Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education (NJCIE)

A Tribute to Professor Wing On Lee

Karen Parish — 2024-01-30

Opportunities and Dilemmas in Interactions between the Education Sector and Academia

Mari-Ana Jones — 2023-12-21

International Master’s Degree Students’ Experiences of Support at a Finnish University

Anduena Ballo — 2024-03-17

This phenomenographic study explores international master’s degree students’ ways of experiencing support in Finnish higher education. The study draws on Schlossberg’s Transition Model and the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments Model as a conceptual framework. The phenomenographic analysis of 17 interviews with international master’s degree students identified four ways of experiencing support as: (a) study system adjustment, (b) learning enhancement, (c) personal growth, and (d) autonomy development. The findings identified participants’ experiencing support in relationships, use of information, communication, services, the flexibility of studies, learning and study environments. The presence of two indicators, Humanizing Educational Environments and Availability of Holistic Support suggested that the campus environment was culturally responsive to academic and personal support of international degree students. The findings contribute to the understanding of support for international degree students in higher education and may be used to develop services to support international degree students’ social, cultural, and career integration into host communities.

Partnerskap på like premisser?

Gaute Rydland Nilsen — 2023-12-21

‘Partnership’ is used as a collective term for cooperation on competence development between teacher education institutions and schools and is intended to lead to mutual learning. This article deals with experiences with partnerships from the teacher education`s point of view. The data material consists of interviews with teacher educators and leaders in teacher education institutions. The findings show that the staff members have many positive experiences, but they problematize certain organizational and steering challenges. They point out that it is demanding to share knowledge internally, and that research is somewhat connected to the work. They experience that the partnership primarily takes place on the school's premises, which may be related to the fact that steering expectations are directed at the teacher training programs and not at the schools. The study reveals differences in institutional practices, such as how the work is organized at a larger and a smaller teacher training institution, and whether the work is experienced as an individual or a collective project. The study shows that partnership is a complex phenomenon that shapes political and organizational conditions.

“I Stay Because of My Students“: Urban Lower Secondary School Teachers' Experiences of Belonging at Work

Martin Skogheim — 2023-12-21

This study explores urban lower secondary school teachers’ sense of belonging, focusing on their relationships with students and their work experiences. Despite heightened interest in students’ sense of belonging in educational settings, empirical research on teacher belonging – especially in the context of urban lower secondary education – remains sparse. The limited focus on teachers’ experiences of belonging at work is paradoxical, given their crucial role in fostering student belonging and the global challenges regarding the recruitment and retention of teachers. While previous research on belonging has underscored its importance for job satisfaction, professional identity development, and motivation at work, there has been a lack of focus on understanding how student-teacher relationships specifically influence teachers’ experiences of belonging to their school. This study draws from interviews and observational data to gain a deeper understanding of teachers’ day-to-day practice. It gives voice to the reflections and experiences of teachers and leaders. The findings emphasize the critical role of reciprocal student–teacher relationships through three interrelated themes. Relationships of this nature not only foster student development but also enhance teachers’ sense of belonging. The study also highlights the importance of supportive collegial relationships. In particular, teachers report strong experiences of belonging when their identity as teachers and individual contributions resonate with their school’s values and educational goals.

Co-Creation of Navigational Spaces When Facilitating Children’s Play

Marion Oen — 2023-12-21

Facilitating children’s play is an important but potentially frustrating task for teachers in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care. Play is often understood as essential for children, and frequently being excluded from play is often experienced as problematic; Still, teachers are often uncertain about how to do play and there is a growing concern about the disappearance of play.

This study aims to explore and identify navigational spaces for teachers to exercise agency when facilitating children’s play, and this article presents the co-creation of four such spaces. The co-creation has been done through a series of workshops and play initiations over six months, explored by ECEC teachers in conjunction with the author. The workshops are anchored in critical theory, and the idea is that the participants enrich the project through their various forms of expertise.

Abductive analysis through workshops and a thematic analysis of sound and video recordings of these events shows the co-creation of the navigational spaces of framing, conditioning, timing, and knowledging to be central. To be able to co-create these navigational spaces, the repeated collective questioning and knowledge contributions of teachers and the researcher seem to be a central factor. By critically considering and exploring co-creational possibilities both the researcher and the teachers extended their play-facilitating repertoire and made the play-facilitating efforts increasingly explicit. This suggests that it is possible to simultaneously develop practice and scientific knowledge if interactions between the education sector and academia are facilitated. These insights will be beneficial for further investigations and innovations.

