The Finnish miracle of PISA: historical and sociological remarks on teaching and teacher education
01 Sep 2013-Vol. 17, Iss: 2, pp 153-169
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present some of the social, cultural and historical factors behind the pedagogical success of the Finnish comprehensive school and present two paradoxes that could be considered meaningful and important in attempts to understand Finnish comprehensive schooling.
Abstract: One of the recent tributes to the success of Finnish schooling was the PISA 2000 project report. As befits the field of education, the explanations are primarily pedagogical, referring especially to the excellent teachers and high-quality teacher education. Without underrating the explanatory power of these statements, this paper presents some of the social, cultural and historical factors behind the pedagogical success of the Finnish comprehensive school. From the perspectives of history and the sociology of education, it also sheds light on some ironic paradoxes and dilemmas that may be concealed by the success. The focus is on the problematic nature of international comparative surveys based on school performance indicators. The question is whether they really make it possible to understand schooling in different countries, or whether they are just part of processes of ‘international spectacle’ and ‘mutual accountability’. By way of conclusion, I will present two paradoxes that could be considered meaningful and important in attempts to understand Finnish comprehensive schooling today and in the near future.
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the impact of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) on national education systems in Europe and beyond, and concluded that PISA has become an indirect but nonetheless influential tool of the new political technology of governing the European education space by numbers.
Abstract: This paper examines the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which has become a major and influential component of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) educational work. This measure of comparative performance of educational systems of member and other nations is based on tests commissioned by the OECD. The paper discusses the role of the OECD in establishing the ‘comparative’ turn and also describes PISA, its management and effects. It provides three examples of the impact of PISA in Finland, Germany and the UK before moving the focus to its impacts at the transnational level, through an examination of how key European policy actors see PISA and its effects. The paper concludes that PISA, through its direct impact on national education systems in Europe and beyond, has become an indirect, but nonetheless influential tool of the new political technology of governing the European education space by numbers.
871 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that system-wide excellence in student learning is attainable at reasonable cost, using education policies differing from conventional market-oriented reform strategies prevalent in many other countries.
Abstract: This article argues that system‐wide excellence in student learning is attainable at reasonable cost, using education policies differing from conventional market‐oriented reform strategies prevalent in many other countries. In this respect, Finland is an example of a nation that has developed from a remote agrarian/industrial state in the 1950s to a model knowledge economy, using education as the key to economic and social development. Relying on data from international student assessments and earlier policy analysis, this article describes how steady improvement in student learning has been attained through Finnish education policies based on equity, flexibility, creativity, teacher professionalism and trust. Unlike many other education systems, consequential accountability accompanied by high‐stakes testing and externally determined learning standards has not been part of Finnish education policies. The insight is that Finnish education policies intended to raise student achievement have been built upon...
548 citations
TL;DR: The authors provides a contextualised and critical policy analysis of the Rudd government's national schooling agenda in Australia, focusing on the introduction of national literacy and numeracy testing and the recent creation by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority of the website "My School" which lists the results of these tests for all Australian schools, including school performance against averages and against the performance of 60 other socio-economically "like-schools" across the nation.
Abstract: This paper provides a contextualised and critical policy analysis of the Rudd government's national schooling agenda in Australia. The specific focus is on the introduction of national literacy and numeracy testing and the recent creation by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority of the website ‘My School’, which lists the results of these tests for all Australian schools, including school performance against averages and against the performance of 60 other socio-economically ‘like-schools’ across the nation. It is argued that we are seeing the emergence of a national system of schooling (including national curriculum) as part of the reconstitution of the nation in the face of globalization and related economisation of education policy. This is the case despite Australia's federal political structure with the States holding the ostensible Constitutional responsibility for schooling. The analysis locates these and associated developments (a national schooling policy ensemble) within ...
529 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that increased high-stakes testing is restricting students' conceptual learning, engaging in creative action and understanding innovation, all of which are essential elements of contemporary schooling in a knowledge society.
