Hannu Simola

The Finnish miracle of PISA: historical and sociological remarks on teaching and teacher education

One of the recent tributes to the success of Finnish schooling was the PISA 2000 project report. As befits the field of education, the explanations are primarily pedagogical, referring especially to the excellent teachers and high‐quality teacher education. Without underrating the explanatory power of these statements, this paper presents some of the social, cultural and historical factors behind the pedagogical success of the Finnish comprehensive school. From the perspectives of history and the sociology of education, it also sheds light on some ironic paradoxes and dilemmas that may be concealed by the success. The focus is on the problematic nature of international comparative surveys based on school performance indicators. The question is whether they really make it possible to understand schooling in different countries, or whether they are just part of processes of ‘international spectacle’ and ‘mutual accountability’.

National policy brokering and the construction of the European Education Space in England, Sweden, Finland and Scotland

This paper draws on a comparative study of the growth of data and the changing governance of education in Europe. It looks at data and the ‘making’ of a European Education Policy Space, with a focus on ‘policy brokers’ in translating and mediating demands for data from the European Commission. It considers the ways in which such brokers use data production pressures from the Commission to justify policy directions in their national systems. The systems under consideration are Finland, Sweden, and England and Scotland. The paper focuses on the rise of Quality Assurance and Evaluation mechanisms and processes as providing the overarching rationale for data demands, both for accountability and performance improvement purposes. The theoretical resources that are drawn on to enable interpretation of the data are those that suggest a move from governing to governance and the use of comparison as a form of governance.

Fabricating Quality in Education : Data and Governance in Europe

This book argues that data and their use constitute a form of governance of education. It highlights the ways in which education is steered and managed so that a European education policy space is ...

Shoots of revisionist 1 education policy or just slow readjustment? The Finnish case of educational reconstruction

Decentralization, goal steering, accountability, managerialism, evaluation, choice, competition and privatization are key terms in the international rhetoric of educational policy. However, in the historical traditions and cultural-social framework of various nations, this ‘new’ policy perspective takes a specific form and shape. In the Nordic countries, with their welfare state tradition which stresses equality in education as well as in other fields of life, radical changes are taking place. This article examines the change in educational policy and governance in Finland during the past decade. The examination is based on many sources and materials including documents, statistics and interviews with educational politicians, administrators and teachers, and a survey of students collected during two comparative research projects during 1998–2001.

Changes in Nordic Teaching Practices: From individualised teaching to the teaching of individuals

In this article the theme of individualisation of teaching is described and analysed. In the light of a fairly long tradition of a comprehensive school system embracing the idea of individualisation, we expected this to be an important aspect of ongoing changes in Nordic schools. Individualisation can be seen as continuity in the pedagogical ideas—at the same time the meaning of individualisation changes along with other changes in school and society. While in Sweden and Norway the appearance of self‐regulatory individualised ways of working in the end of the twentieth century is quite strong, it is not so obvious in the other countries. In the article the theme of individualisation is treated from the perspective of each country. Based on these case descriptions, similarities and differences are discussed.

Abdication of the Education State or Just Shifting Responsibilities? The Appearance of a New System of Reason in Constructing Educational Governance and Social Exclusion/Inclusion in Finland.

The connections between the new governance in education and new procedures of social exclusion and inclusion in Finland are examined. The main focus is on the emergence of a specific discursive formation constituted by an intersection of the myths of competition, corporate managerialism, an educational clientele and social democracy with images of rational choice makers and invisible clients (pupils) and individual-centred learning professionals (teachers) in a mass institution. The research material is extensive, including national statistical data, education policy texts, interviews with educational actors at the national, municipal and school levels and a survey of pupils. The conclusion of the paper outlines a new system of reason as a historical shift of responsibilities in the national education system.

An Inevitable Progress? Educational restructuring in Finland, Iceland and Sweden at the turn of the millennium

The article discusses how current changes in the system of reasoning about education in Finland, Iceland and Sweden are characterised by culturally woven patterns where marketisation strategies, for instance budget reform, are introduced as technically effective devices both for educating the best and to increase inclusion. This system of reason presupposes that the neo-liberalist restructuring changes are inevitable global phenomena and that they are a progress compared with the old arrangements, but is silent about socio-economic issues and the equity goals of the 1960s-1980s. The article also argues that school-based self-evaluation as a practice and as a language is a normalising technique that ensures that school actors will identify the obstacles encountered in the restructuring transition so that neither state nor other authorities intervene.

Education Governance in Transition: An introduction

The purpose of this article is to present concepts and research problems dealing with education governance and social inclusion and exclusion. Education restructuring, as a recent international movement, is regarded as a combination of transitions in governing and new managerialism. Social inclusion and exclusion is conceived of as a duplet concept, mutually defining each other. The relation between new governance - deregulation, decentralisation, privatisation and steering by goals and results - and social inclusion/exclusion is conceptualised as an equity problematic and a knowledge problematic. It is argued that there is a need to understand the system of reason in order to capture the implications of education governing in transition.

Quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) in Finnish compulsory schooling: a national model or just unintended effects of radical decentralisation?

This article traces quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) developments in Finnish compulsory schooling. The central question is this: Is there a Finnish model of QAE? We conclude that it may be a rhetorical overstatement to speak about a specific Finnish ‘Model’ of QAE in a strong sense. However, neither is it valid to conclude that what happens in Finnish QAE merely reflects the unintended effects of radical decentralisation. The Finnish consensus on certain issues in QAE could be characterised as silent, and based on antipathy rather than on conscious and articulated principles. Finnish hostility towards ranking, combined with a bureaucratic tradition and a developmental approach to QAE strengthened by radical municipal autonomy, has constructed two national and local embedded policies that have been rather effective in resisting a trans‐national policy of testing and ranking. It is significant, however, that both represent a combination of conscious, unintended and contingent factors.

The paradox of the education race: how to win the ranking game by sailing to headwind

In this article, we experiment with the idea of combining path dependency, convergence and contingency in explaining Finnish distinctiveness in education policy and politics since the early 1990s. The focus of this article is on quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) in comprehensive schooling. We elaborate on and contextualise the Finnish QAE model by analysing the particular and somewhat ambiguous ways in which global QAE practices have – or have not – been received and mediated in Finland.