Finnish Higher Education Expansion and Regional Policy

This paper concentrates on the expansion of Finnish higher education between the 1960s and 1970s, exposes its background in the light of the policy decisions that were made, compares the unique features of this expansion with those of certain other countries, discusses the impact of the controlled ‘top down’ governance of higher education policy, and describes the Finnish higher education system today. The paper argues that the driving forces behind universal mass higher education were, on the one hand, changes in the structure of society, and on the other hand, individual demand for education but also increased need for skills in production processes. This was the case in Finland as well but the Finnish higher education expansion was also characterised by regionalism. The actual location of universities in the era of expansion was a function of local political actors who were able to have an influence on ruling political parties.     

Policy making processes with respect to teacher education in Finland and Norway

This article examines policy making processes in the area of teacher education (TE) in Finland and Norway. Particular attention is given to the roles different actors play in these processes and the potential effects of their involvement on the TE programs in the two countries. Contemporary policy processes are analyzed through a set of interviews with profiled and experienced policy makers in the area in question. The analyses show that TE policy processes in Norway rely heavily on political actors and changes in political conditions, while Finnish TE policy processes rely more on academic expertise in the development of TE policies.     

The Taiwanisation,Democratisation and Internationalisation of Higher Education in Taiwan

This article discusses how political transition affected higher education in Taiwan between 1987 and 1996. The patterns of political transition were reflected in changes in higher education, and were mediated by the state and newly emerged actors who strove for university autonomy, such as university academics and students. However, the interactions among these state and non-state actors have been complicated by such issues in broader context as party politics, national identity and relations with mainland China.     

Envisioned and enacted practices: educational policies and the ‘politics of use’ in schools

ABSTRACT

It is widely known that there is a discrepancy between educational policy on the one side, and teaching and learning practices on the other. Most studies have been focusing on the sociocultural and micropolitical frames that shape teachers’ understandings and enactments of teaching, and that cause the vast diversity of classroom practices around the world. This article wants to draw attention to the ‘politics of use’ in teachers’ work: how teachers mobilize larger political narratives when implementing curriculum reform. Arguably, these narratives provide a shortcut between the central government and street-level actors, thus circumventing the logics of these actors’ immediate institutional environments.

In order to showcase the politics of use, the article uses the case of education for creativity as it is designed for and practiced at Chinese schools. The case reveals how education for creativity is compromised by requirements emanating from larger political programs when implemented in Chinese classrooms. The article challenges the view that educational policy necessarily moves through a trickle-down process, from higher to medium to lower-level actors. In cases of strong ideological alignment between street-level actors and central state actors, educational policy may in fact sidestep and hence neutralize important institutional actors.     

Whose quality? Social actors in the interface of transnational and national higher education policy

The article analyzes the construction of national reactions to a transnational higher education policy from the point of view of the representation of social actors in policy documents. The data are provided by the so-called Bologna Process, particularly the development of comparable quality assurance systems, and Finnish responses to those demands. Who is represented as active and who as passive, as European policies are discursively translated into national policies? How are those ‘quality actors’ represented in the policy documents directed at a transnational audience (i.e. the Bologna Process communiqués, as well as national reports on its advancement) as opposed to documents directed at a national, in this case Finnish, audience (i.e. national policy formation documents)? What kinds of policy fields emerge as a result of different representations of actors? This article takes the Bologna Process as an example of the ‘glocalisation’ of higher education policy.     

全球治理与教育变革:跨国与国际教育政策过程研究的重要性

大多数教育政策研究仍然把教育政策主要放在国内政治而非国际政治的舞台中进行研究。本文吸收了政治科学、国际关系和公共管理领域最近的研究成果,指出国际的、地区的和跨国的行为主体及其政策过程的影响力正在增长,理应得到教育政策研究界的高度重视。政治科学中的全球治理研究或许能为关于跨国和国际的行为主体及其政策过程的教育政策研究提供新的方法,同时,提醒我们更多地关注新的国际行为体和新的组织与协调方式,更加深入地思考规范化的过程在多大程度上塑造了民族国家对教育中的共同国际利益的认同方式。     

Political science and the comparative study of policy change in higher education: theoretico-methodological notes from a policy perspective

Policy change is a fundamental object of interest in social sciences, and in higher education too. This essay presents several reflections for a comparative research strategy on policy change in higher education from a political science point of view. Three basic assumptions are developed: politics is not only power but also research for solutions to collective problems; the explanation of policy change calls for configurative models able to enlight the relationship between structural and individual factors; the concept of network is a fruitful analytical lens to measure and map such relationships. According to these assumptions, the author tries to emphasise how even if absolutely significant the explanative models based on macro-factors have important shortcomings in view of the diversity and the complexity of policy changes in the different national experiences. Then, the proposal is to complement the macro-approaches by analysing of the policy-making processes and the logic of action of all the actors involved. The macro-factors shape the context of micro-behaviour, restricting the alternative of choice, but the choice itself is a matter of actors.This essay is one of the first products of a larger research project on Comparative Higher Education, sponsored by the Italian National Research Council. It also originated in a two months visit to the Center for Studies in Higher Education of UC-Berkeley where I had the opportunity to think and to read in the most adequate and comfortable environment.     

A comparative perspective on Finnish higher education policy

The last decades have offered social scientists an abundance of material for studies of governmental reform policy in the area of higher education. Reforms of educational politics have been legion in great parts of the world, probably in a particulary high degree in Europe. My purpose is to describe Finnish higher education policy during the last two decades in the four policy areas of (1) quantitative planning and regionalization, (2) social recruitment, (3) governance, and (4) teaching and studies as compared to the development of Western Europe. In the second part of this paper the implementation of the Finnish higher education reforms is analyzed. The third part analyzes the development of the Finnish higher education system and focuses on the various alternatives not chosen by the government. In the final part I discuss the recent trends in Finnish higher education in respect to consistency and change.     

The politics of rural school reform: Escuela Nueva in Colombia

This article explores the history and politics of rural school reform in Colombia, focusing on the Escuela Nueva programme. In particular, it assesses the motivations of the Colombian State in promoting a comprehensive reform of its rural schools. We argue that Colombia's unique political context was, in large part, responsible for its novel approach to school reform. As the political context shifted, however, so to did the State's posture to rural schooling. We track the Escuela Nueva programme through three phases (grassroots, formalized and decoupled) to demonstrate how social actors, their interests at a specific point in time, and the distribution of power among them, are crucial elements for understanding the motivation and outcomes of social policy making. In other words, this research portrays education reform as a dynamic process that is continuously shaped and reshaped as political actors and institutions compete for influence and scarce resources in a variable social arena.     

Interest groups and the State in contemporary Spanish education policy

This paper analyses the role of educational interest groups in the context of current educational policy in Spain. The paper focuses on the historical and structural factors that are the basis for understanding the constitution of educational interests. It argues that the historical educational dualism and the political opposition between public and private education explains not only the emergence and political position of each educational actor, but also the dynamics of interaction between them and their strategies to influence policy making and implementation. The final section of the paper analyses the relationship between interest groups and the State. It argues that the diverse and heterogeneous educational demands lead to a specific form of educational politics and explain the conditioned relative autonomy of the Spanish State in education policy making.     

Not all markets are created equal: re-conceptualizing market elements in higher education

Increasing reliance on market mechanisms in higher education is analysed both as one of the approaches to steering as well as in relation to the consequences of markets for quality and accessibility of higher education. This article goes beyond the normative considerations of market elements as inherently good or bad and the economic theory-guided focus on freedoms of users and providers, by presenting an alternative conceptualization. The conceptualization adapted from studies of markets in other parts of the welfare state to the context of higher education is based on two dimensions: (1) who effectively controls production of certain goods and services and (2) how access to and funding of these goods and services are regulated. It focuses on interests of three main actors—the state, the users (students) and the providers (higher education institutions). This leads to six conceptually distinct markets, whose key characteristics are illustrated by examples from Denmark, England, India, Norway, Portugal and Serbia. The key message is that this alternative conceptualization allows identifying variance in marketization of higher education with regards to (1) which actors are empowered, (2) who are the likely winners and losers and (3) what might be the risks of introducing specific market elements in a higher education system. More generally, a more nuanced analysis relying on this conceptualization can potentially contribute to a deeper understanding of political and policy dynamics in higher education.     

