Finnish education has received worldwide attention due to the country's performances in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Research investigating Finland's positive outcomes in the assessment has highlighted not only the strength of teachers, but also the rigour of Finnish teacher education. Finnish student teachers must…

Why is invention strongly positively correlated with parental income not only in the US but also in Finland which displays low income inequality and high social mobility? Using data on 1.45M Finnish individuals and their parents, we find that: (i) the positive association between parental income and off-spring probability of inventing is greatly…

Graduate employability research typically focuses on young graduates' entry to the labour market. Little is known about the careers of adults who attain higher education degrees in mid-life. This article explores Finnish University of Applied Sciences (UAS) Master's degree graduates' mid-career trajectories using retrospectively collected…

Positional competition in the labour market entails graduate opportunities that depend not only on graduates' skills, experience and abilities, but also on how their educational credentials compare to those of others. In this study, we examined the positional competition in the Finnish labour market and compared the influence of different 'degree…

In recent higher education research, quality in education export action has been explored from the perspective of traditional education export countries such as the UK and USA. However, less attention is given to novice education export providers that rely on different educational traditions. In this article, we explore quality of education as it…

Background: International achievement studies such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have an increasing influence on education policy worldwide. The use of such data can provide a basis for evidence-based policy-making to initiate educational reform. Finland, a high performer in PISA, is often cited as an example of both…

There is growing evidence that transitions from education to work (and from work to education) can take place several times and occur at different points in an individual's life cycle. This paper's overall intention is to contribute to a deeper understanding of higher education graduates' transitions between education and work shortly after…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the benefits of higher education in mid-life from the perspective of life course agency. Studies concerning the benefits of degree-oriented higher education have been mainly conducted using survey questionnaires and quantitative methods. In order to gain a more comprehensive picture, this qualitative…

This study investigates the educational attainment of an aging workforce from the perspective of educational credentialing. The research questions are defined as follows: Why are workers over age 50 attaining university degrees? How do they narratively construct the rational for pursuing well-recognized credentials in midlife? The specific focus…

Although the system of educational credentials differs in many important ways from country to country, all western countries have experienced a similar trend in the form of an increasing number of graduate degrees. Graduate degrees have also taken on a bewildering range of forms and content. As a consequence, not all graduate degrees have the same…

This article explores Finnish polytechnic master's degree graduates' career development about one year after graduation. Twenty interviewed graduates were first classified on the basis of their initial educational motives yielding a typology of goal-oriented, learning-oriented and drifters. After this, their career development was analysed. As a…

This research investigates aspirations for a master's-level teaching profession in England, providing key stakeholder perceptions in one densely populated region within a multiple case study. Although this intended move to a master's-level profession represented a major shift in teachers' professional development in England, only limited…

During the last decade, thousands of visitors have flocked to Finland--now a leader in education rankings--to uncover this small Nordic country's secret to its education success. In this article, Finnish educator and scholar Pasi Sahlberg explains how Finland has managed such a feat. A rigorous graduate degree and at least five years of full-time…

Beginning this year with its 2012 graduating class, the University of Notre Dame ended its practice of offering diplomas made of sheep's skin, a tradition that has all but disappeared except in some stubborn corners of academia. But the tendency of employers to pay premiums to workers holding certain diplomas is thriving. This tendency, dubbed the…

With the moderating power of the European Qualification Framework (EQF), European higher education has, for some time, been moving in a competence-oriented direction in some educational systems. The EQF is a competence framework that defines standards to all levels of qualification. The framework is set up to facilitate comparison of…