Risto Rinne

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.

Too Eager to Comply? OECD Education Policies and the Finnish Response.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has strongly influenced European education policy and the entire global neo-liberally toned discourse that nowadays prevails in the implementation of national education policy and educational reforms. The educational policy governance of the OECD is based on overall and supranational information management — the instruments of which in practice are published analyses, statistics and indicator publications, as well as country and thematic reviews. This article presents, first, four phases in the history of the OECD educational policy based strictly on an analysis of documentary material. These phases provide a context for the analyses of the connections of the OECD and Finnish education policies in which the country and thematic reviews of Finland are used as empirical material. Finland has, especially in recent years, attained a status of a model pupil in implementing the educational policy recommendations of the OECD. Thus, several connections between the OECD recommendations and the development of education policy in Finland can be found in the material. In this study Finland has a role of an example of the field of activity of supranational actors and the connections and influences between the OECD and Finland should not be considered unique. Similar rapprochement of politics and thinning out of the independent authority of nation-states can even be seen on a larger scale.

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.

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.

Segregation, integration, inclusion—the ideology and reality in Finland

In this paper, we try to examine the classical sociological points of special education, especially the organizational form of special education, social background of students and the minority status of students. The material of the study was collected mostly during 2003 from one large city in Finland. This city has more than a 100‐year‐long tradition of organizing special education, and it is also still organized very traditionally, that is mainly in special schools. The oldest functioning special education school was founded in 1901. This form of organization based on special schools is no longer typical in Finland. Over 1000 questionnaires were sent to special education school teachers, and students and their parents, as well as to special needs assistants. The percentage of returned responses was between 70% and 80%. Local material is practically the only way to get information of these critical points because of the Act on the Protection of Privacy and the administrative orientation of state statistics. The results show that boys are strongly over‐represented in special education. Over three out of four of the students in classroom‐based special education are boys. According to our comparison, the children from immigrant families account for less than one out of ten students in general education, but in classroom‐based special education they represent nearly 14%, and in part‐time special education as much as one‐quarter (25%). The form of education differs also in regard to the social class of the parents. The parents have been divided into upper, middle and lower social classes according to their occupation. The proportion of upper‐class parents of the student group in general education (42%) is doubled when compared to the parents of both special education groups. The majority of the parents of severe disabled students support the idea of special education schools, but the majority of the parents from the other special education groups are in favour of education in the nearest school.

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.

The Growing Supranational Impacts of the OECD and the EU on National Educational Policies, and the Case of Finland:

The trends of globalisation have had unavoidable impacts in steering and guiding the decisions of national policy-makers and the direction of national education policies. In the obscuring processes of supranational homogenisation of education and educational policy, supranational regimes, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU), play a significant role. The traditional idea of meritocratic competition is challenged by globalisation and by the new standard setting of the supranational organisations, and nation-states are losing their power to define standards and to control the key features of educational selection. The process is proceeding particularly in the field of higher education, where the stakes to win reputational capital are at their highest. The message, objectives and language of those organisations are cast in the same mould. They have started to speak in the same words with the same stress, repeating the same phrases about globalisation, economic efficiency and productivity, and swearing that globalisation is inevitable in the name of progress. In this article, historical change in the educational policies of the OECD and the EU and the implication of these policies for national education policies are studied. Special emphasis is laid on the field of higher education and the national case of Finland.

Didactic closure: Professionalization and pedagogic knowledge in Finnish teacher education

This article concerns the kind of symbolic and strategic value that science-legitimated pedagogical knowledge has in the professionalization of teacher education. The aim is to try to understand certain peculiarities in this body of knowledge through studying the history of the “science of teaching” and of the professionalization of teacher education in Finland. The conclusion is that there are at least three professionalist drifts that produce and reproduce a kind of “decontextualized pedagogic discourse” in Finnish teacher education: the pursuit of science legitimation, loyalty to state educational reforms and a striving for distinction from rival disciplines. The analysis shows that, at least up to the present day, the science-legitimated knowledge system for teacher education has served as a very successful strategy in the struggles on the field of Finnish higher education.

State, Governmentality and Education--the Nordic Experience.

Abstract In our article, we first interrogate the prevailing monolithic concept of the State, and introduce the concept of ‘governmentality’ originated by Michel Foucault. We then explore how governmentality has historically been linked with education, and specifically with the evolution of ‘civilizing the rabble’, inculcating deference, and more recently with the development of the Scandinavian ‘Caring State’. Finally, we explore the changing tasks of education in a society increasingly characterized by risks and uncertainty, and explore the nature of the social contracts which could correspond to the new conditions.