‘Looking for the perfect beat’: the power of black student protest rhetorics for academic literacy and higher education

Drawing on three modes of inquiry—personal narrative, teacher research and historical work on black student protest in higher education—this article describes the writer's experience first as a college student and then as a teacher in a classroom where a student activist shaped the social consciousness of his peers. The politics of the student activist is set in the context of a historical continuum that goes back to the black student protests of the 1950s. A distinct set of black student protest rhetorics is used to locate deep‐rooted political critiques of higher education. These rhetorics are critical for re‐imagining vernacular and discursive possibilities in the academy and encompass very different notions of language and literacy from standard tropes of academic discourse as access.     

Exploring the relationship between institutional and professional autonomy: a comparative study between Portugal and Finland

By comparing two distinct settings–Portugal and Finland–and based on previous studies revealing similar trends in both countries, this article analyses the relationship between institutional and academic autonomy in the higher education sector. Based on crosschecking of the literature review and 47 interviews with key actors in both the Portuguese and Finnish higher education systems, the authors analyse the extent to which the political attempts to increase institutional autonomy are perceived by academics in these countries as leading to an increase in their professional autonomy. Data reveals that there is a lack of complete correspondence between the way different institutional dimensions have been changing at the organisational level and the way academics perceive the effects at the professional level. While there is a correspondence in the perceptions over organisational and interventional autonomy, no correspondence is found concerning policy autonomy in both countries. Furthermore, there are no homogeneous perceptions within academics group in each country concerning professional autonomy.     

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.     

Steering Dynamics in the Dutch Education System

Based on detailed empirical analyses, we paint a layered picture of emerging steering dynamics. Inspired by Foucault, we put the focus on roles stakeholders define both for themselves and others, how they give sense to policy, how they work together in policy elaboration and implementation, and the subtle and sometimes deceitful function of soft policy instruments such as information, communication, support and research. The policy to stimulate ‘schools as learning organisations' in secondary education in the Netherlands is used as a case study. The Dutch education system is one of the most decentralised en complex systems in the world. While central Government aims to turn schools into learning organisations, it has no formal responsibility nor any direct means of control in this area. The study draws information from (1) relevant government reports, policy documents and websites and (2) semi‐structured interviews with key actors. Data analysis consisted of data reduction through coding and memoing, data displays in tables and networks, and drawing and verifying conclusions. In the ground layer of the steering picture, we reconstruct how ‘schools as learning organisations' came to be a topic for Government policy. The next layer identifies 20 (networks of) actors who play a substantial role in steering. The mutual relationships between the main actors are manifold, while funding appears to be an important means for the Ministry to position actors in a steering network. A wide array of steering modes was identified. The last step in our analysis adds a dynamic element to the picture, as we look at how different actors interact, starting with how actors envision their own steering roles and the role of others. The non‐complementary role definitions that were identified in the documents, were confirmed in the interviews. Our results illustrate, in Foucault's terminology, different processes of responsibilisation and normalisation. Above all, the study illustrates that the theoretical framework provides a promising starting point for the empirical study of steering dynamics in complex education systems.     

Bologna 2010. The Moment of Truth?

Government policies are central factors shaping the environment of higher education institutions. European governments have included in their higher education political strategies the principal goal of implementing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The perceptions that key actors of higher education institutions (HEIs) have about political developments are important as they may influence the achievement of government policy. The Bologna Process is at the heart of policy coordination, the instrument selected at European and national levels to establish EHEA. This article seeks to discuss empirically the views of institutional actors about the Bologna Process, taking into consideration the achievement of EHEA. The discussion is based on the analysis of the EHEA implementation in seven HEIs located in four higher education systems — Germany, Italy, Norway and Portugal. This paper draws on the theoretic-methodological approach of the policy cycle to analyse the perceptions of HEIs' constituencies about Bologna.     

