Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the employment of concepts and analytic approaches from critical realism and the morphogenetic approach in education analysis of developmental traits and the state of different parts of the Norwegian education system. It argues that state educational systems (SES) have causal effects on how education operates and develops, and secondly, that the widespread conception of ‘The Nordic Model’ is an oversimplification that obscures the differences between educational systems in the Scandinavian and Nordic countries. The book provides an account of early educational establishments associated with missionary work among the Sami population in the north of Norway. It describes a short presentation of Archer's definitions and theory of educational systems – centralized and decentralized – focusing on their explanatory power through their identification of mechanisms.