This article examines the nature of neoliberal influences upon educational policy making in the Finnish education system in recent times. The article draws upon key policy documents, government reports, journal articles and media articles about reforms in the early childhood, basic/compulsory school and vocational education and training sectors to…

This study focuses on the politics of time in education by analysing 'The Future School' reports published by Nordic state authorities between 2010 and 2015. Building on a system-theoretical understanding of social time, steering and second-order observations, we investigate how temporal political communication frames the future of Nordic basic…

Finnish students have been showing outstanding achievement in each domain since the very first The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000. Finland has consistently been not only one of the top achievers but one of the countries with exceptional educational equity as well. In other words, very high literacy scores are just…

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…

Describes the development of a methodology for document analysis based on the RASKE ("Rakenteisten Asiakirjastandardien Kehittaminen") project which is studying legislative documents produced in the Finnish government and parliament. Topics include initial results; main phases of the analysis; domain definition; object, state, and…

This report summarizes responses to a public opinion survey designed to reveal attitudes towards secondary education in other countries and compares these with attitudes in the United States. The survey was conducted in the United States and 11 other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED). The other…