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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Finland: Changing Operational Environment Changing Finnish Educational Governance

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The main purpose of this chapter is to examine how Finland is developing its educational governance to meet the challenges of its changing operational environment. For our examination, we applied two theoretical frameworks on education policy development. The one constructed in the Comparative Analysis of Dynamics in Education Politics Project (CADEP) by Simola, Kauko, Varjo, Kalalahti and Sahlstrom (Dynamics in education politics. Understanding and explaining the Finnish case. Routledge, Oxon and New York, 2017) provided us with the theoretical lenses of political situations, political possibilities and politicking, as well as with valuable contextual information. The one for the Policy Enactments in the Secondary School Project (PESSP) by Ball, Maguire and Braun (How schools do policy, policy enactment in secondary schools. Routledge, Oxon and New York, 2012) complemented the CADEP framework with valuable concepts for analysis, like interpretation/translation and implementation/enactment. Applying these theoretical frameworks, we were able to examine and describe the evolvement of Finnish state and local educational institutions and their relationship from the centralised, norm-based and system-oriented governance into a decentralised, information-based and result-oriented one. We could identify incidents of path dependence, convergence and contingency, as well as manifestations of power. In addition, the distinction between interpretation/translation and implementation/enactment proved purposeful for understanding education policy development.