Discursive institutionalism and its contribution to curriculum research. This article develops the argument that discursive institutionalism is a constructive contribution to curriculum research. Starting from the linguistic turn in curriculum theory, it is argued that discursive institutionalism contributes to curriculum research in at least two ways: First, it contributes to the understanding of the institutionalisation of curriculum discourses, and second, it contributes to the analyses of the interactions within and between curriculum arenas and institutional levels. The article concludes that in combining an interest for discursive interaction, discursive content and the actors involved in interactions, discursive institutionalism enables dynamic analyses of both curriculum change and continuity.

Research topic/aim: The national curriculum, which serves as a discursive practice, is characterised by increased complexity involving a multitude of actors operating within and between different curriculum arenas and institutional levels (Uljens, 2018; Sundberg, 2021). This development places high demands ontheories and methodologies in terms of examining complexity, interaction, and change. The aim of this paper is to build an argument arounddiscursive institutionalism (DI; Schmidt, 2008, 2011) as a constructive theoretical contribution to this line of curriculum research.

Theoretical framework: Discursive institutionalism (Schmidt, 2008, 2011), as the most recent branch of new institutionalism, is thus used as a theoretical framework in this paper.

Methodological design: The discussion about DI is built around three of its core concepts: ideas, discourse and agency. DI distinguishes between different ideas at differentinstitutional levels, some of which are more volatile (typically policy ideas), while others are more stable (typically philosophical ideas). To understand why some ideas become more stable than others, DI also emphasises the importance of acknowledging the discursive interactions in which these ideas take shape. Here, DI distinguishes between a coordinative discourse, focused on the development of a shared understanding of what the policy problem is and possible solutions among policy actors, and a communicative discourse, focused on the ways in which policy actorstry to legitimate their shared ideas. DI also highlights the importance of agency in this discursive interaction, and who says what to whom plays animportant role in explaining why some ideas become institutionalised while others do not.

Expected conclusions/findings: In the final part of the paper, I argue that DI contributes to curriculum research in at least four ways. First, it bridges the classic contradictions between structure and agency in understanding institutions as internally constructed in the minds of curriculum actors. Second, it provides thetheoretical language to enable analyses of the complex interplay within and between different policy arenas and levels. Third, while other neoinstitutional traditions have focused primarily on institutional stability, DI provides the language through which to include analyses of institutionalchange. Finally, in its non-hierarchical positioning of social practices, I argue that DI facilitates critical approaches that acknowledge both structureand agency.

Relevance to Nordic educational research: DI is a relatively new approach in Nordic curriculum research. However, in recent years, several scholars have begun deploying it in a range ofresearch projects. This paper is relevant to Nordic educational research since it makes visible some of the possibilities that DI provides in advancing multidimensional and multilayered analyses in curriculum research.

Major international surveys and reports have considerably altered the expectations andoutlooks of national policymakers in education over the last three decades. Througha comparative content analysis of bibliographies in policy documents, this article exploresthe intermediary bodies that facilitate salient interconnections between international organi-zations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) andnational policymakers and experts who prepare comprehensive school reforms in threeNordic countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. This article builds on a large Nordic researchproject that studied the transfer and translation of international policies in a Nordic reformcontext. It extends the study by examining the role of publishers as intermediary policybrokers that legitimize the usage of OECD knowledge as significant members of instrumentconstituencies. This study enhances our understanding of the variations in citation patternsacross policy documents from three Nordic countries. It also investigates the extent to whichdifferences in instrumental constituencies arise from institutional arrangements and theideational foundations underpinning reform trajectories. Additionally, it examines the topicsaddressed by these reforms and the governments’ affiliations with new policy brokerssupported by both public and private publishers.

During the 1990’s there was an ongoing dialogue about the Nordic field of curriculum theory in the tension field between a Northern European tradition of didaktik and an Anglo-Saxon tradition of curriculum studies (cf. Gundem & Hopmann, 1998). Since then, curriculum research in the Nordic countries has expanded, both numerically and in terms of content. It can also be noted that there is an increasing interest in the Nordic dimensions in education lately (e.g. Krejsler & Moos, 2021; Tröhler, et al., 2023). Although with some exceptions (see Krogh, Qvortrup & Ting Graf, 2021) the efforts to collect and communicate Nordic contributions to the international field of curriculum research to a wider international audience in a coherent way has been quite sparse. In this presentation we present an idea of an edited volume where we intend to collect cutting edge curriculum research from the Nordic countries that mirrors both historical trajectories, foundational approaches and the current state of Nordic curriculum research as a diverse and dynamic field of research. In this work in progress we invite the Nordic research community into a dialogue on what are the important historical trajectories and the promising perspectives and approaches in contemporary curriculum research from a Nordic perspective to include in such a volume? By bringing contributions from different curriculum traditions in the Nordic countries together in a dialogue on central curriculum issues we hope that the book project presented can offer helpful insights as well as act as a catalyst for the development of new ideas and research foci within the field of curriculum research.

This article argues for the problematic dominance of education research striving for relevance forpolicy and practice, with little to no consideration of its contribution to shared internal disciplinarydiscourse. Drawing on non-affirmative education theory, we use empirical examples fromthe Swedish context to contend that such a one-sided focus on external relevance may lead to arelevance paradox in which education research becomes increasingly irrelevant while striving forrelevance. Two issues are discussed in relation to this development. First, such a discourse on educationresearch runs the risk of becoming undisciplined in the sense that it becomes detached fromthe shared disciplinary language, with little to no connection to fundamental education theory. Second,education research runs the risk of becoming uncritical. In closing the gap between practice/policy and research, education researchers jeopardise their critical distance and become subordinatedto practitioners and policymakers in an unequal and uncritical relationship. Finally, we arguefor a more dynamic and reflexive understanding of the relevance of education research, where thereflexive relationship between policy/practice and fundamental education theory research is understoodas the thing that makes it possible for disciplinary discourse to thrive.

This volume centres the notion of "chance" in education as a key concept in contemporary education – relating to aspects like accountability, datafication, or international large-scale assessments – and discusses the impact that the historical desire to "tame" this notion has had on present-day educational policy and practice.

Encouraging readers to widen their educational imagination, chapters combine secondary research from the fields of cybernetics, systems thinking, and comparative education with issues of control, prediction, and comparison as ways to tame chance in education. Using the theoretical lenses of reasoning, notions, and addendums for legitimacy to foster a critical awareness of rarely discussed educational matters, the book explores how these notions are central to the taming of chance within education. Ultimately, the authors determine the styles of reasoning that are foundational and frame how we think about, and act on, education, and thereby address one of the top priorities in educational policy, politics, and practice today.

This timely book, with its unique perspective on the debates around education, will be of interest to students, researchers, and scholars in the fields of education policy and politics, international and comparative education, and theory of education. Those involved with the philosophy of education will also find the book valuable.