Avainsana: finland

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Examining the psychologization of student subjectivity in Finnish universities

In a recent article in Sociological Research Online Antti Saari, together with Kristiina Brunila and Saara Vainio (University of Helsinki) analyze the assemblages involved in constructing the university student as a mentally vulnerable individual.

Abstract: Public debate and media attention concerning mental health problems, stress, psycho-emotional vulnerabilities, and anxiety among university students has reached record level. Informed by media representations, student mental health guides, and our observations, we focus on the ethos of vulnerability as an articulation of psychologized student subjectivity in Finnish academia. We explore the multiple registers in which the ethos of vulnerability tends to operate as an assemblage to depict and govern student subjects.

You can access the OA article The Psychologization of Student Subjectivity in the Finnish Academia here.

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New article on Future Classroom Labs out in Journal of Education Policy

How do new classroom designs travel and transform across Europe?  Antti Saari and Mathias Decuypere look at how Future Classroom Lab, a novel classroom concept created and hosted by European Schoolnet, operates as a prototype and proto-practice.  

Abstract: The study of topological policy cultures highlights a tendency in policy spaces to undo the effects of topographical and cultural distances and differences. In contemporary education policy trends, such traits are present in the attempts to reimagine classroom spaces. A case in point is Future Classroom Lab (FCL), a physical classroom concept developed and spread across Europe, which promotes the use of digital technologies and divides the classroom into different functional ‘zones’. We analyse FCL as a prototype that incites open exploration in the use and design of classrooms. We argue that prototypes are sometimes equally morphing into proto-practices, which are practised forms of prototypes that are in constant flux, enabling new and different functions, meanings and emotions to emerge. Prototypes and proto-practices secure the continuous transformation of policy spaces through relatively open variation, differentiation and exploration. As such, they are emblematic of contemporary topological policy cultures.

The article (Open Access) can be found here.

Image: European Schoolnet

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Recently published articles: Finnish policy futures of school spaces and knowledges. Open access.

In educational policy visions, it is customary to present Finnish school system as outdated and alienated from the surrounding society. Despite success in PISA, schools are allegedly the last bastion of resistance to the global changes in work and learning in the 21st century.

School architecture and new learning environments

In a new study, POISED researcher Antti Saari analyses recent policy visions in new school architecture and learning environments.

There has been a growing tendency – over the last decade or so – to focus on envisioning school architecture and the future of the comprehensive school network.

Finnish schools have been involved in a public debate about public buildings with dangerously poor indoor air, leading to either expensive renovations or building new schools altogether. Finland also has a rapidly ageing population, which – combined with growing urbanisation – means that schools are being closed in rural areas, while new and bigger units are being constructed in metropolitan areas.

In addition, the country’s success in PISA has meant there has been a surge in establishing education export initiatives, not only with regards to pedagogical expertise, but the whole ‘package’ of schools with curricula, technology and well-equipped facilities. All these features have created a bustling market for school architecture and new learning environments, which in turn would explain the high number of policy documents about future learning environments in the last decade.

Saari analyzes how visions of new learning environments operate as political fantasies that promise creativity, pleasure and fulfilment in flexible spaces.

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

Future knowledges

Another recent article traces the Finnish rhetoric of future skills and knowledges in educational policy documents.

Policy actors from ministries to think tanks and lobbyists highlight individuality, creativity and freedom as values widely recognized in the Finnish knowledge society. Yet allegedly this is not the case in schools, which are still organized according to structures of mass production, i.e. the same contents and methods for everyone.

In the allegedly outdated Finnish school system, knowledge is seen as a something that can be amassed and as retaining its value in the future. In the future, however no amount of subject knowledge in, for example, history or geography alone can serve the needs of society. It is rather general skills, mindsets and attunements such as creativity and flexibility that can enable individuals to adapt to different situations.

Janne Säntti, Petteri Hansen and Antti Saari analyze how policy rhetoric highlights play, innovation and improvisation as key principles to be adopted in envisioning future school knowledge and skills.

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