Rewards, changes and challenges in the role of primary headteachers/principals in England and Finland

Drawing on an analysis of education policies and qualitative research data, the impact of education reform on the roles of English primary headteachers and their Finnish counterparts is examined and compared. Global forces have resulted in similar policy trends in both countries but owing to contrasting cultural values and education traditions there are marked differences in the mechanisms for change at both national and local levels. However, irrespective of globalisation and differing national contexts, there were considerable similarities in the perspectives of headteachers and principals on the rewards and constraints of their role and the realities of leadership and management.

Läsnäolevaa vuorovaikutusta voi oppia

Globalization and leadership and management: a comparative analysis of primary schools in England and Finland

This article analyses the impact of processes of globalization on both policy and practice in relation to primary school leadership and management in England and Finland. Data are drawn from case study research carried out from 1994–1996 in six schools in Finland and six schools in England and a follow‐up study on teacher professionalism (2001–2002) that involved 37 of the original participants being re‐interviewed. The article contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the extent to which global trends lead to homogeneity in educational systems or a ‘glocalized’ response. Such a glocalized response is derived not only from different cultural mediations at the national policy level but al…

Pressures, rewards and teacher retention: a comparative study of primary teaching in England and Finland

The article presents some findings from the York‐Jyvaskyla Teacher Professionalism project. The project was a follow‐up study to earlier case‐study research in six schools in Finland and six schools in England on the impact of educational reforms on teachers' work. Data were collected by re‐interviewing a sample of teachers from the original schools six years later. The views of English and Finnish teachers concerning the ways in which changes in practice, pay and working conditions affected their perception of teaching as a profession are contrasted. The crucial factors discouraging teachers from remaining in teaching were work intensification, low pay, deteriorating pupil behaviour and a …

Dialogi yhteisöllisyyden voimistajana.Kirja-arviointi J. ja K. Heikkilän teoksesta Dialogi - avain innovatiivisuuteen.

Kirja-arvostelu teoksesta Dialogi – avain innovatiivisuuteen!, Jorma Heikkilä ja Kristiina Heikkilä, Helsinki (2001) nonPeerReviewed

A comparative analysis of primary teacher professionalism in England and Finland

Policy‐makers' conceptions of teacher professionalism currently differ markedly in England and Finland. In England they are shaped by agendas associated with the drive to raise standards and ‘commercialized professionalism’ whilst in Finland they are influenced by notions of ‘teacher empowerment’. This article analyses findings on the theme of teacher professionalism derived from re‐interviewing a sample of English and Finnish teachers in 2001 as a follow‐up to earlier ethnographic research in six schools in each country during 1994–1996. Issues of professionalism are addressed through three broad themes: the impact of curriculum and pedagogical reforms; working together to implement these …

Dialogioppiminen pienryhmässä : opettajaksi opiskelevien harjoitteluprosessi terveydenhuollon opettajankoulutuksessa

Ilmiölähtöinen oppiminen valokeilassa : ymmärryksen rakentaminen ja reflektiivisyys yliopisto-opintojen alkuvaihesssa

Tarkastelemme artikkelissamme käsitteellisen ajattelun kehittymistä ilmiölähtöisessä oppimiskontekstissa yliopisto-opintojen alkuvaiheessa. Tutkimuksen kohteena olivat Jyväskylän yliopiston kasvatustieteiden perusopintojen Vuorovaikutus ja yhteistyö -kurssin opiskelijoiden laajat luentopäiväkirjat ja esseet. Näissä teksteissä opintojaksolla käsiteltyjä teoreettisia vuorovaikutusilmiöitä peilattiin omiin kokemuksiin tai käytännön esimerkkeihin. Tutkimuksemme teoriakehikko perustuu tieteellisen ajattelun, oppimisen henkilökohtaistamisen ja reflektion näkökulmiin. Tutkimme teksteistä, millaisia teorian ja käytännön yhteyksiä opiskelijat rakensivat ja minkälaista reflektiota ilmeni. Analyysi et…

