The Nordic Interactive and Comparative Spaces Within the Arena of Education

The legacy of Nordic interaction

There is a long history of substantial political and cultural cooperation among the Nordic countries. For centuries the countries either ruled one another or politically cooperated (Laine, 2020). They are commonly grouped together in terms of political, historical and cultural relationships, in addition to sharing similar languages and geographical proximity. Furthermore, for a long time, there has been a significant flow of people between all the Nordic countries and jurisdictions (Pedersen et al., 2008). Nordic societies share Lutheran pragmatic and democratic ideals, often accompanied by staunch individualism and an enlightened attitude – at least to some extent (Laine, 2020). Within the field of education, there has been an extensive period of considerable interaction, in which Nordic societies have cooperated and often influenced each other at various levels. A Nordic dimension is frequently discussed under the heading of a Nordic model (e.g., Blossing et al., 2014; Prøitz & Aasen, 2017; Tröhler et al., 2023), or a Nordic reference (Karseth et al., 2022), but a broad perspective on various types of interaction within the arena of education is somewhat lacking, even though the field has opened somewhat, as discussed in e.g. Volmari et al. (2022).

The paper focuses on the current situation and recent history. The substantive interaction of the type we describe here has a much longer history, and there are many historical events that form obvious roots to later developments. One example of this is the first Nordic school meeting held in Gothenburg in 1870, and attended by primary school teachers, principals, and administrators. Subsequent meetings of this kind were held roughly every five years until the middle of the twentieth century, see Table 1, where the first fourteen meetings are listed. In these Nordic school meetings, relatively large numbers of education professionals, and sometimes ministers, from the Nordic countries met to discuss various issues. The meetings were held in the different Nordic countries. Some Baltic participants also attended from quite early on.

A host of Nordic conferences or meetings of teachers with various specialisations were also held quite regularly during the twentieth century, some of which are lacking documentation. In connection with the Nordic school meeting in Stockholm in 1935, for example, about 500 Nordic and Baltic school kitchen teachers attended their sixth meeting (s. skolköksmöte), also held in Stockholm (Grimlund, 1935, pp. 75–79, 913–922).

In the present paper, we take interaction to have a rather wide reference, including consultation, collaboration and cooperation, but it also involves other modes, such as presenting platforms like Nordic journals. Interaction in this context ranges from students who study abroad in another Nordic country, on an individual basis, to various types of interaction found at the scientific level, including journals and conferences, cooperative discussions on concerns, ideas and policy issues within various fields, and collaboration on tackling issues at the local or global levels. At all levels, the documentary evidence is fragmented, and sometimes even non-existent, regarding both formal and informal interaction. The communicative nature of interaction does not necessarily result in an outcome of any coordinated practical action or policy, but does on occasion result in coordinated policy views, both in Nordic and international settings.

The focus on the interactive aspects of the Nordic scene is motivated by, inter alia, a recent study (Volmari et al., 2022) on regional policy spaces that show how complex Nordic policy cooperation is in the field of education and how informal much of it is – making it difficult to pin down. Thus, we find it important to explore interactions between, but mainly within, different interactive spaces to shed further light on varie­ties of Nordic educational cooperation, some of which are related to policy discourse but rarely directly. The main aim of the paper is to map out some of the arenas and interconnections within the Nordic educational spaces, and thus to grasp their extent and develop a basis for understanding the rationale of the interactions taking place.

