Sirpa Lappalainen

Gendered divisions on classed routes to vocational education

In this article our focus is on the persistent gendered divisions in educational routes of young people who choose a vocational path after compulsory education in Finland. We analyse how gendered subjectivities are constructed within the practices of educational and vocational guidance and within student cultures in the comprehensive school, as well as the way in which young people process understandings of themselves and their expectations during and after vocational education. In addition, we explore young peoples ways to negotiate with disciplinary practices of the educational system. The paper draws on three ethnographic studies, and on feminist post-structural and materialist theories, intertwined with contextualised ethnographic perspectives. Our analysis reveals some patterns that might work as obstacles in the process towards reducing gender segregation in education and the labour market. We suggest that whilst gendered choices are sometimes taken for granted, gender dichotomy is often emphasised even if young people choose ‘differently’.

Liberal multiculturalism and national pedagogy in a Finnish preschool context: inclusion or nation‐making?

This article analyzes how professionals of early childhood education define Finnishness and how they deal with ethnicity. It illustrates how nationality and ethnicity are actualised in the everyday practices of preschool. As part of a one‐year ethnographic study in two preschools, the study reveals that the liberal version of multiculturalism adopted in Finland strengthens the boundaries of the nation‐state. Finnishness gets conceptualised within the discipline and order of everyday life. When individuals considered as Finnish are evaluated, individual discourses are mobilised. When individuals considered as ‘others’ are under scrutiny, cultural discourses work as sources of interpretation.

Educating Worker-Citizens: Visions and Divisions in Curriculum Texts.

In this article, we are interested in how employment – or employability – is connected to citizenship, and how the ideal subjectivity of worker-citizens is discursively constructed in curriculum texts. The ‘worker-citizen’ is a social construction that connects closely the notion of worker and the notion of citizen. Our analysis is based on Finnish national curricula for upper secondary vocational education. We consider upper secondary vocational education as a field in which individuals learn the new orders of the labour market. Curriculum texts define desirable goals and ideals for what future citizens and future employees should be like. As a result, we argue that flexibility characterises the ideal subjectivity that is discursively attributed to worker-citizens in accordance with neo-liberal reasoning: they have internalised the ethos of entrepreneurship and lifelong learning, and are capable of accepting changes and crossing national borders in order to follow the needs of the labour market. Worker-citizens are willing to accept a minimal level of social security provided by the state, and to look after their own health and employment. However, as consumers they express national loyalty. Personal objectives of worker-citizens are congruent with the objectives of industry and the workplace.

Subtle discourses on equality in the Finnish curricula of upper secondary education: reflections of the imagined society

Assurance of citizens’ social rights and minimization of social differences have been central tenets that have framed the educational policy of Finland and the other Nordic welfare states. Equality has been on the official agenda in educational politics and policies since the comprehensive school reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. However, the conceptualization of equality has fluctuated, reflecting the political climate in which the policy statements have been created. In this article, we analyse Finnish curricular documents concerning upper secondary education from the 1970s to the 2010s in order to find out how the aims of educational equality are presented. Drawing on different conceptualizations of equality and social justice, as well as feminist theorizations of intersectionality, we scrutinize how gendered, classed and ethnised patterns are emphasized, challenged or muted in documents. Through the longitudinal data of this study it is possible to analyse the growing impact of this neo-liberal educational restructuring into Finland, which has a reputation for equal education and excellent records in the Programme for International Student Assessment tests. Hence, we ask how the Finnish society as an imagined community is reflected in the documents of different decades.

Making differences and reflecting on diversities: embodied nationality among preschool children

This paper focuses on embodied practices in processes of nationalization among preschool children at the age of 6. It analyses how children define themselves and others, how they characterize and frame Finnishness through embodiment. The analysis is based on an ethnographic study in two preschool classes. It is argued that nationality works in a gendered way as a source of inclusion and exclusion in children’s peer relations: those children who manage to perform Finnishness by continuously proving their cultural flexibility through ‘proper’ embodiment are included more fluently. The analysis suggests that, particularly in the context of Finland, where cultural diversity is only recently recognized, multiculturalism as a pedagogical framework is insufficient for the promotion of equality in education.

