Nordic Nations Copy Different Neighbors When Shaping Education Policy
Norway heavily references Swedish education research when designing policy reforms, but Sweden rarely returns the favor—a pattern researchers trace to perceptions of relevance and institutional fit. The finding reveals how policymakers selectively adopt peer examples, with potential implications for how governments benchmark themselves against competitors and share evidence across borders.
Originaltitel: Understanding implicit reference societies in education policy
<p>This study examines the reference societies of Norway and Sweden embedded in their education policy documents. We examined 4,260 bibliographic references in 19 white papers and green papers prepared for the 2016/2020 renewal of the Knowledge Promotion Reform in Norway and the 2015/2018 Knowledge Achievement Reform in Sweden. In addition, we interviewed 10 policy experts who participated in the preparation of the analyzed policy docu-ments. The results show that the reference societies overall reflect the existing knowledge production and dissemination mechanisms in education policy; however, they significantly differed between Norway and Sweden regarding whether and to what extent they reference knowledge produced in other Nordic countries. Specifically, while Norway drew extensively on knowledge from its neighbors, particularly Sweden, Sweden seldom referenced knowl-edge produced in other Nordic countries. Policy actors identified similarity, relevance, accessibility, reform contexts, and institutional arrangements as reasons for (not) referencing neighbors. This study calls for further consideration of the political, social, and cultural embeddedness of the ‘socio-logic’ to understand implicit reference societies.</p>