Transnationally oriented curriculum theory. In this essay, written to mark my installation as professor of education at Linnaeus University in September 2023, I present three central and interrelated themes of my research. The first theme I call an expanded educational policy practice. In it, I discuss the need to widen the analytical gaze of curriculum theory beyond national borders and incorporate transnational policy arenas and actors. In this transnational approach to curriculum theory, I apply discursive institutionalism as a curriculum theoretical perspective, which constitutes the second theme of the essay. The third and final theme is critical reflection, in which I discuss the importance of developing critical educational research in times of increased dogmatism and/or populism. I conclude with a call for the university to take renewed responsibility for its seminar culture in fostering such a critical reflective approach among academics in a broad sense.

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.