This article analyses the Swedish case of the government’s funding for equity, which annually provides over 600 million euros to improve equity. Being one of the largest funding schemes ever for work towards educational equity it also provides full autonomy for local education authorities (LEAs) to use the money at their discretion. By studying local decisions through interviews and analysing applications and plans in nine cases, we deepen our understanding of governance relations between state, LEAs and schools. Our findings show that funding is used mostly for general purposes, rather than for specific measures to improve equity. Dynamics of governance that mitigate improvements in equity are also found. LEAs take advantage of their position as receivers and distributors of the funding to local schools, deciding what equity is and how to invest in improving it, rather than passing funds to their school units and let them decide on its use.

This article concerns the professional work of Swedish heads of local educational authority [LEA] school administrations) with a particular focus on their relationships with local politicians since the 1990s. In recent decades, Sweden has undergone foundational educational reforms, radically de-centralising - and then re-centralising - the school system. Thus, Sweden represents an interesting case for understanding both de-centralisation and re-centralisation processes. We cover seven empirical studies of superintendents to understand how municipal governance and the role of superintendents have changed over time in response to these large-scale reforms. We show that the de-centralisation reforms of the 1990s destabilised municipal administrative structures and superintendents' roles and duties with regard to politicians. However, during the 2000s, the municipal administrative structures and the role and duties of superintendents stabilised significantly. In the mid-2010s, reforms institutionalised superintendents' roles and bound them more closely to the state administration.

This article presents a comparative interview study (N = 45) with Swedish and German special educators working in inclusive school settings in order to gain an understanding of how inclusive education is operationalized by the provision of special education needs (SEN) support; and how both aspects are conditioned by nation-specific particularities. Drawing on our interview analyses, we suggest an analytical device for examining and comparing the provision of SEN support in school organizations from a comparative perspective. The device is a 9-dimensional matrix, understanding the phenomenon in terms of three levels (individual, group, organizational) related to three domains (educational, social, administrative). Employing this matrix, we explain national differences in operationalizing inclusive schools. Compared with Germany, in Sweden, special educators have much more power in the inclusive school, and significantly more important decisions regarding SEN are made at an organizational level, and not only regarding individual students in need of special support.

Principal autonomy has been identified as an important ingredient in effective and healthy schools. However, little is known about the various dimensions of the phenomenon and how it takes form in different contexts. This article presents an analytical device contributing to further understand the complex nature of principal autonomy. The device follows the seminal work of Richard Ingersoll on autonomy in school organisations operationalised as decision-making and control. Moreover, we put forward a multidimensional device to organise decisions and control in several schooling domains: educational, social, developmental and administrative. By exemplifying the device on principals’ perceptions of autonomy in the very North of Sweden, Norway and Finland, we can reveal important differences between the three Nordic neighbouring cases. Related to these reforms, principals’ work can be compared in terms of different grades of complexity and risk, with corresponding consequences for their autonomy.

In this paper, we examine the role of principals in making schools more inclusive, which means enabling joint learning of all students. The article draws on empirical investigations from 2700 pages of legal documents on how international policies have been handled in two particular national contexts, Germany and Norway. We regard, in particular, school principals’ responsibilities for inclusive schools. The comparative design reveals the following findings: From a historical perspective, expectations for principals to open their schools for all learners has shifted from low-stake to high-stake governance means starting with solely stating general responsibilities of principals. Since this approach has not resulted in desired outcomes like making school organisations more inclusive, responsibilities have been coupled more with accountability. With this, the work of principals has become more complex and has been coped with differently in different contexts. German principals have wide areas of responsibility in a restricted scope of action because their work is embedded in highly developed but inflexible bureaucratic structures. Norwegian principals face sole responsibility with outcome-oriented accountability and even penalties in case of not achieving certain standards. The latter approach opens schools for “more” children with varying needs but is also more challenging for principals.

This paper starts with the increasing discussions on juridification in education. Concerning theorizing on such processes, we examine the poor implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD (2008) in the school sector of Germany. The paper considers the reasons for this failed endeavor by analyzing the complex, multilevel relations between policy and law in different national and historical contexts. With this, aspects of juridification as a process in education policy can be illuminated. In this regard, we suggest crucial aspects regarding juridification in public education: a focus on regulative failures in juridification processes, juridification's contexts, the mandate for putting it into action, the allocation of resources, and finally, its objective and subjective rights dimensions, i.e. how an individual can claim rights within the machinery of public education.

This article analyses union journals in Sweden and Finland since 1990. In doing so, the article recognises the journals as principals’ collective professional voice regarding major education reform dynamics. Our findings suggest that principals in both Nordic countries, as collective actors, have clearly influenced reforms of the school system significantly. The unions serve as a strong voice with major influence in both professional and reform ambitions. However, the main arguments for the respective professional projects were similar, although professional ambitions were different in both cases: discretion for more educational leadership, without explaining what educational leadership means in detail.

This article focuses on Nordic school leaders and how rural principals experience autonomy and control in current governance regimes using a sample of principals in the very north of Norway and Sweden as a case. An analysis instrument constituting four different schooling domains (educational; social; developmental; administrative) and the ways in which autonomy and control are perceived within each domain structured the analytical work. The analysis showed that both Norwegian and Swedish principals experience a high degree of autonomy within the four domains. Regarding control, principals of the two countries intimated that control is generally more evident within the educational and administrative domains and less evident within the developmental and particularly within the social domain. Regarding differences between the two countries, Norwegian principals experienced more control from regional and local municipal level compared to their Swedish colleagues. The findings add important pieces to the current body of research on rural principals and school system governance.

The aim of this special issue is to analyze the dynamics of differentiation in education. In particular, the conceptual term of differentiation will be explored by focussing on various arenas of curriculum making. ‘Differentiation’ entails much more than instructional or didactical considerations and strategies: At the heart of the curriculum making lie ideas and assumptions about socio-cultural and political processes and their consequences. Curriculum developments and differentiation processes connected to it are highly dynamic in nature. They emerge across various spatial and temporal contexts within diverse discursive settings. This special issue aims to elaborate on broader, sociologically and historically oriented concepts of differentiation in education systems. This brief introduction to the special issue is disposed of in the following way. Firstly, we define the term differentiation. We do this with a sociological meaning and then connect it to education research. In particular, concerning the latter, we define research gaps, which this special issue aims to approach. Then, we present the six contributions to this edition with their individual contribution to understanding differentiation in education. Finally, we discuss the contributions’ similarities and differences.

This introductory chapter addresses the complex interrelations between education policy and education practice developed under new ways of governance. It highlights education nexuses as a concept of its own right and discusses what constitutes the contemporary nexuses in education of today. Based on the cases of education nexuses presented in the volume the chapter summarizes four central characteristics of education nexuses and raise the issue of the need to re-consider how we study education policy and practice in the interface between structure and agency for the future developments in education.