The notion of space and educational spaces

The space metaphor is tempting given that it offers to subsume many different phenomena under one category, as the varied and wide-ranging space literature reflects, by extending a geographical and architectural term to a fundamentally philosophical discussion (West-Pavlov, 2009). Terms such as cultures or societies (see e.g., Massey, 2005, p. 64) seem too broad, but in some cases they manage to convey what is being aimed at in the description. In some cases, platforms or communication arenas could serve as appropriate characterisations. Despite Foucault’s efforts to stretch the term space to extend to “the process of power, confrontation and relations in society” (Raj, 2019, p. 61), here we only refer to the last interactive term, referring to relationships within the Nordic countries – but not forgetting that the Baltic countries often accompany the Nordic. The work of Christmann et al. (2022) moves the space discussion nearer to our concern with their focus on the communicative construction of spaces. The spaces we direct our attention to are socially constructed and characterised by various types of interaction, which are essentially various ways of communication. Thus, drawing on Christmann (2022), the term space (rather than dimension or arena) is used to refer to a socially constructed space, which is defined, for example, by operations, values, culture, and different types and categories of interaction and actions. It is therefore considered fluid and dynamic, and not limited to physical places. The study directs us to the unfolding of different strategies of communication, rather than the different forms of spaces developing (as discussed by Löw & Marguin, 2022).

The spaces we describe are physical or virtual nodes where people, normally professionals at some level, meet directly or in virtual space, to consult for various reasons, in particular about concerns or suggestions for action or for sharing knowledge and understanding. There are basically two types of hierarchical relationship structures among the participants. The first is essentially a binary one where some of the participants are in a learning role and some in a teaching role e.g., students studying or a group on a fact-finding mission or a tour to inspire potential policy-borrowing. The second type is where there is no explicit hierarchy present, and all participants have essentially equal status, e.g., at meetings of administrators, practitioners or academics or even publishing in journals. It would be an exception if a common line of action (e.g., policy) were planned, in any of these spaces, – this absence of striving for a common policy can even be seen as a defining characteristic of most of the spaces we bring to light. The Nordic spaces within our purview are thus normally not oriented towards framing a Nordic policy in the field or at the level in question.

We start by classifying the different spaces with reference to the role they appear to play in society more generally. In the process, we note the dimensions of the spaces and gradually evaluate which emerge as the relevant ones, adding some critique of our approach. We soon move to our main aim, which is to draw attention to the multitude of interactive spaces that populate the field of Nordic education.

There are three educational spaces constructed for this discussion. These are depicted schematically in Figure 1, also indicating some sub-spaces. First, we note the operational space of education, including the values, structure and practices that dominate and characterise an educational system – we might also call it the system space. Many papers in this special issue focus on aspects of this overarching space and it will not be discussed here. Then we point to our central concern, the interactive space, which refers to manifold interactions at all levels within or attached to the educational system. The third space is the comparative space, where educational outcomes or operational modes are compared, primarily Nordic ones, and which we treat as a separate phenomenon even though it certainly connects to the other two.

Nordic interactive spaces within the arena of education

We show that there is widespread interaction and sometimes cooperation at a multitude of levels within the educational field, played out socially and somewhat informally. Not all of this is documented officially. At many of these levels, this interaction has a long history and even though its intensity has varied considerably there is no sign that it is diminishing overall. Various ongoing projects and initiatives in recent decades provide evidence for such a conclusion.

In Figure 2 we suggest four main sub-spaces (Jónasson et al., 2021), within the overarching interactive space, which we will discuss in turn. These are 1) the practical space, where experts or practitioners within specific fields interact in order to consult or co-operate; here we also include students who study abroad in other Nordic countries and forge ties that may last; 2) various scientific sub-spaces which interact in different ways or provide fora for communication and cooperation; 3) the administrative space, where various official, professional bodies or stakeholders or advocacy groups or vested interests meet, in many cases quite regularly; and 4) the local, national, and international policy discussion or consultation arena, or the policy discursive space. Here we use the term “discursive” to emphasise the interaction related to policy issues rather than the actual policy making in individual countries or arenas.

These sub-spaces sometimes overlap; the differentiations and examples shown in the figure are simplified and somewhat limited. There are many types of interactions that constantly take place within any society or groups of close communities. In some cases, there are unidirectional movements of individuals, both short and long-term visits, ad hoc consultation or cooperation and formalised consultation and cooperation. All of these occur at various levels, ranging from individuals to special interest or specialist groups, institutions or formalised societies or governmental bodies, at thelocal, national, or multinational levels. Individual countries also have different prio­rities and weight within the interactive spaces, as will be pointed out.

