Knowledge gaps and concerns

and marginalisation in curricula and teacher education, explicitly address discrimination and marginalisation based on social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, locality, and language; and (3) Balance content coverage, student initiative, and active participation. Balance student autonomy and active participation with cognitively demanding learning environments and use of digital technologies in the classroom.

Professor and JustEd Director Gunilla Holm, University of Helsinki, summarised the situation as follows:219 ‘Our research shows that marginalisation, discrimination and exclusion are surprisingly common in Nordic schools. To make a change we need to address the issues on both a political and a practical level. Exclusion and marginalisation of students are often based on differences related to social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, locality, and language. Additionally, market-based and privatisation reforms in the Nordic countries have detrimental consequences for educational justice.’

• The infrastructure for research on socioeconomic inequalities in school achievement is comparatively well advanced in the

Nordic countries.219 It could be used more extensively in research in this field.

• Invest in the development of a Nordic database including individual statistics on school performance, educational trajectories, and lifelong achievement.

• Measures taken to lessen the socioeconomic inequalities in school achievement should be evaluated using the best available research designs.

• Add, if necessary, more evaluation dimensions in the proposed guidelines given by the JustEd researchers. Use a comprehensive approach where also a child-centred assessment includes impact on health and well-being.

219 https://www.nordicstatistics.org/#