Regional Policy Knowledge and the Nordic "other."

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Tracing the Formation and Utilization of Evidence in Nordic Education Policy

Proposal

Although the so-called “what-went-right” or “best practices” approach in education policy planning has become increasingly popular throughout the globe, previous research has questioned the smooth transition of empirical evidence across countries and continents. Earlier research does imply that neighboring countries may be more receptive to same policy solutions compared to those outside the region. However, there is no consensus about the role regional contexts play for transnational policy transfer and the way this context is shaping receptiveness of evidence across countries. The paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the role of regional context in transferring and translating transnational policy knowledge within policymaking processes.
By examining the latest curriculum reforms in three Nordic Countries, Finland, Iceland and Norway, in more detail, we set to discover what was the actual role and influence of the Nordic knowledge and co-operation in these reforms. How did policy makers and experts locate themselves in a larger political reference space when they collected ideas, facts and evidence to justify school reforms in their respective countries? We employed two methods to answer these questions; bibliometric network analysis in all five Nordic countries, and expert interviews in Finland, Iceland and Norway. Our starting point was the definition of evidence by Paul Cairney (2016) being “an argument backed by information.” Our theoretical framework drew in particular on Massey´s (2005) idea of space as a product of interrelations, constituted through interactions and her (1994) definition of spatial as the social stretched out.
The bibliometric analysis revealed a notable absence of Nordic references in the actual policy documents, implying that publications from other Nordic countries are not considered as relevant in terms of “authorized evidence”, that is, mentioned explicitly by being included in the references lists of footnotes in white and green papers. Nevertheless, our interview data shows that Nordic co-operation in the field of education policy is vivid, frequent and ample.
In this paper, we have developed a notion of a Nordic education space, in which the national experts and policymakers “make meaning and attempt coherence in networked forms (Grek & al, 2020: 4)”. The Nordic policy space is characterized by fluidity. The reference space of the Nordic experts stretches out from the national to the transnational through their interactions, connections and networks. Moreover, the Nordic education policy space is constructed and maintained in different settings of co-operation and communication. When they for example meet in international settings, consensus-making is of core importance different from regional meetings where they explore national solutions to common problems. Thus, we demonstrate that there are several forms and networks of Nordic co-operation that have various functions in terms of evidence-based policy making.

Authors

• Saija Volmari, University of Helsinki

• Kirsten Sivesind, University of Oslo