Action and events

Action and events

FuturEd -project’s researchers are active members of both the scientific community and public discussions concerning the future trajectories of education. Here you can find up-to-date information about upcoming events, public speeches and research seminars.

Read here more about our previous events.


Upcoming events:

AGORA for the Study of Social Justice and Equality in Education warmly welcomes you to webinar “Abraham and Moses as Entrepreneurs: Educating for the Future with Narratives of the Past” by Sari Alfi-Nissan, Bar-Ilan University, Israel on April 26th, 10-12.00 UTC +3. Webinar is arranged in collaboration with Interrupting Future Trajectories of Precision Education Governance (FuturEd) -project and Critical Sociology and Philosophy in Education (CRISP) -international research seminar.

Chairs: Kristiina Brunila and Katariina Mertanen

Zoom-address:

https://helsinki.zoom.us/j/68721522685?pwd=Mm40ZExUS2VJKzlyY0ZyRE5HWFdwQT09

Abstract:

Abraham and Moses as Entrepreneurs:

Educating for the Future with Narratives of the Past

Late modernity raised the entrepreneurial ethos in school education in different countries. Global entrepreneurial and aspirational discourses highlight personal autonomy while promoting individualistic and neoliberal values. Therefore, the manifestation of the entrepreneurial discourse in Israeli public education which heavily echoes ethno-nationalistic and collectivist discourses presents a paradox. Through a multi-focal qualitative study among policymakers and in public schools, this study shows how this paradox is resolved in the context of Israeli education by presenting a hybrid entrepreneurial-nationalistic ideal self. The Israeli educational discourse is a unique conjunction in which ethno-nationalistic values are recruited to strengthen the entrepreneurial ethos, while neoliberal values and narratives are used to strengthen an ethnic-nationalistic identity. As neoliberal and ethnonational narratives are weaved together, the local discourse reclaims and reproduces social in/exclusion, marking social boundaries and perpetuating inequality. The research contributes to the understanding of processes of education policy enactment as a multidimensional process and to the literature illuminating how discourse (re)shapes the social, by showing how a global educational discourse is redesigned and translated within a socio-political context.

Sari R. Alfi-Nissan is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and a member of CRISP (Critical Sociology and Philosophy of Education) Research group led by Prof. Kristiina Brunila, AGORA Centre for the Study of Social Justice and Equality in Education, University of Helsinki. Sari’s research focuses on the formation of self and identity in the iGeneration era in Israeli education and among youth. Sari was granted the Presidential Award of Distinction and the Rector Award of Distinction for her PhD studies. In 2021 she was a visiting postgraduate researcher at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent, UK. Sari teaches various methodological courses, using qualitative and quantitative methods, and is also a novelist and a columnist. She combines her research experience with her performing and writing background to teach Storytelling of Empirical Knowledge. Sari’s research interests are sociology of self and identity, sociology of space and culture, sociology of education, youth, and globalisation.

Website: www.sarialfi.com

 

 


FuturEd’s ongoing research seminars

Affiliated members of the FuturEd-Project arrange regular monthly research seminars in order to discuss changes in education governance, marketisation, privatisation, digitalisation, datafication, psychologisation and neuroliberalism. For more information, please contact Dr Katariina Mertanen at katariina.mertanen@helsinki.fi.