Data and sources

We emphasise the exploratory nature of the study. It is based on a literature and docu-mentary search and analysis, consultation with experts on specific aspects of the various types of interactions, including interviews in cases where documentation was lacking. We also draw on our own varied experiences.¹

Five key ministerial experts in Iceland, all of whom had long professional experience within the Ministry of Education or the Directorate of Education, were interviewed by both authors and partly reported in Magnúsdóttir and Jónasson (2022) and Volmari et al., (2022). The interviews, which were semi-structured, focused partly on grasping the nature of interactions and cooperation within the Nordic educational arena, particularly within the policy discourse space. The interviewees were promised anonymity and therefore we do not reveal their gender or exact position within the institutions. The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. For the purpose of this paper, the analysis focused on providing an understanding of Nordic cooperation and interaction within educational spaces.

In addition to the interview data, we searched for academic journals within the field of education that included “Nordic” or “Scandinavian” in the title and tried to gauge the rationale for the emphasis on these terms in their titles. We did this by exploring their websites as well as by contacting the editors of some of the most recent ones (those established since 2015) and asking them to answer a few questions. We also explored the extent and multiplicity of professional cooperation within NordPlus operational projects, based on the Nordplus website, and then note some NordForsk projects that unite researchers from the Nordic countries. We also asked several colleagues about their experiences of Nordic cooperation. Lastly, we refer to data assembled and reported from other related projects involving at least one of the authors, in particular as shown in Volmari et al., (2022).

The Nordic interactive sub-spaces

Here we will briefly describe some of the activities we place under the four different interactive spaces. By giving examples, we convey the plethora and variety of activities in keeping with the aims of the paper. No attempt was made to make the list exhaustive.

Conclusions and discussion

Here, we have endeavoured to map out at least some of the interactions, dimensions and sub-spaces within the Nordic educational spaces. To a certain extent, we have also enhanced the understanding of the rationale behind these interactions. We have indicated how multidimensional, complex, and often hidden, these interactions are. We have also hinted at how many different dimensions emerge as we begin to discuss these different spaces.

We find that Nordic interactive activity within the field of education is massive and of widely differing types. We are convinced that there are still many activities that we don’t know about. Interestingly, many new Nordic projects are taking off in the educational field, and we have probably only detected some. It is difficult to assess the extent of this activity, as in many cases, the documentation is either lacking or meagre and therefore difficult to access. This applies to all of the interactive spaces mapped out here, not least the administrative space. Therefore, the activities are normally not known outside fairly restricted groups, and it is not clear for those on the outside what to look for or where. This presents a methodological challenge when assessing the amount and scope of the interaction. Perhaps this is the reason why academia’s interest in exploring the interactive space and its rationale has seemingly been limited. We have not found a concerted effort to draw a map of the various interactive spaces and we even sense a tendency to ignore it. The signifier of Nordic cooperation floats towards documented arenas. However, it is clear that there is much more to the Nordic interactive spaces than what is officially or scientifically documented and some documents that presumably exist are even difficult to find. This lack of available documentation was one of the conclusions of Volmari et al., (2022). Here we have pieced together some additional bits of knowledge on the interactive spaces in the Nordic field of education.

In an attempt to map these interactions, we have found it helpful to conceptualise them in line with what Christmann et al. (2022) term communicative construction of spaces. This conceptualization acknowledges the complex entanglements of socially constructed spaces, interconnected to geographic, cultural, historical, and communicative factors. Still, it is difficult to characterise the various types of interactions we find, and therefore we note that while the differentiation we suggest is helpful, it is clearly a simplification. Also, the notion of the Nordic is fluid, i.e., because it can both be limited to some, or all, of the Nordic countries or jurisdictions and expanded to include the Baltic countries as well and has been so for a long time.

In previous research on the Nordic dimensions in education, it has proven helpful to use a long-term perspective (Jónasson et al., 2021). However, we have not done that here, even though we have hinted, using one example, that some activities like those we have described have a long history. This lack of a historical perspective is mainly because of the difficulty in obtaining information, let alone time series for some of the activities. The early activities have clearly developed in many different directions.

Partly explicit but definitely implicit in our work is an attempt to clarify which dimensions might be relevant for describing the spaces we have taken up, including a wide variety of examples. Each of the spaces we have noted has a number of potential dimensions, even if our discussion has only emphasised two. One is the occupational role of the participants. This we consider as the principal dimension since we see this reflecting the content of the interaction taking place, even if this classification does not reflect a pure category. Thus, the scientific level of journals may vary somewhat whereas the ingredients of the NordPlus programmes vary substantially, as does the hierarchical level of the administrative groups that meet regularly. The other dimension which we emphasise is the nature of the intended interaction, e.g., learning, fact finding, collaboration, cooperation, consultation, production of scientific evidence; people interact for various synergetic reasons. This is what we consider the most relevant and intriguing dimension and suggest that it most urgently and interestingly calls for further inquiry.

There are clearly additional dimensions to discuss, i.e., time which is perhaps most commonly discussed in the literature on space. In the present context, however, we have observed the level of documentation emerging from the interaction taking place (which is normally low), which may be an important indicator of how the participants view the activity; the number of participating nations represented – assuming that at least two need to be present for the activity to fall within the category of Nordic interaction; the actual language used for communication (a Scandinavian language or English); and the number of people representing each nation, which may range from one to many hundred. It goes without saying that there are of course national interactive spaces, but there, we assume, in addition to the above-mentioned characteristics we are more likely to find a discussion about a common position or policy.

Lastly, we note that the rationales for Nordic interaction are multi-faceted, which in essence is no different from the rationales for domestic or international cooperation. There can be a wish for synergy, as with conferences, academic journals, grants and research projects, which may both involve cooperation, collaboration or the informal interaction of individuals and institutions within different Nordic countries. People are looking for knowledgeable people, professionals or other experts, who are dealing with similar issues, worries, and concerns; and comparing notes, deliberating on weaknesses, receiving ideas and discussing them. One of the rationales is also the wish to have a similar context to compare to, and therefore, the Nordic comparison seems to become the default setting in the comparative space. With students, workers, academics, and professionals moving between the Nordic countries, knowledge is shared, networks are created, and collaboration becomes both natural and convenient. This creates an impact even though we might not be able to pinpoint it, and it is not directly related to policy making.

An interesting set of rationales is related to the political sphere, with a focus on synergy, reflected in activities financed by political bodies, such as the activities of NordPlus, NordForsk and NVL. Obviously, extensive collaboration promotes unity between the Nordic countries. They can have more impact united than they can as five (or eight) individual nations or jurisdictions. Within the scientific space, the Nordic research and project funds can simultaneously develop Nordic expertise and values. Thus, rationale related to politics apply to both interactions within and outside the Nordic countries.

We have shown that there are many programs and collaborative activities on the professional side related to the field of education. What these programs actually deliver to the various arenas we do not know, but there can be no doubt that the impact varies. These kinds of activities are, of course, not limited to the Nordic countries, but we know that this kind of interaction has a long tradition in the Nordic arena and we are convinced that it is much more extensive than is often realised.

It is difficult to assess how well the overall picture or map that we have sketched is known to professionals in the educational field. We suspect, from our own experience, that each node knows precious little about the others, and thus, the extent of Nordic cooperation might not be well known even to insiders. No attempt has been made to assess this nor to gauge the influence of the various activities that we have noted. Nor have we explored potential interactions between the three educational spaces, in particular how much influence the interactive spaces or the comparative space really have on the operational space. While that would be an important next step, the influence of the interactions is not easy to assess, and conversations, collective work, and activities that are assumed to be valuable, are normally particularly difficult to measure. This is one of the methodological challenges this area faces. It can nevertheless be assumed that these interactions, on different levels and within and between different spaces, have value in themselves, and in the context in which they take place. This is what inspires and sustains the plethora of activities observed.