In Finnish early childhood education and care, partnership has been introduced as a general approach in the parent-practitioner collaboration. Based on qualitative interviews with practitioners, the article studies, from a social constructionist and discourse analytic perspective, whether partnership is actualised in parent-practitioner…

Problem solving is a critical skill for engineering students and essential to development of creativity and innovativeness. Essential to such learning is an ease of communication and allowing students to address the issues at hand via the terminology, attitudes, humor and empathy, which is inherent to their frame of mind as novices, without the…

Many educators feel like the proverbial "bad child" who is always in trouble and told all the things he cannot do. A cacophony of voices arising from such books as "Disrupting Class" (2008), "Grown Up Digital" (2008), and "The World is Flat" (2007), declares the shortcomings of education and dire…

Higher education and public research play an important role in economic development, mainly in industrial research and development (R & D) and innovation through the manufacturing sector. Finland has taken great strides in this regard as it represents a Europeanization of a knowledge system in the European Union, being relevant at the…

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a research conducted to evaluate the effect of e-learning experience on students' perceived learning outcomes, and more specifically the role of motivation and collaboration as moderators between the e-learning experience and the learning outcome. The perceived learning outcome was measured…

This paper discusses strategic instruments that are used to enhance the competitiveness of Finnish universities in the context of globalisation, internationalisation and commercialisation of research and education. The Finnish higher education system is currently undergoing a major policy reform, which aims to enhance the competitiveness of…

As large as Finland is small, as rich in natural resources as Finland is not, bordered by smaller, peaceable nations to the north and south and large oceans to the east and west, nobody has ever come to America and forced its people to rename and reorganize their colleges and universities--or, for that matter, to do anything else. Americans are…

This paper is based on the assumption that action research always affects the micropolitical balance characteristic of a certain school setting. The authors claim that micropolitics, that is the patterns of formal power and informal influence, has largely been neglected in the literature on action research in schools. This means that action…

Although Finland currently holds the top ratings in international comparisons ranking education and children's health, there is evidence that the health of Finnish adolescents is being threatened by increasing obesity, serious risk behavior, and other health problems. In addition, subjective well-being at school is regarded as low by students.…

The paper proposes a framework for collaborative knowledge production in order to enhance the amount and quality of knowledge in the field of organizational development (OD). We distinguish three types of actors that offer development services for work organizations: academic R&D units, training and educational institutes and management…

This article reveals how educational policies and policy contexts in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Australia establish the circumstances which enable and constrain individual and collective teacher professional development as praxis. We provide insights into existing partnerships between universities and schools, and, municipalities and the state as…

This paper analyses and discusses the roles and participation of those involved in a collaborative action research project to highlight the factors that influenced their content, quality and intensity. Emphasis is given to the reflections of the facilitator (author) on the processes employed to achieve equal participation and roles in the action…

This article focuses on ethical issues faced in evaluation practice from the viewpoint of third generation of activity theory, which gives a constructive perspective on how contradictions can be a driving force behind interorganizational learning and development in multiactor networks. The problem field is firstly addressed through an illustration…

Societal conditions impacting on parenting have radically changed during the past two decades. There is variation between and within societies depending on social, cultural, political and economic factors. Today, Early Childhood and Care (ECEC) services play an increasingly important role in supporting families with young children during birth to…

The authors discuss the results of a study in which they investigated 68 university-level media education students' knowledge of Web 2.0 and their conceptions about its impact on media literacy. The main research finding was that the students argued firmly in favor of new media literacy. Their own use of Web 2.0 applications was, however, rather…