Welcome to the Knowledge, Education and Democracy Research Group at the Department of Education, University of Bergen.

We focus on education in a social and political context, in particular the opportunities and challenges for education, democracy and knowledge development in changing societies.

The three main concepts; Knowledge, Education and Democracy reflect the research interests of the KED group and we conduct research in the areas where two or all of the three main concepts overlap.

There is a need to better understand educational policy and educational practices as they appear in the current globalized society, where travelling educational policies, labour migration and transnational trade agreements increasingly influence educational institutions’ role and place in society. This both challenges and provides opportunities for democratic education and for the distribution and development of knowledge. The aim of the group is therefore to investigate and discuss how knowledge, education and democracy can be understood, are expressed, developed and influenced by each other in our current globalized society.

Our research questions and scope are developed with the intention to explore the zone between global and national educational policy and the more concrete educational practices and activities. In the Knowledge society, lifelong learning and learning in formal and informal settings are on the agenda and our arenas for research are therefore businesses, organisations, educational institutions as well as informal sites for learning.