When social justice education is conducted in religious education (RE) classes, it can take the forms of education about (concepts and facts), into (enhancing commitment), with (negotiating practices) and through (pupil-led action) social justice. The first three approaches were used in seven RE lessons observed in urban Finnish lower secondary…

Equity-centred teacher education recognises the dual challenge of preparing teachers to support the learning of all students while encouraging future teachers to recognise and challenge societal systems reproducing inequity. The paper focuses on analysing Finnish student teachers' perceptions of teachers' skills related to diversity and equity.…

The aim of this article is to contribute to the under-researched topic of racism in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) by posing three questions: What kind of racism do ECEC teachers recognize in ECEC? How are teachers committed to opposing racism in their work? What kind of obstacles to committing to antiracism are recognized in…

This article explores affective alignment and epistemic polarization in the field of feminist research, resulting from the neoliberalization of the universities and a performance-oriented research economy. Previous research has described and analysed the 'epistemic splitting' that feminist scholars engage in to live up to standardized performance…

The focus of this article is on the history and current trends of feminist ethnography in Finland. It highlights the impact of feminist ethnography in Finnish educational research and illustrates how feminist ethnography has succeeded in asking novel questions and developing methodologies by drawing on multiple feminist theories. The article is…

Finland is widely said to have the best, or one of the best, educational systems in the world. This debatable view hides a lot of weaknesses and shortcomings, especially regarding issues around racism and discrimination. In Finland, issues of race, racism and other forms of discrimination are often hidden, silenced and ignored. This makes it…

Manifestations of educational inequity in diversifying societies have led to a wide acknowledgement of the need to develop all teachers' competencies to work in the context of diversity. The domain of beliefs and attitudes is generally included as one key component of teachers' intercultural competence, but there is little consensus over what the…

This article draws on case studies from abroad to illustrate what to avoid and what to promote in the quest for a socially just educational system. It first looks at the range of goals different countries have pursued in relation to education. It then focuses more closely on policies in a range of European countries, that have inhibited or enabled…

Previous research has shown that the importance of education for sustainability is acknowledged in Finnish early childhood education and care but not systematically put into practice. At present, curricula require considering social, cultural, economic and ecological sustainability in all activities. In this research, discourse analysis was used…

Cultural heterogenisation of classrooms and existing achievement gaps have led to an acknowledgement of the need to develop teachers' intercultural competencies. A growth mindset (a belief that intelligence, personality and other such qualities can be cultivated) predicts positive intergroup attitudes and reduces stereotyping, but has not been…

Policy evaluation studies, which assess the effect of an intervention, face statistical challenges: in real-world settings treatments are not randomly assigned and the analysis might be complicated by the presence of interference among units. Researchers have started to develop methods that allow to manage spillovers in observational studies;…

This article addresses key issues related to diverse cases of migration to complex multilingual environments within Europe. Data came from three case studies carried out within the scope of the MIME project: (ex-)Yugoslavian refugees to South Tyrol (Italy); Portuguese work migrants to Andorra; and international managers in Vasa (Finland). Data…

Many researchers have drawn attention to the importance of intersectionality and anti-racism in career guidance, but literature thus far contains few practical examples of how to go about dismantling ethnic and racial normativities that shape educational and labour market transitions. The aim of this article is to deepen the understanding of…

In this paper, we as the teachers and researchers of a course titled Global education development informed by theories of decoloniality, report on our analysis of our self-critical and constructive dialogue on the course design, its underlying assumptions, expectations, implementation, success and needs for improvement. We centered decoloniality…

As part of citizenship education, the prevention of radicalization and extremism through education (PVE-E) is an urgent initiative of global educational policy. According to research, radicalized individuals, despite the ideology held, have mindsets that challenge equality and social justice. In this light, this study examines the intergroup…