Metaspace – A Conceptual Tool to Explore the Nordic

• In Event: Scrutinizing the Nordic Dimension in Education: Myths, Realities, and Integration Efforts

Abstract

This paper argues that observing ‘the Nordic dimension’ as a metaspace in methodological terms harbors potentials to qualifying educational research, policy and debate (Krejsler, 2023).

The concept of the metaspace designates a space that gathers critical mass by scaling up smaller national spaces to a Nordic metaspace. In relation to a Danish, Swedish or Finnish case, a meta-space could be in scalar terms the Nordic dimension, a European or, ultimately, a Global dimension. The driving argument for construing ‘the Nordic dimension’ as a metaspace is that it may qualify education policy research as the five Nordic countries represent historical, linguistic, and societal links that have produced similar societal and educational values, albeit according to different trajectories (Hilson, 2008; Krejsler & Moos, 2021). The Nordic dimension thus represents a comparative dimension that enables a particular nation-state to put its societal and educational conditions and choices in perspective. As a floating signifier the Nordic dimension allows the opportunity to draw on the wealth of diversity that this metaspace represents to problematize and potentially rethink national solutions.

Author

• John Benedicto Krejsler, Aarhus University