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This paper introduces the questions and approaches of a five-nation cross-cultural study of state-based curriculum-making discussed in this issue of "JCS." The paper reviews the two decade-long interest of many nations in state-based curriculum-making and presents a framework for thinking about state-based curriculum-making as a tool of educational governance.

Traditionally, the Nordic curriculum has been viewed as a document with school subjects in focus. This article reports on how two national curricula function as instruments for governing education and explores the possible differences in how national curricula govern education. This investigation was carried out by researching curricula for compulsory schools in Norway (2006) and Finland (2004). In Norway, the governing that emphasises output mechanisms is compared to Finland where the governing is distributed in a more intricate manner at three identified levels. All three levels in the hierarchical legal levels (Act, Regulation and circular letters) are directly activated in the formal rule system, whereas only the two first levels, as part of the formal rule system, are used within the Finnish curriculum decision-making structure. A second finding is that a consequence of the use of the formal rule system is that, at the higher level of the legal status, legitimacy is acquired through a process of essential voices being heard in the process of creating the curricula. Unlike the Finnish curriculum, the Norwegian curriculum does not have the same level of democratic procedures behind it concerning consultation over the content.

This article scrutinizes the foundation of the Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA) from the perspective of the influence exerted by Finnish educational scholars. The results show that Finnish scholars have actively been involved. The statutory meeting in 1973 was held at the University of Jyväskylä and the bylaws were adopted. Since the foundation, Finnish universities have regularly hosted congresses, as have universities in other Nordic countries, and by the fortieth anniversary, 2013, Finland had arranged ten congresses. From the very start, Finland has had representatives in the board, and has twice had the chair, and four times the secretary has come from Finland. This investigation reveals that the language issue during the initial decades did not cause any specific attention to be drawn to it. The Nordic orientation was quite strong and the congress language was a mixture of Scandinavian languages. The expanding internationalization gradually changed the language situation and in 2002 English became the official language of the congresses and the association. Finnish representatives also demanded the change of language as a prerequisite for further engagement in congress activities. Despite the change of policy initiated by Finnish representatives, so far no major increase in the number of representatives from Finland has occurred. The same tendency can also be traced in the frequency of publications in the journal Nordic studies in Education. This article shows, however, that Finland through the decades has played an active role, in the early years and also during various later phases of the history of the association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]