Abstract: Competition between schools combined with test-based accountability to hold schools accountable for predetermined knowledge standards have become a common solution in educational change efforts to improve the performance of educational systems around the world. This is happening as family and community social capital declines in most parts of developed world. Increased competition and individualism are not necessarily beneficial to creating social capital in schools and their communities. This article argues that: (1) the evidence remains controversial that test-based accountability policies improve the quality and efficiency of public education; (2) the current practice of determining educational performance by using primarily standardized knowledge tests as the main means of accountability is not a necessary condition for much needed educational improvement; and (3) there is growing evidence that increased high-stakes testing is restricting students’ conceptual learning, engaging in creative action and understanding innovation, all of which are essential elements of contemporary schooling in a knowledge society. Finland is used as an example to suggest that educational change should rather contribute to increasing networking and social capital in schools and in their communities through building trust and strengthening collective responsibilities within and between schools. This would create better prospects of worthwhile lifelong learning in and out of schools. Based on this analysis, the article concludes that education policies should be directed at promoting more intelligent forms of accountability to meet external accountability demands and to encourage cooperation rather than competition among students, teachers and schools.
316 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the outstanding performance of Shanghai, China on PISA 2009 and its effects on other national systems and within the global education policy field and found that Shanghai's performance produced a global 'PISA-shock' that has repositioned this system as a significant new reference society.
Abstract: This paper examines the outstanding performance of Shanghai, China on PISA 2009 and its effects on other national systems and within the global education policy field. The OECD's PISA is helping to create this field by constituting the globe as a commensurate space of school system performance. The effects of Shanghai's success are considered in three other national contexts: the USA, England and Australia. We combine (a) analysis of data from more than 30 research interviews with senior policy actors at the OECD, the IEA and within Australia and England; and (b) document analysis of policy speeches, commissioned research reports and media coverage from the three national contexts. Shanghai's performance in PISA 2009 produced a global ‘PISA-shock’ that has repositioned this system as a significant new ‘reference society’, shifting the global gaze in education from Finland to the ‘East’ at the beginning of the so-called ‘Asian century’.
280 citations
References
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the role of mass education expansion in a world organized politically as nation-states and candidate states and found that mass education spreads in a S-shaped diffusion pattern.
Abstract: Newly available enrollment data for over 120 countries for the period 1870-1980 are used to examine theories of mass educational expansion. Event-history analyses indicate that mass educational systems appeared at a steady rate before the 1940s and sharply increased after 1950. Pooled panel regressions show that the expansion of mass education, once formed, followed an S-shaped diffusion pattern before 1940, continuing with added force later. Expansion is endemic in the system. National variation exists; indications of national modernization or of structural location in world society, however, have only modest effects. It seems that mass education spreads in a world organized politically as nation-states and candidate states. Rates of appearance of mass education and of expansion accelerated sharply after World War II, with the intensification of the nation-state model and the centrality of mass education in this model.
761 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce an interpretation of the current condition of the field of comparative education and discuss the current comparative practices, arguing that comparative educational studies are used as a political tool creating...
Abstract: This text is not a research paper, nor an epistemological reflection about the field of comparative education. It is an essay in the literal meaning of the word—‘an attempt, trial, that needs to be put to test in order to understand if it is able to fulfil the expectations’—in which we introduce an interpretation of the current condition of the field of comparative education. In the introduction to this essay we discuss the current phenomenon of a regained popularity of comparative educational research. We believe that this situation has both positive and negative consequences: it can contribute to the renewal of the field or it may be no more than a brief fashion. Our reflections focus on the uses of comparative research in education, not on any precise research question. Even so, only for illustrative purposes, we present some examples related to the European Union. We then go on to discuss current comparative practices, arguing that comparative educational studies are used as a political tool creating ...
403 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the issues of critical thinking traditions within education and explores a broad range of 'disciplined theories that question the ways in which power works through the discursive practices and performances of schooling' Following an introduction by Thomas S Popkewitz, the monograph contains the following essays: A social epistemology of educational research, critical thinking and critical pedagogy: relations, differences and limits, Emergent identity versus consistent identity.
