The research project intends to reconstruct a comparative view of basic education politics in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Our theoretical and methodological approach will seriously take up the challenge of unravelling the complexity, contingency and transnationality that characterise the education systems in Nordic societies. The focus of the project is on the political decision-making and the processes through which the comprehensive schools in these countries have developed. By collecting material in each of the Nordic countries in a similar methodological setting we aim to compare the socio-historical construction of the comprehensive school and their politics across all these countries.

If successful, this research project will open up various new horizons and will have an impact not only on education research but also on other fields of comparative historical sociology and politics.

The fieldwork in Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden took place during 2016.