård","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2189991","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2189991","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article focuses on the co-operation between the Swedish National Agency for Education and school actors at the municipal level, examined from the latter’s perspective, within the context of a state-initiated school improvement programme, namely Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS). Co-operation between different levels of the school system is a neglected but essential aspect to analyse in a decentralised system such as Sweden’s, which is showing signs of re-centralisation. Empirically, the article is based on interviews with local actors in a small municipality participating in CBS. The interviews were part of a case study, and the analysis was guided by the theory of soft governance, Vedung’s concepts of sticks, carrots, and sermons as policy instruments, and Weick’s concept of sensemaking. Sensemaking, evident in the case study as a retrospective communicative notion, was employed to capture the local actors’ stories of how they perceived CBS. The connection with past experiences also played a part in their sensemaking since a clear history exists and was noted between the state and municipal levels. In conclusion, the analysis shows that CBS used sticks, carrots and sermons to steer municipal school actors towards the right path as regards school improvement.","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"113 - 125"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43728849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Norm-critique as revitalizer of gender equality? Local policy actors’ norm-critical understandings of Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission","authors":"T. Axelsson","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2180797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2180797","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT During the last decade, the notion of norm-critique has had an impact on Swedish educational policymaking, including the gender-equality mission of the Swedish preschool. The aim is to better understand and problematize the relationship between gender equality, as formal curricular content, and norm-critique, as informal curricular content, in educational policymaking in the field of Swedish preschool. The paper asks: What understandings are ascribed to the notion of norm-critique in relation to Swedish preschool’s gender-equality mission? Theoretically, the paper draws on the concept of epistemological understandings and the dynamic between epistemologies of gender equality and norm-critique. In terms of materials and methods, three focus group discussions with 13 preschool managers, here conceptualized as local policy actors, were analysed. The main finding is that these local policy actors view the notion of norm-critique as a revitalizer of the gender-equality mission of the Swedish preschool. A first conclusion is that the notion of norm-critique enhances the gender-equality mission because it might help local policy actors to view gender equality from a broader perspective and in relation to other, intersecting causes of inequality. A second, and somewhat contradictory, conclusion is that the notion of norm-critique risks undermining the gender-equality mission by replacing it.","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"101 - 112"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49038850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Recursive and adaptive processes in strategic work: municipality leaders’ and school leaders’ accounts of their work for educational reform","authors":"R. Jensen, Emerita Eli Ottesen","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2178839","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2178839","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to contribute insights into strategic work in an educational reform context. Empirical data were collected from four cases in Norway, where the national educational authority recently initiated a renewal of the national curriculum for primary and secondary education. The theory of strategy as practice was the analytical framework applied in this study. The aims were to investigate municipal and school leaders’ accounts of strategic work and the relationships between strategic work at the municipal and school levels. The informants experienced they had leeway to decide on how to realize the national reform in their local contexts. In their processes of strategic work, they included both well-known strategies and practices that had worked previously and structures and procedures that were adapted to the situation at hand. We found a smooth alignment between recursive and adaptive processes across the organizational levels. The informants implemented their perceptions as the intention of the national reform in many ways. In demonstrating the complexity of educational reform work, the findings of this study showed that the SaP approach may be used to make valuable theoretical contributions to our understanding of reform work in education.","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"86 - 100"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48950543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Towards outstanding innovation: priorities of innovation within centres for research-based innovation in Norway","authors":"Zacharias E. Andreadakis","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2165029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2165029","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In response to the persistent indeterminacy – and the salient discontents – surrounding the innovation-centred reporting in the global university-industry collaborations, this study seeks to investigate the reporting of innovation results in Norwegian centres for research-based innovation (SFIs). Based on a large amount of recent public-access documentary evidence (SFI annual reports 2020) which have never been synthesized or systematically analysed before, this study seeks to document and evince the range of innovation initiatives which are reported from SFIs and to raise awareness of the public value innovation propositions that exist within the innovation reporting of these SFIs such as intangible value creation – social and public values of more normative texture, such as internationalization values, transparency, and open access to information, as well as gender balance.","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"37 - 56"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42910086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Internationalization as myth, ceremony and doxa in higher education. The case of the Nordic countries between centre and periphery","authors":"Kazimierz Musiał","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2166344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2166344","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The article deals with the validation of the internationalization imperative in higher education institutions (HEIs) of the Nordic countries. I focus on both the goals and motives behind activities supporting internationalization, but also on the manner of their habitualization and institutionalization in the practice of academic administration and organizational management. The issue of legitimization of institutional changes is addressed by means of the rationalized myths that create durable dispositions for specific practices, changes in procedures and attitudes in a given socio-political setting. I draw on empirical examples that include practical solutions and strategies developed under the conditions of semiperipheral positionality of the Nordic states. This perspective makes their internationalization policies an interesting frame of reference for other countries and the paper concludes by pointing to the latest trends that can serve either as an inspiration or a warning for other states. The Nordic countries offer an example of how institutionalizing the ‘strategic gains’ narrative from globalization may lead to a recalibration of an earlier knowledge regime along with attempts to change centre-periphery relations, including the reframing of priorities and rationalities of different stakeholders in higher education.","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"20 - 