Expectations regarding team leadership in early childhood education (ECE) have grown in recent decades, both in Finland and elsewhere in the world. This change can be seen through the increased research knowledge regarding the importance of pedagogical leadership as a key factor in the quality of ECE and the emphasis on pedagogy in basic ECE…

This study investigates neighborhood-based predictors of attending early childhood education and care (ECEC) in a universal ECEC system. We used child-specific data (N = 1409) from a parent survey conducted in 2019 in Finland combined with zip code data to examine the extent to which neighborhood urbanicity and socioeconomic status (SES) are…

This article presents autoethnographic short stories that describe an early childhood education and care (ECEC) centre director's work for one year in a municipality in Finland. The purpose of this article is to provide a glimpse into what it is like to enter into an ECEC director position and live everyday ECEC life with economic data that are…

The number of immigrant students in Finland is increasing; thus, this qualitative case study investigates ways of providing targeted support measures for recently arrived Finnish language learners (RAFLLs) in Finnish lower secondary education. Focusing on linguistic responsiveness, the teaching arrangements and support measures are examined not…

The national core curriculum plays an important role in the Finnish education system as the backbone for teaching and learning. Municipalities as local education providers are obliged to organize education by developing their own curricula in relation to the core curriculum. In this article, we look at how local curricula are developed and…

Planning support and education services requires multifaceted information from professionals, parents, and children. Despite this, educators have emphasized professional opinions in individual education plans (IEPs), whereas the perspectives of children and parents have remained inconsequential. In this study, we examine the intertextual voices of…

This paper provides an overview of the homeschooling movement in Finland focusing on the methods used to monitor the progress of compulsory education of home-educated children. Although the child's home municipality is obliged to monitor the progress of compulsory education, there are currently no national uniform instructions on how monitoring…

Recent European and global trends in education have been to promote inclusive education and expand education, resulting in the increased provision of special education. In promoting inclusive education, recent special education reforms have also aimed to curtail the rise in identification rates for students in special education, for example, by…

For many years, teachers have been involved in developing the national curricula in Finland in various ways. Teachers' involvement in curriculum design and implementation has, during the last national curriculum implementation process, increased locally to strengthen their confidence in and knowledge of the national curriculum's multifaceted…

The purpose of this article is to report on a study exploring the sustainability work (i.e., practices and pedagogies related to sustainability education) of Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) teaching practice settings. Recently, the early years and ECEC have gained increasing attention in sustainability education matters.…

The prevalence of autism/autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been increasing across the world. Previous studies in Norway reported, that the prevalence rate for 0-10-year-old children is 1 in 166, and in the case of 11-year-old children it is 1 in 125. Moreover, another nationwide study discovered that 1 in 192 males and 1 in 695 females between…

The amount of available digital data is increasing at a tremendous rate. These data, however, are of limited use unless converted into a user-friendly form. We took on this task and built a natural language generation (NLG) driven system that generates journalistic news stories about elections without human intervention. In this paper, after…

This case study presents the results of an interdisciplinary Virtual Exchange (VE) that was arranged between Finnish and Polish students in 2019. During their six-week collaboration, the students of language studies at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, worked in teams together with their Polish peers specialising in information and…

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is an essential component of learning in and for the workplace, and a key building block of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO's) "Key Features of Learning Cities." TVET provides pathways to employment, particularly for young people, and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the governance of educational reform, as an interpretive process -- "interpretive governance" -- through a case study of five superintendents living in a predominantly Swedish-speaking region in Finland. Design/methodology/approach: To foreground superintendents' perspectives on reforms as…