School as ‘survival game’: representations of school in transition from preschool to primary school

In childrens lives the start of school is a turning point: compulsory education is their first encounter with civil duties. This important step in the process of becoming individual citizens is permeated with strong emotions and ambivalent expectations. However, the representations of school are created, established and negotiated in educational experiences preceding the start of school. In this article I explore the ways in which school is constructed in a Finnish preschool context. I build on ethnographic data generated in two preschool classes. First, I focus on how school is constructed in the social practices of teaching and in the physical space of preschool. Second, I analyse how children construct themselves as future school children and citizens by taking up available discourses and cultural practices. I argue that in official preschool, an ethos of individual survival characterises representations of school. Psychological, social and physical challenges are emphasised. Although preschool teachers in interviews and informal discussions sometimes problematise the ways in which school operates, in their teaching school practices are represented as natural. However, children actively exhibit their agency by collectively reworking of discourses and cultural practices and by renegotiating their informal relationships.

Locality, mobility and labour market citizenship: reflections of Finnish vocational students in social services and health care

In the current economic order, the basic duty of citizens is to find placements in the internationalising labour market. Internationalism has been a common educational objective throughout Europe. Previously associated as a feature of middle-class subjectivities and academic education, it is implemented in the agenda of vocational education as well. In this article, I analyse how vocational students in the Finnish educational context of social services and health care see their future in the presumed internationalising labour market. The analysis is based on three years’ ethnographic fieldwork in one vocational institute of social services and health care. The dataset consists of field notes, the interviews of students and teachers, and documents produced by the institution and organisations involved, and in this article five case studies are presented in order to make visible the multiple ways in which young people make sense of their placements in the global labour market. This analysis suggests that the imagined futures of the vocational students are mainly tied with the local context. However, the global labour market is involved and in some cases actively mobilised with their subject formations, and makes the negotiating between individual desires, resources, dependences and interdependences in everyday life even more complex than it used to be.

Staying in the comfort zones : Low expectations in vocational education and training mathematics teaching in Sweden and Finland

Vocational education has a historical legacy of being low-status and aimed at producing skilled workers. Students with low marks in comprehensive school are still often guided to the vocational educational track. In this article we examine how mathematics teaching in a vocational educational context is framed (henceforth VET). Therefore, our aim with this article is to explore how teacher responses come into play in school mathematics classes, and the teacher–student interactions within those practices. The empirical material is based on educational ethnographic research, i.e. classroom observations and interviews, conducted in three upper secondary institutions, two in Sweden and one in Finland. The results indicate that both teachers and students seem to remain in what might be called their ‘comfort zones’, i.e. that pedagogic practices tend to strengthen the idea of a vocational learner as being practically oriented; using their hands instead of their heads and in need of care and surveillance. The analysis focuses on mathematics teaching rather than on the content and was chosen because it is associated with general qualifications and the notion of lifelong learning. In this respect it exemplifies the growing tension in VET between workplace and academic knowledge.

Nordic perspectives on disability studies in education: a review of research in Finland and Iceland

ABSTRACT Disability studies in education (DSE) is an interdisciplinary field derived from the need to re-conceptualise special education dominated by a medical perspective on disability. In this article we identify what characterises DSE research and consider whether there is a case for arguing for a specific field of DSE in Finland and Iceland. Our analysis is based on a review of 59 studies published by Finnish and Icelandic scholars during the time period of ratification process of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities from 2007 to 2016 in Finland and Iceland. We suggest that DSE has emerged as a dynamic area of research in both countries. It has provoked researchers to analyse disability in social contexts and turn the gaze from individual person with disabilities to the social structures and educational policies and practices. The fields of DSE in Finland and Iceland have not developed in identical ways and both have fluid crossovers to related fields such as disability studies and inclusive education. We argue for the potential of DSE to contribute to the discussion on educational equality and social justice. However, this requires opportunities to bring together scholars across disciplinary borders.

Equality in the Making? Roma and Traveller Minority Policies and Basic Education in Three Nordic Countries

ABSTRACT The article examines policies intended to promote the basic education of Roma and Traveller minorities in Finland, Sweden, and Norway by analysing key national Roma and Traveller policy (n = 5) and education policy documents (n = 3). Analysis shows how the Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Roma policies translate the general policy aims of improving the social positioning of people identifying as Roma consistently into policy measures responding to the special needs of Roma pupils. These policy measures are validated by problem representations regarding Roma parents and families. All the policies also problematise the relationship between Roma and Traveller cultures and schools. It is argued that the focuses of the current policy measures constrain opportunities for a change in terms of equality.