School lockdowns in response to COVID-19 have forced teachers around the world to quickly and unexpectedly shift from face-to-face to distance teaching. The struggle with the forced transition has been even more severe in the lower levels of schooling than in higher education institutions, which had already established online course delivery…

This article explores the deployment of numerical criteria in the practices of steering by presenting a local case of governing early childhood education (ECE). In this case, a specific numerical tool for governance, namely, child-staff ratio is used in various ways in the everyday life of preschools. This paper uses data from interviews of…

The goal of early childhood programming is to provide children with high-quality early care and to support educators' understanding and ability to implement high-quality practices on behalf of children and their families. Quality in early childhood care is an ambiguous concept, relative to various social and context-specific factors, making it…

Over the past 15 years, Finland has performed very well on international student achievement tests. Although Finland's results have slightly deteriorated from those at the beginning of the 21st century, Finnish students still perform very well in all comparative international surveys such as PISA, TIMSS and ICCS. The Finnish school system seems to…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be considered an everyday practice in many parts of the United States, whereas, in Finland, only recently has a new framework for support in learning taken shape. Choosing Finland as the comparative partner for this policy paper is justified as its educational system has been widely referenced on the basis of…

Teachers are seen as the main reason behind the high, equal, and consistent student performance in Finland as measured by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), and there is a lot of truth in this. Candidates for teacher training programs are selected through a rigorous process, for example. However, using primarily the case of…

Examined how family and day care are integrated in children's lives in the United States, Russia, and Finland. Found that congruence between parents' and teachers' views concerning upbringing and education was very high within societies, while opinions between societies differed greatly. Results suggest that implementation of early education in…