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Purpose: This paper presents a qualitative systematic review of Swedish research on vocational education and training (VET) at the upper secondary school level over the past 20 years. The review is based on a theoretical model on curriculum making as social practice that may serve as model for comparative studies between countries. By introducing the model, the ambition is to open for new perspectives on VET curriculum in policy and practice. Questions regarding key themes and the interplay of discourses and processes across multiple sites in the education system have not been addressed in previous systematic reviews of Swedish VET research.
Methods: The methodological approach in the present paper is a qualitative systematic research review with an integrative and interpretative purpose and research design. The qualitative review is based on the conceptual model of curriculum making as social practice, seeking to capture the inherent complexity and porous boundaries of education systems and movements of ideas, discourses and actors between sites of activity. The model is used for mapping the research, and a content analysis for identifying main themes and emphases and exploring and discussing the potential gaps that may inform future international research studies.
Findings: The results show that the research is focused on the micro and nano sites of curriculum making, with connections to macro site activities of national curriculum policy enactment. Research focusing on the macro site of activity has an emphasis on national policy and policymaking regarding the relationship between academic and vocational knowledge/programmes and apprenticeship and employability. In the micro and nano sites of activity – which comprise the majority of the research – the main themes are vocational knowing and identity, teaching, learning and assessment practices and work-based learning.
Conclusion: An observation is the absence of principals and middle leaders as actors and informants in the studies. There is little evidence of actors moving between sites of activity and the meso site of activity only comprise a very small part of the research. In this respect, there is a potential gap to be explored, not least regarding how local curricula and syllabi are made and shaped in terms of the influence of representatives from local authorities, companies, trade unions, employer associations, universities and regional agencies. Curriculum making as social practice has the potential to be used for comparative international studies and as a framework that takes national differences in VET education systems into account.

In 2013 the Swedish government launched a reform on career services for teachers that introduced first-teachersas a new category of teachers. Since this reform still is in the process of being rolled out, we know fairly little of its impact, especially concerning VET teachers that are appointed first-teachers. This paper explores and analyses two cases of VET first-teachers with focus on the implications on educational leadership practices in their work with school improvement where 'distributed leadership'is used as a lens forunderstanding the characteristic features of leadership practices. The re-sults show that the VET first-teachers consider themselves to represent an important educational leadership being process leaders for creating a culture built on mutual trust, turning the focus of school improvement from a 'top-down' perspective to change 'from below'. They become 'brokers'and a link between school management and their colleagues, even if there are some difficulties. Moreover they visualise differ-ent practices and foster a new awareness –concerning e.g. assessment and the relation-ship between school and work-place –that seem to influence collegial discourse.

In 2013, the Swedish government launched a reform of career services for teachers that introduced förstelärare ('first teacher') as a new category. This article presents results from an ongoing research project about the implementation of the reform in a municipal local context in public schools with attention to leadership practices förstelärare engage in and the impact on the educational leadership of the principals. The theoretical framework for the analysis provides perspectives on the interdependencies between and within different levels and sub-systems in the school organisation through the concepts of nested learning systems and distributed leadership. The main results indicate that the introduction of förstelärare strengthens the idea of distributed leadership through the fact that förstelärare engage in leadership practices mandated by the principals. However, it also challenges existing collegial structures through an increased need for collaboration and interaction among both principals and förstelärare.

Global processes are reshaping the education systems of the Western world (Resnik 2008). New public management models are implemented in the public sector to govern schools and control teacher quality (Moos & Møller 2003). Together with this comes the notion of accountability; the belief that teachers are to be held responsible for low standards among pupils (Ingersoll 2011). The relationship between teacher quality and pupils' results also is a common argument in international reports (see Barber & Mourshed 2007; Natale et al. 2013). Altogether, these trends influence national educational policy and trickle down to district and school levels. A recent example in Sweden is "the first teacher reform" aimed at providing new forms of career services for teachers that the government launched in July 2013. In brief it allows accountable authorities to create, shape and appoint head teachers and as a consequence of this there is a great variety between the municipalities (Skolverket 2013). The first teacher reform has introduced a new and formalised category of teachers concerned with issues involving educational leadership. Educational leadership relies on interaction between school leaders and teachers (Hultman 2001; Ludvigsson 2009) and previous research underlines both structural and cultural aspects in leadership as prerequisites for successful schools (Ärlestig 2009; Törnsén 2009). My paper explores the implementation of the reform on local level by analysing policy documents and data from interviews with district administrators, principals and first teachers. The theoretical framework builds upon an understanding of leadership as relational and contextual (Pierce & Newstrom 2007) and Leithwoods et al (2007) aspects of "distributed leadership". My work here is largely exploratory and suggestive where I seek to answer two main questions: In what ways does the emergence of first teachers effect the educational leadership of the principals? How do first teachers describe and understand their role in the organisation? Preliminary results suggest that first teachers are resources in mentoring their colleagues and leading quality improvement, offering support for the principals as educational leaders by taking over processes related to collegial learning. However there is also a concern that first teachers lack legitimacy and the ability to question traditional teaching patterns for the improvement of teaching. The first teachers on their hand call for more guidance and clarity from the principals and district administrators regarding their assignments. The amount of meetings has increased and first teachers express that principals tend to move organisational issues tend to the first teachers. Most of all first teachers call for more time for their work. For some first teachers the relationship to colleagues have been strained and they experience that there are troubles to lead development processes due to envy and suspicion.

Responding to profound social, political and technological changes, recent global trends in education have included the emergence of new forms of curriculum policy. Addressing a gap in the literature, this book investigates the ways in which curriculum policy is influenced, formulated, and enacted in a number of countries-cases in Europe. This important collection uses the concept of 'curriculum making' as an analytical tool to explore the processes and phases of curriculum policy reform experienced across countries. Drawing first on international perspectives and then presenting a series of country case studies, written by internationally recognised curriculum specialists, the chapters explore curriculum making as an activity that occurs across multiple layers of educational systems, through a continual interplay of the global and local. Concluding with a comparative analysis of the contextual factors that shape curricular practices in different contexts, this book is a must-have resource for educational policy makers, researchers, teachers and teacher educators across the globe.

This chapter provides a summary and a concluding discussion on the main findings from the different cases and chapters throughout this volume. The chapter revisits the approach on curriculum making as non-linear and as framed around a conceptualisation of interrelated sites of activity – supra, macro, meso, micro and nano – presented in the introduction. A central conclusion of this book is that the meso site of activity stands out as critical for current developments within curriculum making, both in terms of a transformed role for the nation state in macro curriculum making, as well as implications of policy flows and processes from the supra site of activity. Based on our observations, we suggest an elaborated model for understanding curriculum making, with special attention to the significance of meso curriculum making and teacher agency. In the final part of the conclusions, we argue that there are a number of lessons to be learned from curriculum making in the European context. In line with the significance of meso curriculum making observed throughout the volume, we emphasize the importance of middle ground and mobility, the necessity of participatory curriculum making, and that systems of accountability need to be based on trust. We also underline the importance of a delicate balance concerning regulation – providing support, guidance and steering – together with a critical awareness of destructive as well as progressive forces for maintaining and providing the agency of the educational system for good curriculum making. KEYWORDS: