> I've personally never witnessed any cheating, heard any friends or students even allude to doing so, I never cheated myself and I can't even comprehend how you would cheat at most of the coursework I did in uni in Sweden.

For most of my life I would've been frightened to even say so, or risk accusations of being a "swot", "teachers pet" or as the Aussies call it, "a tall poppy".

But the attitude that it's "normal" to cheat is common within US/UK/AUS culture now. Truth is I always considered cheating beneath me and was simply _WAY_ ahead of every class I ever took - but you can't say that in "polite" US/UK culture - one cannot be too pious and clean-cut, one must seem little bit like "everybody else" - even if everybody else is not really like that, if that makes sense.

So actually I've taught at universities in Sweden (Stockholm) and Finland (Helsinki) and notice similar attitudes to those you say. But those cultures aren't without dirty hands either. Here's the weird thing: Tall Poppy Syndrome is culturally closest to Jante Law [1], a Scandinavian ethos of "Don't think you're better than anyone else" which is precisely the corrosive culture that means people cheat because everybody else is cheating and causes a downward spiral or race to the bottom.

       "When you've done your very best
        When things turn out unpleasant 
        When the best of men take bribes
        Isn't it the fool who doesn't?"
   -- Human League 1978

It wasn't until I became a professor that I even knew this dynamic existed, but now I see it everywhere, not just in school.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante