Iceland as a microcosm of the effects of educational reform on police students’ social background

In 2016, Iceland implemented a major change in how it recruits and educates prospective police officers by closing its Police Academy and moving police education to the University of Akureyri. Before this educational reform, Iceland, with its vocational approach and one-year training period, was an exception to the Nordic model of police education, which involves a longer education period and is more academically rigorous. Iceland is now no longer an exception, as prospective police officers must complete a two-year university diploma. This change offers an interesting opportunity to shed light on an important question: Are police officers educated at the university level different from students educated at a vocational program at the upper secondary level? This chapter examines whether prospective police officers in Iceland have become more representative of the general population after educational reform. The findings suggest that police students educated at the university level are somewhat different from students trained at the vocational level and more representative of the general population. Specifically, university police education attracts a significantly greater share of women than does vocational police training. These findings should interest police educators and policy makers in other European countries who are considering reforming their police education systems.