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<jats:p> In recent decades, a range of policy measures to support young people’s school-to-work transitions has been initiated across Europe. However, these transition policies have rarely been studied systematically, particularly from a comparative perspective. Thus, the aim of this article is to compare Swedish, Danish and Finnish policies for supporting young people’s educational and school-to-work transitions. Synthesising and analysing recent research, the article critically draws on Walther’s (2006) classification of transition regimes that recognises a Nordic universalistic regime of youth transitions characterised by emphasis on collective social responsibility, individual motivation and personal development. We conclude that significant policy changes have occurred during the last two decades. Coercive measures have been adopted and social support reduced, making young people more individually responsible for the success of their transitions. Hence, current transition policies diverge in many respects from qualities traditionally ascribed to the Nordic transition regime. We also find significant differences between the three countries’ transition policies, which in some cases indicate policy trade-offs. In addition, we conclude that transition policies are generally weakly coordinated across policy domains, which increases the risk of unintended consequences of these policies. </jats:p>

<jats:p> In the context of the major influence that ‘effectiveness’ is having internationally, paper studies the contemporary methodological perspectives in educational research when considering teachers’ practice. It shows that current trends can be boiled down to: (1) naturalistic methodology, (2) descriptive methodology, and (3) the nonmethodological solution. It states two main conclusions: first, there is a neat continuity with traditional methodologies, which were in decline long ago; second, contemporary perspectives in educational research fail to provide a consistent methodological model for ‘effective practices’. The author finally draws some conclusions and makes some suggestions for the further development of methodology in educational research and teachers’ practice. This study is noteworthy for teachers’ practice, collaborations and partnerships, and also for the relationship amongst research/practice/policy, which is at the core of the implementation of educational systems. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This paper addresses three central themes that run through the contributions to this special issue. The first of these is what it argues to be an inescapable connection between research and what might in some sense be regarded as the pursuit of truth, or at least of beliefs that are more deserving of belief and our confidence than others. Even forms of research like ethnography and phenomenography, those for which the pursuit of justice is the primary concern and those that seek to deconstruct the texts and discourses promoted by others – all rest on forms of inquiry driven in one way or another by this same commitment. The second theme is the relationship between research and discipline where discipline is seen as the set of rules and principles that serve to make a community of arguers possible, but also to support the processes that thought and experience indicate provide the best assurance of opinions deserving our belief. And since there is clearly available to us in the academy and elsewhere more than one way of providing such assurance, each with some distinctive logical and procedural features, we need to consider the disciplines that might serve such purpose, not just the generic principle of discipline. Finally, the paper engages with the terrain of ‘alternative epistemologies’ – terrain rendered more complex because, as described here, the term seems to encompass some rather different claims of a more or less problematic nature. </jats:p>

<jats:p>In the present scientific era which prefers evidence-based educational research and methodological gold standards, ‘rigour’, ‘discipline’ and the ‘systematic’ serve as standardising and homogenising concepts and as powerful identifiers of ‘normal science’ in the context of historical and cultural contingencies. These concepts serve to construct disciplinary identities and, furthermore, have the power to define what counts as rigour, discipline and the systematic – and what not. The article starts with the problems of terminology and shows that rigour, discipline and the systematic are rather vague and ambivalent concepts, especially when considering their meaning in different languages and cultures. The second part uses different foci of several theoretical approaches in order to show the meaning and functions of rigour, discipline and the systematic for constructing educational research identities and to explain different notions of these concepts in different research cultures. The final part considers the future and argues for the strengthening of a transversal, (meta-)reflexive and communicative dimension which both opens and limits the forms and formats of educational research employing diversity and intercultural communication as a valuable and powerful resource of sound scholarly research, mutual understanding and intellectual delight.</jats:p>

<jats:p> In this article, we study the academisation of the teaching profession in Sweden, which follows contemporary trends in other Nordic and European countries. The specific aim was to analyse 14 reports written by researching teachers enrolled in a master’s programme to investigate how they perceive, interpret and value academic and professional knowledge. The conceptual framework comprises theories concerning academic literacies and knowledge structures. The report analysis focussed on scope, aims and research questions, and how the researching teachers related to teacher knowledge and academic knowledge, normativity and a critical approach. After a preliminary analysis, the researching teachers were invited to participate in the analysis, giving their contextual understanding. The study indicates that the reports were based on empirical data and situated in a professional context, with the aim of exploring and understanding professional issues in relation to research, national policies and professional teacher experience. Report orientation was deeply nourished by teacher knowledge. The researching teachers’ contextual knowledge both benefitted and challenged academic knowledge and vice versa, with the ambition to improve practice. Accordingly, the teachers’ contextual knowledge can deepen the understanding of a research phenomenon. There was an empowering oscillation between teacher knowledge and academic knowledge in the teachers’ research. </jats:p>