Transformative Authorship Through Critical Dialogue : Concepts, Theory, and Practice

This conceptual article deals with components and concepts of transformative learning, emphasizing the organization-level perspective on critical reflection. The discussion leans on the concept of transformative authorship and it is argued that it enables authoring processes through which professionals can recognize and recreate their routinized work practices. The aim of the research is to explore how professional experiences are integrated with reflexive, theoretical knowledge through critical dialogue. The authoring process of transformative authorship is illustrated with two complementary case studies from postgraduate health care education. In both cases, the learning tasks were desig…

The foreign language teaching profession in Finnish and Japanese society: a sociocultural comparison

The social basis of a teaching profession is created through behavioural and cultural patterns, specific artefacts, and their connection to certain institutional practices. The purpose of this study is to discover the conditions that structure the teaching profession in a cultural context and to find out what it is to be a foreign language (FL) teacher in Finland and Japan. Both countries have high educational equality but with contrasting patterns of management policies that are manifested in their teacher education curricula. Educational policy documents as well as teacher interviews and classroom observations were conducted in both countries and the findings compared by one Japanese and …

Data analysis method for evaluating dialogic learning

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new method of analysing and evaluating dialogic learning. Dialogic learning offers possibilities that have not previously been found in nursing or nursing education, although some nursing researchers have lately become interested in dialogic nursing interaction between nurses and patients. The stages of analysis of dialogic learning have been illustrated by using an example. The data for this illustration were collected by video-taping a planning process where students for a Master’s degree (qualifying them to be nursing instructors in Finland) plan, implement and evaluate a course for nursing students, on the care of terminally ill patie…

Emerging identity of Finnish nurse teachers: student teachers' narratives in a group exam.

Summary In Finland students pursuing in Master's Degree Programme have a previous degree in nursing from polytechnics. Nurse teacher qualification also includes at least five year's experience of working in practice. This article concentrates on the conflicts student teachers brought up in a group exam as regards changing a nurse's identity into a teacher's identity in teacher training. The approach of the study on this group was narrative. The data were collected by videotaping two group exam situations (five hours in all) of volunteer student teachers ( N =5) during the last course (Nurse teacher's inquiring mind) of their nurse teacher studies in 2002. The material was transcribed and an…

Modelling in evaluating a working life project in higher education

Abstract This article describes an evaluation method based on collaboration between the higher education, a care home and university, in a RD (2) comprehensive data collection methods are needed; (3) shared tools can be developed in interactive forums in ongoing evaluation, and (4) modelling makes professional expertise visible and brakes boundaries between different professions.

Pre-service subject teachers’ personal teacher characterisations after the pedagogical studies

This study explored how five pre-service subject teachers characterised themselves as teachers after completing their year-long pedagogical studies in a Finnish university. Our narrative analysis of the interview data showed that the students shared a social representation of a past teacher characterised by wide power and emotional distance between pupils and the teacher. The students differentiated themselves from this kind of teacher character, and rather positioned themselves as interactive and caring educators identifying with their own ideal teachers as well as meaningful learning experiences in the pedagogical studies. Consequently, the study showed that engaging pre-service subject t…

Dialogioppiminen ryhmä- ja yksilötasoilla hoitotyön kontekstissa

Artikkelissa dialogioppimista on tulkittu hoitotyön oppimisen ja opettamisen erilaisissa käytänteissä. Käsitys dialogista perustuu Bahtinin puheen teoriaan, jossa näkökulmien vastakkaisuutta pidetään dialogin syntymisen ehtona. Käsitys oppimisesta perustuu kontekstuaaliseen näkemykseen, jossa oppimisen kohteeksi rajataan arkitodellisuus ja sieltä nousevat ongelmat. Koska arjen ristiriitaiset käytänteet kiinnittyvät erilaisiin ajattelu- ja toimintamalleihin, puheesta on etsitty historiallisia ääniä, vakiintuneiksi muodostuneita hoitamisen ja oppimisen muotoja. Tarkoituksena on ollut selvittää, millaisten dialogien avulla näistä erilaisista äänistä rakennetaan jaettua ja yksilöllistä tietämys…

