Professor Antti Saari delivered his inaugural lecture at Tampere University on May 11th, offering a wide-ranging reflection on the role of educational science in shaping how schooling is understood, governed, and transformed. Drawing on historical examples and his own research, he examined how educational expertise has long promised to make learning and teaching more precise, effective, and responsive to societal needs, while also raising critical questions about the assumptions underlying these ambitions.
Saari began by revisiting early twentieth‑century visions of education, which framed empirical research as a means to fully understand learners and optimise teaching accordingly. He showed how this aspiration has persisted, fuelling efforts to align education with societal demands through clearly defined objectives, methods, and evaluation techniques. At the same time, his lecture emphasised that educational knowledge is deeply entangled with power: concepts, theories, and modes of reasoning do not simply describe education but actively shape policies, institutional practices, and everyday school life. From statistical methods in assessment to the design of learning environments, educational expertise influences how education is organised while also narrowing and enabling particular possibilities.
In closing, Saari called for a more critically informed approach to educational development. He challenged the widely accepted idea that schools must always “keep up with the times,” arguing that such future‑oriented thinking often neglects historical insight and leads to recurring mistakes. Rather than offering quick solutions, he positioned educational research as a field that should interrogate its own assumptions, surface overlooked alternatives, and situate change within longer historical trajectories. In doing so, education can be understood not only as a tool for the future, but as a historically grounded and evolving social practice in its own right.
You can watch the lecture here (available until May 25th).
POISED 