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In different parts of the world, social movements led by parents, educators, and professional organizations have emerged that resist educational standardisation and use of (high stakes) standardised tests, and that push for educational change. With the aim of extending empirical coverage of protest movements in non-English speaking countries, this study examines a Norwegian parental movement called "Foreldreopprør i Osloskolen" (FiO) (in English: Parental Uprising in the Oslo School). We draw on exploratory research based on in-depth interviews with initiators and members of FiO (n=8), as well as documentary and press analysis and an examination of social media sites. The analysis sheds light on the emergence and nature of the movement, parents' main motivations and discourses, as well as the movements' collective action strategies and main successes. The findings highlight how rather than opting-out their children from standardised tests, some Norwegian parents chose to opt-out their children from public schools, while continuing their fight for whole-child approaches in public education.

Objective: Schools are important settings for health promotion. In schools, children and adolescents can be reached regardless of their social background, which represents a unique opportunity for promoting health. Several studies have demonstrated the importance of school leadership in initiating and sustaining health promotion; however, efforts to systematically review the influence of school leadership on school health promotion are still lacking. Hence, this paper analyses empirical studies published in scientific journals on school leadership and health promotion in schools. Design: Systematic literature review. Method: Informed by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines, a review was conducted using two main databases: Web of Science and Scopus, which retrieved 51 eligible articles. Results: The review of these articles resulted in the identification of seven main themes -- school leaders' health; attitudes, knowledge and behaviour; accountability; support from school leaders; shared leadership approaches; capacity building and parent engagement. Conclusion: This systematic literature review expands the literature by highlighting the school leadership factors that promote school health promotion in Oceania, Europe, North America, South America, Africa and Asia continents. Future systematic literature reviews could explore studies and different aspects of health promotion by teachers, especially in the Asian context.

Purpose: The purpose of this research as part of an Erasmus+ funded project tilted Aiding Culturally Responsive Assessment in Schools (www.acras.eu) is to provide an exploratory analysis of survey responses related to culturally responsive assessment policies, professional development and practices that were administered to school principals in four European countries (Austria, Ireland, Norway and Turkey). Research Methods: The research method used in this study was a quantitative comparative analysis. A purposeful sampling strategy was adopted based on geographical spread of the participants in Austria, Ireland and Turkey. The survey was also administered to all principals in four out of eighteen Norwegian counties. Descriptive analysis and nonparametric analysis were used. Findings: There is evidence to suggest that the foundations for culturally responsive assessment practices are beginning to take shape albeit varying degrees of difference in each country. However, the survey results also indicate the need for training and professional development, and this study also implies that not enough emphasis is being placed on culturally responsive assessment despite the rhetoric that espouses interculturalism. Implications for Research and Practice: The research points the need for upskilling in culturally responsive leadership as well as the development of an overarching culturally responsive assessment framework and toolkit that can be used by policy makers and schools to allay the various interpretations of what it means to satisfy the assessment needs of teachers and students with migrant backgrounds.

This study focus on how administrators in districts approach data and data use in education differently. Based on data material from local policy documents, interviews with district administrators and observations from meetings with district administrators, school leaders and teachers, we reveal how different views on learning outcomes manifest in language use and choice of influence attempts, calling for greater consideration and awareness of the role of local authority in education. Our analysis shows how policy goals, as defined in key policy documents, are transformed and adapted into varied local governing styles -- sometimes shifting the focus of primary goals in another direction, and at other times enhancing and extending the goals.

In this article, we explore how values in education are negotiated and partly redefined by teachers, school leaders and local administrators with data use and accountability. Two dilemmas are prominent for the teachers: 1) Testing and data use are perceived as important to meet the needs of the students and to create transparency and initiating innovation in schools, yet they lead to performance pressure on the students and narrow the societal mandate in education, and 2) Although it is important to identify students at the lowest proficiency levels, the established accountability chains acknowledge the progress of these students and the teachers' efforts only to a limited extent. However, values such as meeting the needs of individual students, transparency and innovation/renewal are partly redefined and narrowed on other institutional levels. The dilemmas represent real normative conflicts in public services that are ultimately unsolvable yet not necessarily at odds with professional values.