形势与政策教育在乡村思政工作中的应用研究

我国正处于全面建成小康社会的冲刺期,国内外形势瞬息万变,国家政策举措革故鼎新。在此期间加强农民群众的形势观与政策观的教育对于乡村振兴战略的行稳致远显得尤为必要和紧迫。形势与政策教育是思想政治工作的常用方法,它能依据时政引导受教育者准确厘清形势,做到对国之大者心中有数,而且对促进农业发展、农村繁荣、农民富裕具有重要的现实意义。提升乡村形势与政策教育成效应从强化农民角色意识、唤醒政治担当;立足农民实际、创新教育过程;着眼现实需要、注重指导实践等方面进行探索。     

Four Decades of Finnish Educational Sociology

This section focuses on educational sociology and social pedagogy, two designations mirroring somewhat different perspectives on very much the same reality. The first article presents Finnish Educational sociology from the 1950s to the 1990s and is based on doctoral dissertations and other significant or typical studies in the field. The author argues that empirical research originated during the 1950s and the early 1960s. A typical theme of early research emphasized the school class as a miniature society. In initial studies on the activities and social participation of youth, society itself was already dealt with as a structural entity. In the 1970s, when the Finnish comprehensive‐education system was built, educational policy and the socialization process were the major themes. Then, in the 1980s, the march towards diversification and the development of a range of educational sociologies started. Finally, the expansion of evaluation research was realized in the context of the deep Finnish economic depression of the early 1990s. The lesson here is very sociological: the social context does matter. The second article focuses on development of theory and research related to social pedagogy in Norway, a ‘new’ Norwegian subfield within the discipline of education which was bom almost three decades ago. It is marked by some influential intellectual patterns 1970s from the new social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In the discourse on social pedagogy in Norway the reception and utilization of inspirations from the Norwegian positivism debate, the new sociology of education and post‐positivist social theory were the main academic sources of development which motivated normative and empirical research on a number of new themes. The author argues that the subfield of social pedagogy has led to a renewed understanding of the role of normative theory within education as an academic field of knowledge, to a broad acceptance of the possibilities of qualitative research strategies, and a new emphasis on integrative research efforts; but at the same time this engagement has reduced the outcome of a unique contribution to a thorough reconstruction of educational research and scholarship.     

Vernacular globalisations: neo-statist accountability policies in France and Quebec education

The article argues that there is no single globalisation of education systems, but rather multiple globalisations of each system taken in its individual context. We propose three explanatory factors to account for these vernacular globalisation processes, that is, for individual policy trajectories in each national context: path dependence on earlier policy choices and institutions, education policy-making through bricolage, and finally the translation by national actors of international-level ideas or tools as a function of the debate, institutions or national power dynamics in question. The research design is based on the study of a most-likely case: accountability policy in two school systems – France and Quebec – which show strong variations. Document analyses and semi-structured interviews were conducted in both cases. In the two countries, distinct vernacular globalisations are at work leading to different neo-statist accountability policies. In Quebec, the reinforcement of state power through a growing vertical accountability and the systematic development of regulation tools between policy actors and levels lead to a ‘centralisation by institutional linkage’. In France, we rather witness a ‘globalisation by discursive internalisation’ in which transnational imperatives are integrated in official discourses on the regulation of the education system, but without radically questioning the mainstays of this regulation.     

The rise and fall of the MTL: an example of European policy borrowing

The success of Finland in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) highlights the quality of Finnish teacher education underpinning its consistently high performance in the survey. In 2010 the UK government initiated a masters in teaching and learning (MTL) in order to raise the education level of teachers, following Finland’s teacher education model. Educationists both past and present, however, warn against ‘quick fix’ political solutions and of the consequences of ‘uncritical policy transfer’. For an educational policy to be effectively borrowed, it must travel through different stages. In this article we argue that the MTL has been implemented in the hope of quick solutions to long-term difficulties; we also maintain that the MTL has applied distinctly English factors into the Finnish model and was achieving informed policy transfer. Nevertheless, the rapid introduction and withdrawal of the programme has not allowed for the MTL to reach complete policy borrowing.