Education and Inequality in Finland, Spain and Brazil

Abstract

Finland, Spain and Brazil are three very internally complex and heterogeneous realities, with contradictions and permanent reforms to their education systems. In a first quantitative approach each country can be placed in a continuum of the education system that goes from most successful in terms of reaching a high level of education all across the population, in conditions of equity and facilitating youths’ incorporation into the labour market, to least successful, with Finland and Brazil occupying either end of the spectrum respectively and Spain occupying an intermediate situation. Although there are differences, they share certain tensions in their respective education systems. On the one hand, about the conception of education, ranging from more utilitarian, human capital theories, to the more humanist and civic-minded perspective. On the other hand, the challenge of comprehensiveness between an academic and a vocational path. In addition, there is also the challenge of improving the education level of the population while also improving equality. The tensions differ from country to country, since their education traditions and cooperation and conflict strategies between the education agents, with varying levels of resources and different alliances with political actors vary, as does the social consensus.