From PISA to national branding: exploring Finnish education®

Schatz, Monika; Popović, A.Ž.; Dervin, Fred

doi:10.1080/01596306.2015.1066311

Cited by 23 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Thus, while implying that the Finnish educational outlook needs to be renewed, it also announces that future education exports will be viewed as "a normal activity" in Finnish higher education, indicating its current exceptionality. The ministry's strategy has been criticized by Finnish scholars for being too vague (Schatz, 2016;Schatz et al, 2017) and for promoting export activities that are too foreign for higher education institutions (Cai et al, 2013). Simpson (2018) has criticized the deployment of high-quality education and equality-branding as a form of discursive construction that can be understood as ethnocentric because it fosters "othering" between nations.…”

Section: Finnish Higher Education: Expanding the Nation's Education Brandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Simpson (2018) has criticized the deployment of high-quality education and equality-branding as a form of discursive construction that can be understood as ethnocentric because it fosters "othering" between nations. Thus, this kind of nation-branding can be perceived as being based on an over-simplistic image of education that ignores diversities and creates a hierarchy of nations (Schatz et al, 2017). Relating to aspects of quality and ethics, Finnish education exports are presented as being based on "sustainable development and mutual ethics" (Ministry of Education and Culture 2016, 2).…”

Section: Finnish Higher Education: Expanding the Nation's Education Brandmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Glocal” Transnational Higher Education: A Case Study of a Finnish-Vietnamese Collaboration

Hasanen¹

2020

IJLTER

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This article presents a case study and an analysis of transnational higher education programs from the perspective of a multidirectional interplay between global processes and national and institutional interests. Using journal articles, ministry reports, websites and documents from higher education institutions, the analysis focuses on the national and local negotiation of the two-folded discourse in transnational higher education. The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into the discourse prevalent in this field of research and shed light on the shared interests and converging aims of the transnational higher education partners. In this study, by applying approaches of discourse analysis, textual data are analyzed to make visible the assumptions on what is, can or will be understood as good and desirable in the context of transnational higher education. Methodologically, the study draws on the idea of the intertextuality of texts, emphasizing that texts are constructed in relation to other texts. Accordingly, the article shows how a case of transnational higher education between Finnish and Vietnamese higher education institutions can be gathered as an example of the hybrid global/local space of transnational education.

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Section: Finnish Higher Education: Expanding the Nation's Education Brandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Finnish Higher Education: Expanding the Nation's Education Brandmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Glocal” Transnational Higher Education: A Case Study of a Finnish-Vietnamese Collaboration

Hasanen¹

2020

IJLTER

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“…Consequently, education became an important asset in Finland's image and identity. In fact, Finland has invested considerably in the international educational export sector (Schatz et al 2016), and, although Finland's place in the international ranking dropped in the latest PISA assessment, it is still placed the highest in Europe. Here, our goal is to assess the variables that most distinguish Finland from the other countries participating in the PISA.…”

Section: The Finnish Educational System and The Pisamentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowledge Discovery from the Programme for International Student Assessment

Saarela

Kärkkäinen

2017

Learning Analytics: Fundaments, Applications, and Trends

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The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study that assesses the proficiencies of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics, and science every three years. Despite the high quality and open availability of the PISA data sets, which call for big data learning analytics, academic research using this rich and carefully collected data is surprisingly sparse. Our research contributes to reducing this deficit by discovering novel knowledge from the PISA through the development and use of appropriate methods. Since Finland has been the country of most international interest in the PISA assessment, a relevant review of the Finnish educational system is provided. This chapter also gives a background on learning analytics and presents findings from a novel case study. Similar to the existing literature on learning analytics, the empirical part is based on a student model; however, unlike in the previous literature, our model represents a profile of a national student population. We compare Finland to other countries by hierarchically clustering these student profiles from all the countries that participated in the latest assessment and validating the results through statistical testing. Finally, an evaluation and interpretation of the variables that explain the differences between the students in Finland and those of the remaining PISA countries is presented. Based on our analysis, we conclude that, in global terms, learning time and good student-teacher relations are not as important as collaborative skills and humility to explain students' success in the PISA test.

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“…Perhaps, though, these excerpts show how discourses on Finnish education can (re)produce discourses of cultural othering (Dervin, 2016;Said, 1978). Here one can see how the ventriloquist manipulates the voices of the puppet -the nation branding of Finnish education (Schatz et al, 2015). This means that when Others (culturally, linguistically, socially, geographically etc.)…”

Section: Excerpt 1 Taken From Wwwhundredfi 'Visions' Imentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Kapferer (2012, p. 2) argues "whether they like it or not, (countries) act de facto as a brand -a summary of unique values and benefits". The role of 'Finnish nation branding' and Finnish education 'as an economic export' has been discussed by Dervin (2015a), Schatz et al (2015) whereby Finnish education can be viewed through the context of an economically orientated export strategy (Kantola & Kettunen, 2012). In addition, the role of Finnish higher education export strategies (Schatz, 2016) has contributed to a vast amount of discourses on Finnish education creating an 'educational hegemonic position' (Varjo et al, 2013) and an educational 'hyper-brand' (Dervin, 2015a).…”

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confidence: 99%

Speaking from the Stomach? Ventriloquised Ethnocentrisms about Finnish Education

Simpson¹,

Dervin²

2017

educat prac theory

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In recent years the words 'Finnish education' are accompanied by utterances of 'an education miracle', 'the best education system', 'a success' and a number of other adjectives and superlatives to 'describe' education in Finland. While Finland's PISA ranking has declined media interest and discourses on 'Finnish education' have not relented. Seemingly, Finland's educational system is as popular as it has ever been. Finland's education system is viewed with 'international admiration' yet behind these discourses are a number of discursive contradictions. Using the discursive concept of ventriloquism (Tannen, 2010;Cooren, 2014) we show how 'Finnish education' has become ventriloquised -when 'Finnish education' is uttered a number of automatically generated responses are uttered by speakers. In this sense, discourses on 'the success of the Finnish education system' act as prevailing meta-discourses. We argue that, behind these constructs, can too easily lie ventriloquised discourses reinforcing and (re)producing Finnish ethnocentrisms, intercultural ignorance and a lack of regard for the other. Through analysing the discourses of specific educators and academics on 'Finnish education' we show that behind the 'hype' and meta-discourses on the Finnish education system lie possible sentiments of (hidden) ethnocentrisms, (hidden) xenophobia, and (hidden) racism.

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From PISA to national branding: exploring Finnish education®

Cited by 23 publications

References 34 publications

“Glocal” Transnational Higher Education: A Case Study of a Finnish-Vietnamese Collaboration

“Glocal” Transnational Higher Education: A Case Study of a Finnish-Vietnamese Collaboration

Knowledge Discovery from the Programme for International Student Assessment

Speaking from the Stomach? Ventriloquised Ethnocentrisms about Finnish Education

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