Eivind Larsen

NLA University College, Department of Pedagogy, Faculty Member

University of Oslo, Department of Educational Sciences, Graduate Student

University of Oslo, Institute for teacher education and school research, Faculty Member

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Main interest fields are educational leadership, philosophy of education, educational law and governance of education, and critical factors in the field of education promoting peace, tolerance and safety in an era of rapid change and globalization. Other interests are perception, psychology, pedagogy, reforms in religious movements, philosophy and medicine.

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Paul Bowman

Cardiff University

Lídia Oliveira Silva

University of Aveiro

Paul R Carr

Université du Québec en Outaouais

Estela Blaisten-Barojas

George Mason University

Matthew Tong

The University of Texas at Austin

Martin van Bruinessen

Universiteit Utrecht

Sam Rocha

University of British Columbia

Giulia Sissa

Ucla

Gerardo L Blanco

Boston College

Kathryn LaFevers Evans, Three Eagles

Pacifica Graduate Institute

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Papers by Eivind Larsen

Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Schools’ Democratic Character Measure

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2023

Expectations on Leadership of Democratic Education in Policy Documents

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

Mission and mandates: school leaders’ and teachers’ professional discretion in enacting education for democracy

International Journal of Leadership in Education, 2021

Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Schools’ Democratic Character

Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

Globalization and Citizenship Education – A Case Study on Recent Education Reforms in Norway

Situated in a climate of dramatic changes in worldwide educational policies over the last 25 year... more Situated in a climate of dramatic changes in worldwide educational policies over the last 25 years, my thesis aimed to uncover how globalization and neoliberalism have affected Norwegian education for citizenship through a qualitative collective case study. The chosen theoretical framework was based on Ecological Systems Theory. The relevant comparative dimensions were the Steiner Waldorf School and the Public School in Norway. Education policy documents, books and articles were analyzed through a critical discourse analysis in order to gain a comprehensive picture of developments in citizenship education over the last 25 years. Fieldwork was also conducted whereby 12 participants (teachers, lecturers) were interviewed regarding their perceptions on the influences of globalization on citizenship education at a global level (macrosystem), at the level of the education system (exosystem) and at the individual and social level (mesosystem). The results indicated that globalization and the inherent neoliberal ideology have affected the education system through the policy indicators of accountability-based governance, decentralization, New Public Management, the culture of educational measurement and competences. Disparities and variations in viewpoints were uncovered in the Public School, while the Steiner Waldorf School appeared to be increasingly affected by educational measurement and competences. In addition, the Steiner Waldorf School was heavily influenced by social dimensions related to intellectual weighing/measurement, and ICT. On the basis of these findings the outlooks for citizenship education are discussed within the relevant theoretical framework and literature. A main argument made is that accountabilitybased governance, the culture of educational measurement and competences as the basis of citizenship education may be insufficient to counter social and environmental challenges.

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The Norwegian Case of School Reform, External Quality Control, and the Call for Democratic Practice

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, 2021

Traditionally, the Norwegian education system has been built on equality and democracy as core va... more Traditionally, the Norwegian education system has been built on equality and democracy as core values, but the disappointing results in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) introduced the perception of a “crisis in education” and increased the occurrence of national reform initiatives. New assessment policies with an emphasis on performance measurement and emerging accountability practices have characterized the transition processes over the last decade. With increasing focus on monitoring based on performance indicators, there is a risk that the purpose of promoting democracy in schools will be downplayed by instrumental and managerial regulations. However, the Norwegian school reform of curriculum renewal in 2020 also highlights democracy and participation as separate interdisciplinary themes and includes a concrete elaboration of this topic, which strongly emphasizes that schools should promote democratic values and attitudes as a counterweight to prejudice a...

Images of Educational Leadership: How Principals Make Sense of Democracy and Social Justice in Two Distinct Policy Contexts

Purpose: This article investigates how school leaders make sense of social justice and democracy ... more Purpose: This article investigates how school leaders make sense of social justice and democracy in their practice in two settings, a high-stakes testing and accountability context, the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and a low-stakes testing and accountability context, Norway. It demonstrates how leaders view relationships among education, democracy, and social justice, when located in a neoliberal democracy with a minimalist welfare state or in a social democracy with a robust welfare state. Design and Evidence: Through a comparative design, we analyze qualitative data from two international principal exchanges designed to capture outsiders’ impressions of schools in each context. Participants included alumni from an American and a Norwegian university’s principal preparation programs. Through preobservation and postobservation interviews and focus groups, we explore observations by practitioners, who acted as coconstructors in the research. Findings and Implications: The article presents three findings: (1) While principals in both systems conceptualized equity similarly, their conceptions of democracy were aligned with the type of democracy in which they were embedded; (2) Schools’ norms, climate, structures, and leadership, as well as students’ daily lives, reflected the values implicit in their respective political contexts; (3) Principals perceived elements of their macro- and micro-level settings to enable or constrain their ability to craft democratic, socially just schools. These findings help scholars move beyond discourse about the need for leaders to advocate for equity, to deeper understandings about conditions that shape democratic schools, such as values about collectivism, welfarism, and the common good—tenets of a socially just civic society.

Constructions of professionalism and the democratic mandate in education A discourse analysis of Norwegian public policy documents

Journal of Education Policy

Although previous research has contributed to the body of literature in education for democracy b... more Although previous research has contributed to the body of literature in education for democracy by addressing deficits in policies in equalizing students' life chances, less attention has been paid to how accomplishing a democratic mandate in education is constructed and legitimized by educational authorities in national policy documents. In this article, we report findings from a project that examined this issue. The aim is to provide insight into how professionalism is constructed and legitimized within and across key education policy documents in the wake of a major national educational reform in Norway. We identify possible discursive shifts and examine what tensions are at play via textual analysis of selected policy documents, with a methodology inspired by a critical approach to discourse analysis. Theories on professionalism and democratic leadership serve as an overarching framework. The findings suggest (1) there are tensions between the use of performance data and education for democracy; (2) little attention is given to professionalism as a deliberative activity; and (3) there is increased emphasis on fulfilling students' individual rights. We argue that introducing a language of performance expectations has permitted the reinterpretation of what it means to be a professional educator in a social democratic welfare state.

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Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Schools’ Democratic Character Measure

PsycTESTS Dataset, 2023

Expectations on Leadership of Democratic Education in Policy Documents

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

Mission and mandates: school leaders’ and teachers’ professional discretion in enacting education for democracy

International Journal of Leadership in Education, 2021

Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Schools’ Democratic Character

Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research

Globalization and Citizenship Education – A Case Study on Recent Education Reforms in Norway

Download

The Norwegian Case of School Reform, External Quality Control, and the Call for Democratic Practice