Janne Varjo

North by northwest: quality assurance and evaluation processes in European education

Governing processes in Europe and within Europeanization are often opaque and appearances can deceive. The normative practices of improvement in education, and the connected growth in performance measurement, have been largely understood in their own terms. However, the management of flows of information through quality assurance can be examined as a new form of governance, not just at the national level but within the broad policyscape of the European Union. The shaping of policy through data and the constant comparison for improvement against competition has come to be the standard by which public systems are judged. Indeed, public systems of education are recreated, and Europe is formed. The mediation of travelling policies and policy discourses across Europe constitute a polymorphic policyscape in which quality assurance and evaluation (QAE) has become a major instrument.

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.

Families, School Choice, and Democratic Iterations on the Right to Education and Freedom of Education in Finnish Municipalities

This article analyzes the ways in which the right to education and freedom of education are expressed in local school choice policies in Finland. We aim to discover the elements that form democratic iterations on the right to education and freedom of education by contrasting their manifestations in three local institutional spaces for parental school choice. We focus on different levels of structures and agents including national legislation, local spaces for school choice, municipal demographics, and the impact of socioeconomic status and institutional space for school choice on parental attitudes.

Immigrant-origin youth and the indecisiveness of choice for upper secondary education in Finland

ABSTRACT The educational transitions of Finnish youth of immigrant background are challenging. They confront more difficulties in a twofold manner: they have more difficulties in transitioning to upper secondary education and they seem to drop out of education more often than their Finnish-origin counterparts. This study aimed to accomplish a view of the complex intertwinement of attitudes and experiences with upper secondary education choices, gender and origin. We compared immigrant- origin students (n = 161) with Finnish-origin students (n = 156) in a survey conducted during the final year of comprehensive school. Our objectives were to analyse the variation in attitudes, experiences and aspirations concerning post-comprehensive transition in gender and origin of the youth, and to analyse the factors behind the indecisiveness of the transitions. We concluded that youth with immigrant origin in general, and boys in particular, share a contradiction we termed the ‘paradox of immigrant schooling’, which refers to the combination of a positivity toward education and difficulties in learning and studying. We also found an immigrant-related contradiction between determinant and quite high occupational aspirations, and uncertainty of upper secondary choices. Our outcomes indicate that the immigrant-origin youth confront the upper-secondary choices in a much more complex and multidimensional situation than their Finnish-origin counterparts.

The Conceivable Benefits of Being Comprehensive--Finnish Local Education Authorities on Recognising and Controlling the Social Costs of School Choice.

Since the 1980s, numerous education reforms have sought to dismantle centralised bureaucracies and replace them with devolved systems of schooling that emphasise parental choice and competition between increasingly diversified types of schools. Nevertheless, the Finnish variety of post-comprehensivism continues to emphasise municipal assignment of school places, in the form of the neighbourhood school principle; albeit, in its current form, with the possibility for locally controlled choice and competition, channelled especially through classes with a special emphasis. Based on nine in-depth thematic interviews with experts in provision, management or evaluation of local level compulsory education, this paper focuses on how the conceivable costs and benefits of school choice are recognised and controlled in urban Finnish municipalities. Two distinctive discourses were found to be embodied in the portrayals of the costs and benefits of choice: the legitimization of school choice; and promoting the comprehensive system. The legitimation of school choice discourse is built on the acceptable, but strictly limited reasons for choice, and necessity of school choice. In contrast, the discourse of fostering the comprehensive system is based on the ideology of equality of educational opportunities. It is constructed upon the traditional, universal, non-selective features of the comprehensive school. Against this background, possibilities for school choice can be, and must be, locally controlled – even restricted, if needed – in order to prevent a vicious circle of failing schools in deprived neighbourhoods.

The governors of school markets? Local education authorities, school choice and equity in Finland and Sweden

As one of the key elements of the Nordic welfare model, education systems are based on the idea of providing equal educational opportunities, regardless of gender, social class and geographic origin. Since the 1990s, Nordic welfare states have undergone a gradual but wide-ranging transformation towards a more market-based mode of public service delivery. Along this trajectory, the advent of school choice policy and the growing variation in the between-school achievement results have diversified the previously homogenous Nordic education systems. The aim of our paper is to analyse how Finnish and Swedish local education authorities comprehend and respond to the intertwinement of the market logic of school choice and the ideology of equality. The data consist of two sets of in-depth thematic interviews with staff from the local providers of education, municipal education authorities. The analysis discloses the ways in which national legislation has authorized municipal authorities to govern the provision of education.

The art of governing local education markets – municipalities and school choice in Finland

ABSTRACT Since the 1980s, numerous education reforms in Europe and beyond have sought to dismantle centralised bureaucracies and replace them with devolved systems of schooling that emphasise parental choice and competition between diversified types of schools. Despite this general trend, Finland continues to emphasise the municipal assignment of school places, albeit with the possibility of locally controlled choice. The aim of this paper is to elaborate on the ways in which Finnish local education authorities – involving both officials and politicians – define themselves in relation to the changing conceptions of the Nordic welfare state model. The paper discusses the social costs and benefits of school choice in addition to the kinds of techniques these authorities use when aiming to control and manage the social costs and benefits of school choice. Based on nine in-depth thematic interviews with local education authorities, the modalities – having to, being-able, wanting and knowing how – will be analysed.

Differentiation and Diversification in Compulsory Education: A Conceptual Analysis

What is meant by school differentiation and diversification and how can such multifaceted phenomena be precisely described and conceptualized? The authors illustrate linguistic, conceptual, and epistemological challenges that researchers face in defining these phenomena. Looking beyond narrow theoretical frames and disciplinary boundaries, they analyze conceptualizations of school differentiation and diversification and examine related terms, such as segregation, stratification, and polarization. The authors explore school differentiation from various angles, including societal differentiation, diversity of school populations, symbolic hierarchies, and curricular diversity. The chapter offers a broad perspective on school differentiation as well as conceptual tools for understanding the processes of societal differentiation in compulsory education.