February greetings from the FuturEd-project. The beginning of the year is always busy with both research and teaching. Our FuturEd-project members are all active parts of the academic community, and it is no surprise that we have had some fascinating announcements to make.

Publication news

We are glad to let you know that a research paper by university lecturer Janne Säntti and colleagues about future rhetorics in Finnish education policy discussions was published recently. In the article titled “Future jamming: Rhetoric of new knowledge in Finnish educational policy texts”, they conclude that the future in Finnish education in policy texts is framed through fear of missing out on future development and through ties between education and labour markets. The article is published in the highly esteemed Policy Futures in Education -journal and can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1478210320985705.

Another exciting publication coming soon examines the privatization and marketization of early childhood education in Finland. This groundbreaking article by university lecturers Satu Valkonen,  Jaana Pesonen and professor  Kristiina Brunila discuss the emerging markets for private actors in Finnish early childhood education. Paper is accepted for publication in Kasvatus -journal.

In addition to these excellent pieces of work, a new book about therapeutic power in Finland is coming out soon. The book “Terapeuttinen valta: Onnellisuuden ja hyvinvoinnin jännitteitä 2000-luvulla [Therapeutic Power: Tensions of Happiness and Wellbeing in 21st Century] will be published by Vastapaino later this year. Edited by professor Kristiina Brunila, Esko Harni, Antti Saari and Hanna Ylöstalo, this book brings together the latest research about therapeutic power in the Finnish society, institutions and in personal life. It is the first edited collection discussing the topic in Finnish context.

Last but not least, Dr Petteri Hansen, together with his colleagues from Denmark and Norway, published a comparative research article about future expectations for schools and education. In the paper titled “Managing expectations by projecting the future school: Observing the Nordic future school reports via temporal topologies”, the authors conclude that seemingly similar Nordic contexts produce somewhat different future projections. The article is published in European Educational Research Journal and can be found here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1474904121995695.


Event news

We are very proud to announce that we will host a public and open access seminar in the first week of June! Our planning team is currently setting the date and time and inviting interesting speakers to join us. Mark your calendars; more information coming soon!

Some of our members participated and gave presentations in Interrupting Youth Support Systems in the Ethos of Vulnerability (CoSupport) projects (funded by Academy of Finland and led by prof Kristiina Brunila) final seminar: Youth and Mental Health from other Perspectives (Nuoret, mieli ja terveys toisin nähtynä). The full programme for the seminar is here: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/cosupport/2020/12/11/nuoret-mieli-ja-terveys-toisin-nahtyna/.

Next month you can find many of our researchers giving presentations at the Annual conference of Westermark Society. The conference will be arranged online Mach 11-12^th. For example, our postdoc researcher Katariina Mertanen will discuss her postdoc research under the title: Drawing the Line(s). Mapping the Trajectories of Precision Education Governance in Youth Education. Also, our PhD researcher Saara Vainio will give a presentation about her doctoral thesis related to precision education governance and psychologisation of youth education.

Other news

Our questionnaire about research ethics and integrity in studying marketization and privatization of education is almost ready, and after short piloting, we will start disseminating the questionnaire in our research networks. We are very excited about the interesting and important new data we hope this questionnaire will provide us. Our postdoc researcher Helena Hinke Dobrochinski Candido, has done incredible work leading this project forwards!

 

Happy new year 2021 from our FuturEd research project! The year 2020 was unexpected and surprising, and our project has continued despite all tumultuous circumstances.

December was incredibly productive and busy for all of us – we held FuturEd seminar about research ethics in research about the marketisation of education with our colleagues from the Education Inc. -research project from the University of Malmö. Many of us also participated in two major Finnish conferences, FERA Conference on Education and the Symposium of Higher Education. We had many opportunities to present our research results, and here are a few highlights:

Research updates:

In our FuturEd seminar on ethics in the marketisation of education research, we had two engaging presentations. Professor Malin Ideland and Dr Anna Jobér from the University of Malmö talked about the cooperation with EdTech -companies and doing critical ethnographic research about the marketisation of education. University lecturer, Dr Satu Valkonen also gave a presentation about experiences in researching the privatisation of early childhood education in Finland.

Our project leader, professor Kristiina Brunila, participated in both of previously mentioned conferences. She acted as a discussant in a roundtable discussing whether education policy in Finland is turning into ‘pop-up’ politics in the Symposium of Higher Education. In the FERA Conference, she also reflected the role of teacher and researcher amid economic incentives permeating academia as a part of a symposium about sustainable education and curriculum research.

Antti Saari, our colleague and assistant professor from the University of Tampere, discussed the role of freedom in education and schooling in the same symposium. He also participated, as did professor Brunila and PhD researcher Saara Vainio, and professor Janne Säntti, all from the University of Helsinki to the pre-seminar about the decontextualisation of education.

Last but not least, I will mention the presentation university lecturers Jaana Pesonen, and Satu Valkonen gave about the governance in early childhood education. Dr Pesonen also discussed her research about children’s literature in a TV interview by National Broadcasting Company YLE: https://areena.yle.fi/1-50700592

Other news:

Our webpages will be updated soon! We have exiting publication (and other) news coming up, and all the information will be updated. We will also start to publish these monthly newsletters with reports about our research, publication, funding, cooperation etc.

We are planning to collect data about the ethical issues, and dilemmas researchers have been facing when researching privatisation and marketisation of education together with our colleagues at the University of Malmö. More information coming soon!

Professor Brunila published a text about the issues and problems regarding tenure track -systems in Finnish universities. The text can be found here: https://blogi.professoriliitto.fi/

Antti Saari’s new book “Kasvatusteoria antiikista nykypäivään” has been published. More information: https://www.gaudeamus.fi/kasvatusteoriaantiikistanykypaivaan/

Katariina Mertanen defended her PhD about youth policies and youth policy implementations in November. Her opponent was professor Deborah Youdell from the University of Birmingham. PhD summary is published here: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/320548 Katariina will continue her research as a post-doc researcher in FuturEd.