In this paper we examine the objectives and meanings of the career guidance provided in comprehensive education as set out in discussions in the Parliament of Finland. We approach the topic through an exploration of parliamentary sessions concerning three major legislative proposals for reforming compulsory education in Finland. The premise is…

This article is an ethnography of a student protest against a Finnish university's plans to give up 25 percent of its campus buildings until 2030. The Finnish universities faced financial deficits primarily due to education cuts implemented by Finland's right-wing government between 2015 and 2019. To balance the budget, Tampere University proposed…

In conducting a literature review, this article explores changes to Adult Learning and Education (ALE) policies and related processes as well as the context within which those changes have taken place, so as to draw out comparative insights regarding the unequal distribution of participation in ALE. Emphasis is on an analysis of political…

Fleshing out the definition of comprehensive education to include vital issues related to the act of teaching, this article considers reforms to be undertaken by practitioners alongside the political legislation required to achieve a fully comprehensive system of secondary schools. The effects of selection, such as the widening attainment gap, the…

This chapter provides the Finnish scope on cultural and social foundations of ethical educational leadership. Finland is often seen as an outlier. Predominant transnational trends are recognized but they tend to reach Finland with a delay and manifest themselves somewhat differently from the mainstream. There are contextual reasons for the…

This theoretical article focuses on reasonable accommodation in education by offering conceptual tools that could prove beneficial in resolving policy concerns for equity in music education. Providing reasonable accommodation entails making necessary and appropriate modifications that may include depending on the circumstances, physical or…

This article addresses the role of the state and state formation in the establishment of national education during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Through a comparative case analysis of two countries at the European periphery (Finland and Turkey), this article shows how national educational systems, in both instances, were…

This article examines the implementation of new special education legislation in Finland among students with significant disabilities. The data consist of a nationwide survey and field observations. In the analysis, a policy implementation framework is utilized as a theoretical lens. The findings suggest that schools and municipalities that had…

This article compares recent governance reforms in Finnish and Portuguese higher education (HE) systems and institutions (HEIs). Although Portugal and Finland differ significantly, both the countries have recently undertaken similar HE legislative reforms. This article analyses the contexts and implementation processes of these legal frameworks:…

Owing to their common history, similarities in language and culture, long traditions in political collaboration and the shared Nordic societal model, an assumption is often made that the operational and regulatory context of universities is similar in the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. In this article, we…

In this article we review legislation and bylaws that relate to school bullying. This review focuses on the differences in how bullying is defined by researchers and legislators. It further examines how some laws identify bullying specifically, whereas others address more general acts of aggression. Some laws pertain to the school environment,…

American teachers unions are increasingly the target of measures, authored by friends and foes alike, intended to limit their power or eviscerate them. One would never guess that the countries that are among the top 10 in student performance have some of the strongest teachers unions. Are those unions in some way different from American teachers…

China has recently launched a radical reform to transform over 600 regional universities into application and technology oriented institutions. The reform is a response to diverse labour market demands, regional economic development and the suboptimal structure of the higher education system, and uses international experiences as a reference.…

In 2009, the Finnish parliament passed a new Universities Act that aimed to strengthen the institutional autonomy of the country's universities. But why and how did the idea of autonomy come to frame the reform agenda in the overt way it did? In analysing a sample of authoritative policy and strategy papers by the key stakeholders in the higher…

This article presents some aspects of multilingualism and multilingual education in the Nordic countries, drawing upon experiences from the project "Network for Researchers of Multilingualism and Multilingual Education, RoMME" (2011-2013), where Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden are represented. The aim is to briefly present and…