Abstract: This book examines the issues of critical thinking traditions within education The authors were invited to contribute essays critically analysing the changing nature of education theory and exploring a broad range of 'disciplined theories that question the ways in which power works through the discursive practices and performances of schooling' Following an introduction by Thomas S Popkewitz, the monograph contains the following essays: A social epistemology of educational research / Thomas S Popkewitz; Critical thinking and critical pedagogy: relations, differences and limits / Nicholas C Burbules and Rupert Berk; Emergent identity versus consistent identity: possibilities for a postmodern repoliticization of critical pedagogy / Siebren Miedema and Willem L Wardekker; Critical theory and political sociology of education: arguments / Carlos Alberto Torres; Philosophy of education, Frankfurt critical theory, and the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu / Staf Callewaert; The mode of information and education: insights on critical theory from Michel Foucault / James D Marshall; Making trouble: prediction, agency, and critical intellectuals / Lynn Fendler; (Dis)locating thoughts: where do the birds go after the last sky? / Pradeep A Dhillon; Reconstructing Dewey's critical philosophy: toward a literary pragmatist criticism / Lynda Stone; and Critical education and the liberal arts / Jo Anne Pagano
314 citations
TL;DR: The authors used pupil responses to the PISA study in 2000 for all EU countries using indicators of the pupil intakes to schools and their outcomes and computes segregation indices for 15 countries, and then tries to explain the resulting patterns in terms of the characteristics of national school systems.
Abstract: This paper uses pupil responses to the PISA study in 2000 for all EU countries Using indicators of the pupil intakes to schools and their outcomes it computes segregation indices for 15 countries, and then tries to explain the resulting patterns in terms of the characteristics of national school systems Segregation by sex in each country is explicable by its provision of single-sex schools, religious schools, and the use of academic selection in allocating school places Segregation by outcome is largely explicable by the use of academic (and other forms of) selection Segregation by parental occupation or country of birth is lower in countries allocating places at school through elements of choice or with relatively little governmental control of schools rather than use of rigid catchment areas or selection In all countries there are small gaps between the performance of boys and girls in reading, in favour of girls This gap is generally smaller in countries with the highest overall scores Overall, the Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Finland and Denmark show less segregation on all indicators, while Germany, Greece and Belgium show the most The UK has below average segregation in terms of all indicators except sex, despite a commonly held but unfounded view that segregation in the UK is among the worst in the world
199 citations
Book•
01 Jan 2002
TL;DR: The authors in this paper pointed out that the successful performance of Finnish students seems to be attributable to a web of interrelated factors related to comprehensive pedagogy, students' own interests and leisure activities, the structure of the education system, teacher education, school practices, and in the end, Finnish culture.
Abstract: As revealed by the mean scores of the countries participating in the Performance Improvement through Strategy Analysis (PISA) assessment of reading literacy, Finland shows the highest reading literacy performance in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) Finland's performance is significantly higher than that of any other participating country. PISA is a three year survey of the knowledge and skills of 15-yearolds in the principal industrialized countries. In 2000, a total of 265,000 students from 32 countries participated. This book, from the researchers responsible for the implementation of PISA in Finland, tries to open up some perspectives on the possible reasons underlying the high performance of Finnish students in PISA. The book points out that there is no single explanation for the results. It states that the successful performance of Finnish students seems to be attributable to a web of interrelated factors related to comprehensive pedagogy, students' own interests and leisure activities, the structure of the education system, teacher education, school practices, and, in the end, Finnish culture. The book opens up perspectives on this web of explanations not only by analyzing the results of PISA but also by considering some characteristics of the Finnish education system and cultural heritage which, in and outside of school, can be thought to have contributed to Finland's successful performance. Appended are: (1) "Finnish Education System"; and (2) "Teacher Education." (Contains 10 figures and 16 references.) (BT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. The Finnish Success in PISA--And Some Reasons behind It: PISA 2000. Jouni Valijarvi, Pirjo Linnakyla, Pekka Kupari, Pasi Reinikainen, and Inga Arffman Jyvaskyla Univ. (Finland). Inst. for Educational Research U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 1:1 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality El Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY
168 citations