Doctoral Defence in Educational Sciences – María Jónasdóttir

María Jónasdóttir will defend her doctoral thesis in Educational Sciences at the Faculty of Subject Teacher Education, School of Education, University of Iceland. The defence will take place on Thursday, 8 October 2026 at 13:00 in the Ceremonial Hall (Aula) of the University of Iceland.

The thesis is entitled The Cascading Effects of Policy Reforms: Curriculum, Knowledge and Equal Opportunities.

About the thesis

This doctoral research examines how policy, governance and curriculum reforms in Icelandic upper secondary education have shaped the structure and content of academic programmes leading to the matriculation examination, and consequently students’ opportunities to acquire the disciplinary knowledge needed for university studies. The reforms examined include decentralisation, increased market-oriented governance of upper secondary education, the introduction of a competency-based curriculum, and the shortening of academic programmes from four years to three. The study draws on critical policy studies and curriculum theory informed by social realism and focuses on the systemic conditions that shape students’ access to academic knowledge.

The thesis is based on three research articles and a range of empirical data sources. The first article explores university teachers’ perceptions of students’ preparedness for higher education following the shortening of academic programmes, based on interviews with sixteen experienced university teachers. The second article maps the structure and content of three traditional academic programme types in languages, natural sciences and social sciences. The comparison covers the period before and after the decentralisation of curriculum development, the introduction of a competency-based curriculum, and the shortening of academic programmes. The third article examines the provision of subjects and courses by school type and geographical location, based on a survey administered to upper secondary school leaders and focus-group interviews with programme coordinators.

The findings reveal considerable variation in the structure and content of academic programmes following the decentralisation of curriculum development to individual schools operating under different institutional conditions. In this context, student numbers and the social composition of schools are important factors, as is access to specialist teachers. The findings show that students’ access to academic knowledge is increasingly determined by the upper secondary school they attend. This is particularly evident in subjects such as mathematics, the natural sciences and foreign languages other than English, where the acquisition of knowledge requires cumulative and coherent progression over time. The findings also indicate that operational and financial considerations often have a greater influence on the design of educational provision than curriculum principles concerning subject boundaries, the sequencing of content and progressive learning pathways, as well as other epistemic requirements of individual disciplines. Finally, the findings suggest that unequal educational opportunities stem primarily from differences in students’ access to academic knowledge rather than from differences in ability or choice. They demonstrate how systemic structures, governance arrangements and funding mechanisms within the education system directly shape students’ epistemic access and their preparation for higher education, while further underscoring the importance of examining the role of the state in ensuring equitable access to specialised knowledge.

About the Doctoral Candidate:
María Jónasdóttir was born in Lund, Sweden, in 1985. She received a BA degree in law from the University of Iceland in 2009, a master’s degree in law in 2011, and an M.Ed. degree in Upper Secondary Teacher Education in 2019, all from the same institution. María worked as a lawyer and later as an upper secondary school teacher before joining the School of Education at the University of Iceland as an adjunct lecturer and doctoral student in 2020. María is married to Orri Jökulsson, a registered nurse. They have three children: Katrín, Hlín and Jökull.

Opponents: Dr Anniken Hotvedt Sundby, Associate Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, and Dr Laura Perry, Professor at Murdoch University, Australia.

Principal supervisor: Dr Elsa Eiríksdóttir, Professor at the University of Iceland.

Co-supervisor: Dr Guðrún Ragnarsdóttir, Professor at the University of Iceland.

Doctoral committee: In addition to the supervisors, the doctoral committee included Dr Gunnlaugur Magnússon, Professor at Uppsala University, and Dr Valgerður S. Bjarnadóttir, Associate Professor at the University of Iceland.

Chair of the ceremony: Jón Yngvi Jóhannsson, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Subject Teacher Education.

All are welcome.