Narrativer fra ledere i Kulturdag - et samarbeidsprosjekt mellom grunnskole og kulturskole

Ingrid Fostad — 2023-12-21

As early as the 1980s, there was a policy intention for collaboration between the Schools of Music and Performing Arts (SMPA) and the primary schools in Norway. Since then, several policy documents have defined collaboration between the SMPAs and the primary schools. Kulturdag [Cultural Day] is a project in which a municipality in Norway tries to meet the desire for cooperation between the SMPAs and primary schools in arts education. Kulturdag exists in 17 schools in this municipality (2022/2023). The Kulturdag project is complex, constantly expanding, and involves many people in different roles. This study examines the leadership perspective by focusing on one primary school with Kulturdag. The question I have explored is: How can Kulturdag be understood through the stories of the SMPA and primary school leaders in the light of practice architecture theory? The methods used to collect the data were ethnographically inspired, and the leaders' stories were interpreted from the researcher's position using narrative thematic analysis and the theory of practice architectures. This study is a practical and scientific contribution to educational research, providing more knowledge about the leadership perspective in a primary school-SMPA cooperation. One of the key findings is that this collaboration is based on a systemic change in primary music education - from traditional one-teacher music education to a change in practice architecture that allows for more teachers, diverse teaching, and staff participation in Kulturdag.

“I’ll take it with me all my life”

Åse Nylenna Akslen — 2023-12-21

Substantial evidence has proved that teacher identity significantly influences teachers’ beliefs and choice of actions in their work, and teacher education contributes to the formation and development process. Based on the findings from analysing student teachers’ pedagogical creeds, this article explores the professional identity development of student teachers who have taken an international course at a Norwegian university. The major data sources are the participants’ pedagogic creeds, supplemented by focus-group interviews with one cohort of students. Findings indicate that identity development is an ongoing process, which can be influenced by different factors. Findings also show that the international course has a positive impact on student teachers’ identity development while writing a pedagogic creed can serve as a dialogical tool for their identity development. This case study provides implications for both international and local teacher education programs in Norway and beyond.

A Cross-cultural Comparison of ELT Curricula of Senior Secondary Schools in Mainland China and Hong Kong

Xiaoli Su — 2024-01-15

English holds significant importance as a foreign language in Mainland China and Hong Kong, where ongoing curriculum revisions are shaped by economic and sociocultural advancements. Previous research on English Language Teaching (ELT) curriculum comparisons in Asia has frequently overlooked the exploration of underlying sociocultural and socio-political factors that contribute to the observed similarities and differences. Adopting a governmentality Perspective informed by Dean's analytics of government theory, this cross-cultural comparative study investigates the ELT curricula in senior secondary schools in Mainland China and Hong Kong. Through this analysis, the study explores how sociocultural and socio-political factors interact to influence the educational landscapes. By examining the dimensions of problematizations, rationalities, techne, and teleology within the curricula, the research uncovers common challenges, rationales, approaches, and objectives, as well as distinctions arising from the unique sociocultural, political, and economic contexts of Mainland China and Hong Kong. This examination underscores the profound impact of these contextual factors on ELT curriculum design, contributing valuable insights to the cross-cultural discourse. Furthermore, the findings lay the groundwork for future research and policy development in the realm of ELT curricula, emphasizing the need for additional studies employing diverse methods and focusing on the implemented and experienced curriculum in senior secondary schools to provide a comprehensive understanding of English language education in both Mainland China and Hong Kong.

"Det er veldig forskjellig fra hjemlandet mitt"

Kathrine Rønning Tvinnereim — 2023-10-16

This article presents an interview study with seven parents with migration backgrounds who have children in Early Childhood Education and Care institutions (ECEC). It highlights the parents’ experiences related to their interaction with ECECs during their first year as ECEC parents. The aim of the study is to explore how parents with migration backgrounds experience communication and interaction with ECEC staff.

The authors have executed a qualitative analysis of the research data. The analysis indicates that the parents’ experiences from their country of origin do not align well with expectations in the new home country. On the other hand, the analysis indicates that the interaction between ECEC parents and staff will improve when the understanding of the new society increases. The article highlights the difference between parents with some knowledge about Norwegian ECEC institutions before enrollment and those with limited insight. However, all of the parents enter the cooperation with ECEC institutions with little or no expectations to influence the current Norwegian system, but with a will to adapt to it. The willingness to adapt might make the parents less likely to engage with the ECEC staff. This attitude is based upon insufficient trust in the ECEC institutions and in Norwegian society in general. The lack of trust creates worries about the consequences of not successfully adapting to the Norwegian ECEC system and more specifically about Norwegian authorities’ decisions regarding deportations and family reunifications. The article points out that support from ECEC staff and other ECEC parents might reduce this anxiety and further develop the interaction.

The main conclusion of this article is that an extra effort is necessary to include parents with migration backgrounds to make sure they have enough knowledge about the Norwegian ECEC institutions to be confident about their child’s well-being and aware of their own role as an important, participating part. To ensure that this effort becomes part of the routines in ECECs this knowledge base’s implications on both the ECEC teacher education and the professional field is of importance.

Culturally responsive assessment in compulsory schooling in Denmark and Iceland - An illusion or a reality? A comparative study of student teachers’ experiences and perspectives

Artëm Ingmar Benediktsson — 2023-08-31

This paper explores and compares student teachers’ experiences and perspectives on culturally responsive assessment in compulsory schooling in Denmark and Iceland. The study’s theoretical framework draws on scholarship on culturally responsive assessment. The data was derived from fourteen interviews with Danish student teachers and ten interviews with Icelandic student teachers. As per the selection criteria, all participants had to be in the final stages of their education process, meaning they had completed their on-site schoolteacher training and most courses in their teacher education programme. During the interviews, the participants reflected on pre-instructional, formative, and summative assessment practices with cultural diversity in mind. Furthermore, they discussed the importance of assessing children’s well-being. In both countries, the participants demonstrated positive attitudes towards cultural diversity and expressed awareness of considering children’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds when assessing them. On the other hand, most participants expressed criticism of teacher education programmes for lacking attention to the topic of culturally responsive assessment, which resulted in their rudimentary understanding of the theoretical underpinnings.

Towards practice-based professional development by teacher educators

Khalid Mohammed Idris — 2023-12-14

Teacher education reform has advocated the implementation of widely espoused pedagogic changes in many contexts, particularly in Sub-Saharan African countries. This paper focused on the central agents in the reform process, i.e., teacher educators. Framed within the emerging conceptualizations of practice-based professional development of teacher educators, the study explores perspectives for improving educators’ teaching based on the self-study experiences of the first author while supporting the reflective practices of a group of student teachers in Eritrea. Self-study methods and tools including interactive discussions among colleague educators and critical friends, journaling, and course artifacts were used while developing the findings. The findings identified the dynamics of how researching situated concerns of teaching and learning frames problems of practice and also invokes sources and situations for developing motivations of educators in maintaining inquiry and improvement stances. We argue that such a dynamic is critical in productively engaging with teacher educators' professional learning in practice in similar contexts.

Educational Ideas on the Move

Thilde Juul-Wiese — 2023-09-12

Based on ethnographic fieldwork amongst Danish student teachers, this paper examines international teaching internships from a mobilities and spatial perspective. While the international teaching internship is regarded as a tool to develop student teachers’ intercultural competencies, this paper shows how culturally shaped educational ideas travel with and are practiced by student teachers in new educational and cultural contexts. Therefore, this paper suggests that such internships may perpetuate and reinforce normative ideas about pedagogy and ‘correct’ ways of teaching, being a pupil, and a teacher. The paper finds that student teachers see some educational ideas and practices as universal and applicable everywhere and others as particular and spatially bound. This, the paper argues, reflects a hierarchisation of ideas based on an assumption of the superiority of ‘Western’ education, which results in processes of pedagogical othering. The paper further argues that international teaching internships represent an important avenue to critically discuss educational values and examine how values impact pedagogical practice, furthering students’ professional development.

Frameworking vocational teachers’ digital competences

Leif Christian Lahn — 2023-08-31

Two decades of international research on digital competence of teachers have provided a number of frameworks for empirical studies and curriculum development. However, research publications addressing the needed digital competence of vocational (VET-) teachers are scarce. In this article we ask to what extent leading conceptual frameworks on digital competence are fruitful templates for studying such competences in the case of VET-teachers’ professional development, and what could be alternative conceptual models that fit this professional category. A synthesis is made of relevant literature based on a theoretical platform in vocational didactics and digitalization that highlights the diversity of international VET-systems and the connectivity between work and school. We adopt an integrative literature research approach that combines systematic procedures and supplementary searches in an iterative way.

Our descriptive analysis of the literature indicated that the international research on VET-teachers digital competence had in general a narrow focus on technical skills with a lack of perspective on key issues about their digital competences such as connectivity school / work, subject-specificity, and adaptive pedagogy. The articles tended to leave out contextual issues, for example the changing professional work of vocational teachers and background information about the national VET-systems. However, part of the literature pointed to the need for more “grounded” research starting from case-studies and qualitative data / mixed-methods research. Our synthesis of the literature in light of our theoretical framing identified four main topics for further research on VET-teachers’ digital competence that were incorporated in a working model or a “frameworking” that needs to be further developed in order to provide a rich and validated basis for constructing professional programs.

Antecedents to Faroese student teachers’ citizenship behaviour

Eyvind Elstad — 2023-11-14

The school is an important institution in Faroese society, as elsewhere in the world. Among other things, schools must prepare students for further education, professional life, and their duties as citizens. The quality of teachers’ instruction is the most important factor influencing pupils’ learning. The concept of citizenship behaviour highlights the idea that student teachers have a responsibility not only to fulfil their duties but also to contribute to the well-being of their peers. Student teachers’ citizenship behaviour is assumed to influence the functioning of teacher education. Teacher education prepares student teachers and supplies schools with appropriately trained teachers. The purposes of this study are (1) to present an overview of Faroese teacher training, and (2) to explore the statistical relationships between Faroese student teachers’ motivational orientations and their citizenship behaviours. As expected, we find that intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation are related to citizenship behavior. Furthermore, we find that instructional self-efficacy is positively related to citizenship behaviour. Implications for practice and avenues for further research are discussed.