Purpose: The role of formal education is currently viewed as central in preventing violent radicalisation and extremism (VRE), however educators' understanding or competencies have not been developed accordingly. Therefore, this study investigates Finnish educators' perceptions of presumed manifestations of VRE among their students. Findings:…

This phenomenological research examines democracy education and the conditions contributing to young students' democratic agency. The dataset includes interview and observation data from a school and educational decision-makers. The findings from the iterative analysis highlight the contradictions between democracy education as an ideal and…

Although the relationship between religion and science has long been the subject of discussion, investigations into the how and why of people's science-religion perspectives are rare. This study examined how epistemic and ontological cognition predict agreement with four science-religion perspectives: conflict, independence, dialogue, and…

This article focuses on the university graduates' perceptions of their employability, and particularly how the social prestige of degrees relates to such perceptions. It defines employability in terms of positional conflict and makes an argument that perceptions of the employability and prestige are socially mediated and require social…

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;…

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…

An increasingly multilingual working life expects university graduates to possess multilingual competences, but at the same time many European students study fewer languages than before. As they learn about field-specific linguistic practices and contemplate their future, university students negotiate their identities as language learners and…

This article aims to identify and compare the characteristics of human agency in liberal and Islamic religious education, comparing Iran as a religious context influenced by Islamic state ideology with Finland as a liberal context and a secular state ideology. This comparison will be accomplished by document analysis of the national curricula for…

Bullying has been conceptualised as a phenomenon that focuses mainly on individuals and individual behaviour. We seek to broaden the discussion on bullying by describing and defining how teachers participate in and/or enable bullying, and to thus expand the notion of bullying as individual behaviour to include actors, norms and processes. This…

In this article I analyse merit-based exclusion in Finnish music schools for children and young people. I base my study on my earlier research on meritocracy and written data collected online from current and former music school students in the autumn and winter of 2015-2016. I am able to show there are implicit and explicit merit-based…

Drawing on Foucauldian genealogy and the methodological approaches of cultural studies, the authors address the question of how assumptions of citizenship have functioned in Finnish cultural texts on swimming. The analysis is developed from texts from the early twentieth century to the present day. Based on a theoretical approach that combines the…

The purpose of this study was to find out what kind of worldviews Finnish principals identify in their schools and the kind of lived realities of worldviews that are affecting schools from the perspective of school leadership. The issues were considered using a wide worldview framework, which includes religious and non-religious worldviews and…

The purpose of this study is to examine profiles of students' attitudes toward citizenship norms and inclusiveness in the political process, focusing on changes in the frequency of particular profiles and in the strength of predictors across a decade. Using data from 16 countries participating in the 1999 and 2009 International Association for the…

Populist radical right (PRR) parties have attracted anti-migration voters by claiming to serve the interests of nationally defined in-groups. Recently, several European PRR parties have shifted focus from protecting traditional values to protecting so-called modern Western values, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. Here, we…

The Nordic countries have often been depicted as progressive societies regarding sexual diversity and gender equality. These progressive changes in sexual minority issues, however, have not brought about radical changes in educational policies in addressing gender and sexual equality in schools. Both compulsory and upper secondary education often…