This paper investigates how and why test-based accountability (TBA), a global model for education reform, began to dominate educational debates in Norway in the early 2000s, and how this policy has been operationalised and institutionalised over time. In examining the adoption and retention of TBA in Norway, we build on the cultural political economy framework, in combination with a political sociology-driven approach to policy instruments. The analysis draws on two data sources: four White Papers and 37 in-depth interviews with top-level politicians, policy-makers and stakeholders, conducted between September 2017 and February 2018. The findings indicate that 'scandalisation' of Norway's below-expected PISA results and promotion of standardised testing as a neutral device contributed to the relatively abrupt adoption of national testing in the early 2000s. The increasingly dominant policy discourse equalising education quality and learning outcomes led to the institutionalisation of TBA, developed to ensure equity and quality standards in a decentralised education system. Increased visibility, benchmarking and administrative control are identified as key mechanisms in putting pressure on local actors to re-orient their behaviour. The study provides original insights into the drivers, expectations and strategies underlying TBA in a social democratic institutional regime.

Global mobility and economic and political crises in some parts of the world have fuelled migration and brought new constellations of 'cultural diversity' to European classrooms (OECD 2019). This produces new challenges for teaching, but also for assessment in which cultural biases may have far-reaching consequences for the students' further careers in education, occupation and life. After considering the concept of and current research on 'culturally responsive assessment', we use qualitative interview data from 115 teachers and school leaders in 20 lower secondary schools in Austria, Ireland, Norway and Turkey to explore the thinking about diversity and assessment practices of teachers in the light of increasing cultural diversity. Findings suggest that 'proficiency in the language of instruction' is the main dimension by which diversity in classrooms is perceived. While there is much less reference to 'cultural differences' in our case studies, we found many teachers in case schools trying to adapt their assessment procedures and grading in order to help students from diverse backgrounds to show their competencies and to experience success. However, these responses were, in many cases, individualistic rather than organised by the school or regional education authorities and were also strongly influenced and at times, limited by government-mandated assessment regimes that exist in each country. The paper closes with a series of recommendations to support the further development of a practicable and just practice of culturally responsive assessment in schools.

Amid rising concerns in recent decades about the performance, equity, and efficiency of education systems, policy-makers worldwide have sought to reform educational governance. Key reform elements include standardized testing, teacher monitoring and evaluation, and accountability, often in combination with other features such as decentralization and market orientation (Verger et al. 2019). Researchers in different countries have explored "accountability" as phenomenon, concept, policy, and social practice within different systems of educational governance. In capturing this complexity, typologies of accountability defined and developed over time reflect changes in governing logics and political agendas in particular contexts. In this article, the authors consider two views of accountability rooted in the US context and widely referred to in international studies of educational governance. Although developed at different times--and, in one case, in another domain--they remain relevant for understanding accountability practices in education today.

In this article, we examine teachers' use of knowledge sources in meetings where they discuss and formulate initiatives and solutions to develop existing teaching practice based on national test results. While practices of data use have been extensively researched, less attention has been given to the content of data use practices. Analyses of what kind of knowledge sources are used, and how, in discussions about student performance levels and accompanying initiatives to improve teaching can yield important insight into the potential and pitfalls of local data use practices. Based on an analysis of the knowledge sources that Norwegian secondary school teachers draw upon in so-called "result meetings" and of the prognostic frames that teachers initiate, we find that teachers use several knowledge sources and that their data use practices can be characterised as complex and "thick", although the data itself are "thin". However, although teachers draw upon a range of knowledge sources and integrate these when identifying possible solutions, the solutions themselves are often short-term and directed towards improving test results. In order for teachers to ask more fundamental questions regarding existing practices, more attention should be directed towards problem-solving processes and also whether result meetings can provide arenas for complex problem-solving.

This article examines the spread of new public management (NPM) across European education systems as it has traversed national boundaries. While recognising the transnational dimensions of the spread of NPM, the authors offer new insights into the importance of national contexts in mediating this development in educational settings by focusing upon NPM within three European countries (England, Italy and Norway). We reveal its recontextualisation in these sites and the interplay between NPM, and local and national conditions. This analysis is underpinned by a theoretical framework that seeks to capture the relationship between education and the state and to reveal tensions produced by NPM both as a shaping force and an entity shaped by local conditions in these contexts. The article concludes by focusing upon the complexities and specificities of NPM recontextualisation in the three countries as a basis for a reflection upon possible future policy trajectories.