It is quite impossible to think about and act on education without the aid of expert knowledges. Since the establishment of education as a discipline, scientific concepts and theories have operated as a form of territorialization: in policy and curriculum discourses they have rendered the field of education, from the interaction of student and a teacher to the education system, as a governable whole. This is also how they enable and transform particular forms of power in education. At the same time, discourses of education expand and travel through the increasingly pedagogized societies and redefine the governable subjects in numerous contexts and institutions.
Researchers in POISED study the power-knowledge relation in academic, curriculum and policy discourses in their contemporary and historical forms.
Ongoing projects in Power and Knowledge:
Educational Imprisonment
Laclauian reflections on the politics of education and Finnish education policy
Knowledges of well-being in education
Towards better academia: Strategic leadership and experiences of academic community during the Tampere3 university merger
Publications under this theme:
Baker, B. & Saari, A. 2019. A picture speaks a thousand words? Vision, visuality, authorization. Educational Philosophy and Theory. Online first version: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/fZ4uniRiW8g83nMzptrn/full?target=10.1080/00131857.2019.1624524
Baker, B., Saari, A., Wang, L. & Tavares, H. (2024) Introduction to the First volume. Flashpoint Epistemology: Differences-in-the-Meeting. In B. Baker., A. Saari, L. Wang & H. Tavares (eds.) Flashpoint Epistemology Volume 1: Arts and Humanities-Based Rethinkings of Interconnection, Technologies, and Education. Routledge, pp. 1–44.
Brunila, K., Harni, E., Saari, A., & Ylöstalo, H. (2021). Terapeuttisen vallan käsitteellisiä näkökulmia ja historiallisia kehityskulkuja. In Brunila, K., Harni, E., Saari, A., & Ylöstalo, H. (eds.) Terapeuttinen valta: Onnellisuuden ja hyvinvoinnin jännitteitä 2000-luvun Suomessa (pp. 13-30). Vastapaino
Brunila, K., Harni, E., Saari, A., & Ylöstalo, H. 2021. Terapeuttisen vallan jännitteet. In Brunila, K., Harni, E., Saari, A., & Ylöstalo, H. (eds.) Terapeuttinen valta: Onnellisuuden ja hyvinvoinnin jännitteitä 2000-luvun Suomessa (pp. 333-340). Tampere: Vastapaino.
Harni, E., Nikkola, T. & Saari, A. 2018. Rakenteen ja kokemuksen komplementaarisuus laadullisen aineiston tulkinnassa ja analyysissa. Aikuiskasvatus 38 (1), 30-45.
Hartong, S., Piattoeva, N., Saari, A. & Savage, G. 2022. Transformation of Education Policy and Governance in the Digital Era. In M. Busemeyer (ed.) Digitalization and the Welfare State (pp. 304-318). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780192848369.003.0017
Hansen, P. Säntti, J. & Saari, A.( 2021). Tulevaisuuskuvat koulutuksen hallintana ja ohjauksena: Koulutuksen vaihtoehtoiset, kerrokselliset ja rinnakkaiset tulevaisuudet. In J. Kauko, J. Varjo & H. Silvennoinen (eds.) Kasvatussosiologian vuosikirja 3. FERA, 283–309.
Heikkinen, H. L. T. & Tomperi, T. 2018. Mitä pitäisi ajatella (suomen) kielestä (kasvatus)tieteessä? Kasvatus 2/2018, 167–175. https://ktl.jyu.fi/fi/julkaisut/kasvatus/kasvatus_2_2018_heikkinen-tomperi.pdf
Holmberg, L., & Niemi, A. M. (2024). ” Röökilläkin kaikki ensin itkee ja sit alkaa naurattaa kun kaikki vaan parkuu!”: Itsen työstämisen affektiiviset käytännöt naisvankilan yhteisökuntoutusosastolla. Aikuiskasvatus: Aikuiskasvatustieteellinen aikakauslehti, 44(3), 182-195.
Holmberg, L., & Saari, A. (2021). Itsehallinta vankiloiden kuntouttavassa ohjelmatyössä. In Brunila, K., Harni, E., Saari, A., & Ylöstalo, H. (eds.) Terapeuttinen valta: Onnellisuuden ja hyvinvoinnin jännitteitä 2000-luvun Suomessa (pp. 171-191). Tampere Vastapaino.
Kauko, J., Saari, A. & Tervasmäki, T. 2020. Government, Policy and the Role of the State in Secondary Education (Finland). In Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies. London: Bloomsbury. https://www.becs-bloomsbury.com/article?docid=b-9781350996489&tocid=b-9781350996489-002&st=
Piattoeva, N. & Saari, A. 2020. Rubbing against data infrastructure(s): Methodological explorations on working with(in) the impossibility of exteriority. Journal of Education Policy. Online first-version: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02680939.2020.1753814
Piattoeva, N. & Saari, A. 2018. The Infrastructures of Objectivity in Standardized Testing. In B. Maddox (ed.) International Large-Scale Assessments in Education: Insider Research Perspectives. London: Bloomsbury.
Ropo, E, Värri V-M. (2018). Complex conversations on curriculum : Ghosts and the five C’s revisited. Teoksessa Quinn Molly (toim.) Complexifying curriculum studies : Reflections on the generative and generous gifts of William E. Doll, Jr.. New York & London: Routledge, 182–190.
Saari, A. & Baker, B. (in press). Signature of Attention: Historical Ambiguities and Elisions in Contemporary Psychological Framings of Attending. Educational Theory.
Saari, A., Baker, B., Wang, L. & Tavares, H. (2024). Introduction to the Second volume. Aporias of Power: Witnessing, Space, and Technology. In B. Baker., A. Saari, L. Wang & H. Tavares (eds.) Flashpoint Epistemology Volume 2: Aporias of Complexity in Power, Politics and Methods in Education. Routledge, pp. 1–20.
Saari, A., Brunila, K. & Vainio, K. (2024) The Psychologisation of Student Subjectivity in the Finnish Academia. Sociological Research Online 29(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/13607804231221949
Saari A. & Decuypere, M. (2024). Governing by prototype and proto-practice: topological configurations of future classroom labs. Journal of Education Policy. Online first:https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2024.2304567
Saari, A & Varpanen J. (2024). Critical ambiguities – ambiguities of critique: Technologies of the self in entrepreneurial activism. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization.
Saari, A. (2024). Ghosts of data futures past: Revolution as repetition in datafied education research and governance. Critical Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2024.2400073
Saari, A. 2021. Topologies of desire: Fantasies and their symptoms in educational policy futures. European Educational Research Journal. Online first version: https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904120988389
Saari, A., Varpanen, J., & Kallio, J. (2022). Aktivismi ja itsekasvatus: Itsestä huolehtiminen prefiguratiivisena politiikkana. Aikuiskasvatus, 42(1), 37–49.https://journal.fi/aikuiskasvatus/article/view/115552
Saari, A & Varpanen J. (2024). Critical ambiguities – ambiguities of critique: Technologies of the self in entrepreneurial activism. Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization.
Saari, A. 2021. Kasvatusteoria antiikista nykypäivään. Helsinki: Gaudeamus.
Saari, A 2020. Diagrams of Feedback: Behaviorism, Programmed Instruction and Cybernetic Planning. In T. Popkewitz, D. Pettersson, and K-J. Hsiao (eds.) The International Emergence of Educational Sciences in the Post-World War Two Years Quantification, Visualization, and Making Kinds of People. New York: Routledge, 169–186.
Saari, A. 2020. Transference, Desire, and the Logic of Emancipation: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Transformative Learning. In P. Trifonas (Ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research in Cultural Studies and Education. Springer.
Saari, A. 2019. Transference and the Gateless Barrier: A Relational Approach to Contemplative Education. Journal of Transformative Education. Online first version: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1541344619863566
Saari, A. 2019. Out of the box: behaviourism and the mangle of practice. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 40(1), 109-121.
Saari, A. 2018. Emotionalities of rule in pedagogical mindfulness literature. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion 15 (2), 141-154.
Saari, A. & Säntti, J. 2018. The rhetoric of the ‘digital leap’ in Finnish educational policy documents. European Educational Research Journal 17(3), 442-457.
Saari, A. & Tervasmäki, T. (in press) Mirror for the People – Disruptions and Aporias in National Curriculum Documents. Historia de la Educaciòn.
Saari A. Tervasmäki T., Värri V.-M. 2017. Opetussuunnitelma valtiollisen yhtenäisyyden rakentajana. In Autio Tero, Hakala Liisa, Kujala Tiina (eds.) Opetussuunnitelmatutkimus : Keskustelunavauksia suomalaiseen kouluun ja opettajankoulutukseen. Tampere: Tampere University Press, 83–108
Säntti, J., Hansen, P. & Saari, A. 2021. Future jamming: Rhetoric of new knowledge in Finnish educational policy texts. Policy Futures in Education. Online first version: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1478210320985705
Tervasmäki, T. 2018. Tasa-arvoa yksilö vai yhteisö edellä? Perusopetuksen opetussuunnitelman perusteiden 2014 tasa-arvokäsitys. Teoksessa Risto Rinne, Nina Haltia, Sonia Lempinen & Tuuli Kaunisto (toim.) Eriarvoistuva maailma – tasa-arvoistava koulu? Kasvatusalan tutkimuksia. Jyväskylä: Suomen Kasvatustieteellinen Seura, 123–144.
Tervasmäki, T., Okkolin, M-A, Kauppinen, I. 2018. Changing the heart and soul? Inequalities in Finland’s current pursuit of a narrow education policy. Policy Futures in Education. Published online first. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210318811031
Tervasmäki, T. & Tomperi, T. 2018. Koulutuspolitiikan arvovalinnat ja suunta satavuotiaassa Suomessa. niin & näin 2/2018, 164–200. http://www.netn.fi/node/7333.
Tomperi, T. 2019. Avoin julkaiseminen ja kotimaisen tiedekustantamisen tulevaisuus. niin & näin 1/2019, 89–97. http://netn.fi/sites/www.netn.fi/files/netn191-13.pdf
POISED 
