Stichwort: Der Mythos der nordischen Bildungssysteme

This paper deals with the question of whether the educational outcomes of the Nordic countries displayed in international comparative studies justify the legendary-status of fair and high-performing Nordic educational systems which is often discussed in Germany. To answer this question, the results of the Nordic countries in the past three surveys of the “Programme for International Student Assessment” (PISA) are presented. The results show that not all of the Nordic countries reach outstanding results in all of the investigated domains. It is only Finland that is always, without exception, found at the top of the international comparison. At the same time, the findings point out that the Nordic countries deal with the social disparities that students bring to school successfully. When considering contextual factors on a school and classroom level, however, the Nordic countries only differ slightly from the OECD average. To conclude, on the basis of the results achieved in the international comparative study PISA, an idealisation of the Nordic educational systems hardly seems justified.