36"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48754818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Universities under neoliberalism – market inspired reforms of Swedish higher education","authors":"Mats Benner, Mikael Holmqvist","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2185368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2185368","url":null,"abstract":"The owl of Minerva is known to only fly at dusk. After three decades of more or less unbroken dominance – not even the 2008 financial crisis brought it down (Crouch, 2011) – neoliberalism now sees its foundations seriously eroded. Therefore, there is no reason to reflect on what it has actually meant and entailed, not least for research and higher education. In the anthology Universities Under Neoliberalism, due to be published in March 2023, we have collected texts from six researchers, who from different perspectives shed light on how neoliberalism has shaped academic practices in Sweden (Benner & Holmqvist, 2023). That country is particularly interesting for several reasons. Perhaps the most important is that Sweden is such an unlikely case, as the long-standing bastion of a social democratic model of society (Esping-Andersen, 1990). In Sweden, neoliberal ideals should therefore have had difficulty taking hold, more so than in other systems where market dominance was already enshrined in the social model (Brown & Carasso, 2013; Cole, 2016). Neoliberalism is a broadly and not always very precisely used term. For our part, we see neoliberalism from three perspectives: as ideology, as discourse, and as practice. Ideologically, it is related to changed views of the objectives of organizations and institutions. For example, the universities’ role in society, which once was that of bastions of democracy and safeguards of social mobility, has been shifted in the direction of market conformity – building human capital and being relevant to business, focusing on ‘employability’. As a discourse, Neoliberalism redefines the guiding principles of the task. We can see a shift from intrinsic qualities to externally defined benefits, competitiveness, relevance, and usefulness. Finally, in terms of practices, Neoliberalism is associated with a shift from intrinsic academic principles to governance through objectives and measures defined by others, such as the state, stakeholders, organizations outside the academy’s sphere, with the market emerging as the ultimate reference point. Neoliberalism is therefore not primarily about reducing the size of the state – although this is also an important driving force – but rather about changing it, from acting as a corrective to the market to supporting it and enforcing its logic, including within the state, where universities and colleges in particular can serve as important instruments (Gamble, 1988). For higher education and research, neoliberalism has therefore not primarily meant changes in the role of universities. Although the universities of today have an expanded direct commercial role and function – in Sweden manifested in holding companies and innovation offices, and collaborative units with broad mandates – their main tasks remain education and research. Research is still managed and evaluated primarily according to academic criteria and collegial feedback, through mechanisms such as peer review and citation","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"72 - 73"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45994254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Reforms of higher education and research in the Nordic countries: global trends and Nordic models in Academia","authors":"J. Holmén, Johanna Ringarp","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2185367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2185367","url":null,"abstract":"In the second half of the 20th century, the majority of the population in many industrialized nations, including the Nordic countries, gained access to higher education. Simultaneously, the university system’s importance to economic development became emphasized. As universities have evolved from small academic islands of minor economic significance into vast systems of higher education that are expected to be engines of growth, the incentives for the state to get more directly involved in university governance have increased (Berman Popp, 2012; Delanty, 2001; Jarvis, 2001). The ambition to democratize society has been another driving force behind government attempts to reform the system of higher education (Fägerlind & Strömqvist, 2004). Since the 1990s, higher education reforms have been inspired by New Public Management ideals, which have borrowed governance models from business management. However, the ideals of academic freedom and autonomy of universities and collegial government by faculty are still alive. In fact, these ideals have to a large extent been, if not invented, at least recruited in opposition to perceived threats against their status and independence. For example, Barrow (1990, 168– 169) has shown how in the early 1900s faculty at US universities rallied around an ideal of collegiality that was ‘an amalgam of myth, real history and wish fulfilment’ as a counterstrategy against the proletarization that threatened them at the time. European universities have traditionally been closer to the mythical ideal of faculty governance than their US counterparts. In several Nordic countries, academic freedom or university autonomy are enshrined in the constitution. These freedoms might conflict with attempts at government control and with an increasing number of external members on university boards, which has been noted in recent decades (Degn & Sørensen, 2015; Öberg Ahlbäck et al., 2016; Gerber, 2001; Karran, 2007). When doing research about higher education, academic scholars are by definition involved in their object of research. The demarcation line between opinion pieces about the threats against academic freedom and academic research on university governance therefore tends to get blurred. This results in systemic bias in single country studies of higher education governance that lends to the situation of all countries being portrayed as equally dismal. One straightforward method for overcoming the problems involved in single country studies is to conduct direct comparative research. International comparative studies of higher education is an established research field (Karran, 2007; Mir, 2013; Musselin & Teixeira, 2014; Schugurensky, 2013). A classic in the field is Clark’s (1983) international investigation of higher education systems, which described different authority systems in university governance. Since the publication of Clark’s book, university systems around the world have been brought in closer contact with each other","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"1 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44183268","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Academic freedom in Scandinavia: has the Nordic model survived?","authors":"T. Karran, K. Beiter, Lucy Mallinson","doi":"10.1080/20020317.2023.2180795","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2023.2180795","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Scandinavian states have international reputations for promoting social democratic ideals, which have long been manifest in Nordic universities, e.g. legal protection for academic freedom and university studies free of charge. However, Nordic governments have made new h.e. laws, thereby changing university autonomy and management structures, leading to greater involvement by external personnel in university governance, and reduced academic freedom for academic staff. Utilizing legal data, and a survey of+5,000 academics from the EU states, this paper compares the protection for academic freedom in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The de jure analysis shows that a single Nordic grouping is not apparent, but that there are two distinct Scandinavian cohorts. The de facto analysis reveals differences between the Nordic nations and other EU states but does neither confirm the Nordic model nor substantiate two regional cohorts identified in previous research and in the de jure analysis.","PeriodicalId":52346,"journal":{"name":"Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy","volume":"9 1","pages":"4 - 19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46177564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}