Professional learning communities and teacher well‐being? A comparative analysis of primary schools in England and Finland

The article is a comparative analysis of the policy and practice of professional learning communities (PLCs) in primary schools in England and Finland. The concept of PLC has become a globally fashionable one and has been explicitly advocated in policy documents in both countries. Drawing from a database of qualitative semi‐structured interviews with primary teachers, four key themes affecting their work and well‐being are identified: the primary school community; collaborative working; continuing professional development and trust and accountability. The realities of PLCs as experienced by primary teachers in each country are contrasted. Similarities in teachers’ responses were found, espe…

Distributed pedagogical leadership and generative dialogue in educational nodes

The article presents practices of distributed pedagogical leadership and generative dialogue as a tool with which management and personnel can better operate in the increasingly turbulent world of education. Distributed pedagogical leadership includes common characteristics of a professional learning community when the educational actors intentionally share a common mission. There, all stakeholders take collective responsibility for students' learning. Generative dialogue is a way to negotiate in this realm in generating new knowledge and understanding. To introduce this process in practice, the article describes two Finnish learning environments where the stakeholders define, first, the c…

Methodological reflections: supervisory discourses and practice-based learning

The concept of dialogue is often examined apart from the social and historical context in which it is embedded. This paper identifies how dialogue between a superior and a subordinate generates a reorganisation of situated knowledge in the education and training of nurse teachers. We created an analytic method of supervisory discourse founded on differences between discourse-based and practice-based theories. The findings elicit two forms of dialogues: transformative and exploratory. Through the former, supervisors try to make their students reformulate their understanding by facilitating learning through questions and hints or to support their self-reflections in local contexts. Conversely…

Dialogic Tensions in Pre-Service Subject Teachers’ Identity Negotiations

This study explores how five pre-service subject teachers from different disciplines made sense of and characterized their teacher identity after completing their yearlong pedagogical studies. Leaning on the Bakhtinian dialogical approach and socio-culturally oriented discourse analysis, we examine how the students negotiated multiple voices in their narratives (interviews) and how they positioned themselves in relation to these voices. In the students’ identity negotiation, the Discourse based on participatory pedagogy and education responsibility contradicted with the Discourse of traditional pedagogy that the students had as a cultural resource from their own youth. These different Disco…

Towards practical reflexivity in online discussion groups

This paper continues the discussion about student-driven, interactive learning activities in higher education. Using object-oriented activity theory, the article explores the relational aspects of reflexive practice as demonstrated in five online discussions groups to develop students’ conceptual understanding. The purpose of the research is to describe both the process of reflection during online interaction and how practical engagement with the discipline is supported through pedagogical guidance. The students wrote short texts on the practice of health promotion ethics and discussed their perspectives in relation to theory and research. The analysis proved the importance of structural de…

Ammattikorkeakoulujen haaste: “pikkugradusta” uudenlaiseen tiedontuotantoon. Kirja-arvio teoksesta L. Vanhanen-Nuutinen & P. Lambert (toim. 2005)

From university to working life: mentoring as a pedagogical challenge

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the transition from university to working life through different theoretical approaches. Inspired by Barnett the paper also asks: What is it to learn for an unknown future? According to Bartlett neither knowledge nor skills are sufficient to enable success in the contemporary world. What is needed are certain kinds of human qualities and dispositions. The paper seeks to introduce two examples that help us to analyse the phenomenon from the perspectives of higher education and working life.Design/methodology/approachThe data consists of an interview on pedagogical practices in actor training and of group mentoring discussions in a teacher com…