Search results for "Suom"

Higher Education Reforms in Finland

2019

Finland has implemented several higher education (HE) reforms over the past decades in order to make its HE system more competitive in the global educational markets. These reforms are in line with the developments in other Western higher education systems in which the transposition of principles and philosophy from the private sector into the public sector has become more common or even a norm thus reinterpreting the economic, social and cultural basis of higher education (e.g. Exworthy & Halford 1999). Furthermore, the implementation of the reforms is a response to the rapidly changing needs of the labour markets. In Finland, Bologna process was partly incorporated to be part of the react…

Research and Development in the Finnish Wood Processing and Paper Industry, c. 1850-1990

2018

This chapter describes the general history of research and development work in the Finnish pulp and paper industry from the mid-nineteenth century until roughly 1990, a period that witnessed it undergo drastic changes because of the altered political environment in Europe and general globalization. In addressing its subject, this chapter is mainly concerned with the operation of paper mills, but it also addresses the related subjects of technical research, formal higher education and work-related, practical learning. In addition, it briefly discusses the challenges inherent in researching the development of technology because of its research traditions. peerReviewed

Textiles in blue : production, consumption and material culture in rural areas in early-nineteenth century Finland

2021

The article focuses on masculine consumption patterns and the production and dyeing of textiles in rural Finland in the early nineteenth century. It maintains that the rural consumption of textiles as well as individual choices and tastes evolved, and our selected examples of males’ wardrobes demonstrate that contemporary styles were followed. The article targets an era that can be regarded as a watershed: this was a time when mass production was in its infancy and craft production and self-sufficiency were still relevant to household economies. As the wealth of certain groups, particularly landed peasantry, increased, they began among other things to purchase and wear clothes dyed with imp…

Career Paths in Institutional Business Elites: Finnish Family Firms from 1762–2010

2015

This article analyzes the career paths of family business executives in institutional business elites in Finland using an empirical database based on a Bourdieusian prosopographical approach. The results indicate that career paths became more complex but shortened in length toward the beginning of the twenty-first century. The early career paths of family executives changed from positions as assistants and salesmen in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to governance, chief executive officer (CEO), and management positions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Compared with the founder generation, next-generation family members benefited from more rapid institutional business eli…

In the shadow of technology

2016

The study of the cultural Cold War and East–West interaction outside diplomacy and high politics has emerged as an important research field during the last two decades. With a few exceptions, however, scholarly interaction has been overshadowed by other forms of interaction. Existing research has mostly paid attention to technological exchange and to espionage, which was at times connected with scientific exchanges across the Iron Curtain. This article discusses scholarly exchanges in the human sciences between Finland and the Soviet Union. Even though Finland was a western-style democracy with a market economy, it had close political ties with the Soviet Union, which allowed for the devel…

Embracing values? The question of Finnish membership of the Council of Europe as a case of political value deliberation in European integration, 1987…

2016

Discursive Constructions of White Nordic Masculinities in Right-wing Populist Media

2018

Using superordinate intersectionality as a theoretical framework, this article explores notions of men and masculinities within right wing populism. It is attentive to how the right-wing populist media in Finland and Sweden construct white Nordic masculinities through discursive interactions across several axes of difference: gender (masculinities); sexuality (heterosexuality); social class (elites); and race (whitenesses). Employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as methodological approach, we show how the discursive constructions of white Nordic masculinities are context contingent, rendering them subject to constant reinterpretation and repositioning, at times privileging some axes of…

Bourgeois Women and the Question of Divorce in Finland in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

2017

This article explores perceptions and actions of Finnish upper-middle-class women with regard to divorce in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Divorce was discussed in the periodicals of bourgeois women’s associations and later in Finnish Parliament, in which several leading figures of the bourgeois women’s associations were elected as members from 1907 onwards. Compared to other issues related to marriage and its legislation, divorce was not an especially important question for bourgeois women, but a tool to promote other issues. Women writers demanded drunkenness and violence as new grounds for divorce, and proposed that loveless marriages should be made possible to dissolve. M…

Unequal poverty and equal industrialisation: Finnish wealth, 1750–1900

2018

We present the first comprehensive, long-run estimates of Finnish wealth and its distribution from 1750 to 1900. Using wealth data from 17,279 probate inventories, we show that Finland was very unequal between 1750 and 1850; the top decile owned about 90% of total wealth. This means that Finland was more unequal than the much wealthier economies Britain, France and the US, which goes against the common assumption of richer economies being more unequal. Moreover, when industrialisation took off in Finland, inequality started a downward trajectory. High inequality 1750–1850 was bottom-driven, by a large share of the population owning nothing or close to nothing of value, while economic develo…

Marriage Guidance, Women and the Problem(s) of Returning Soldiers in Finland, 1944-1946

2017

When former military chaplains began to give marital guidance to troubled couples after the end of hostilities with the Soviet Union (1941–1944) in Finland, new information about the causes and experiences of marital problems and divorces emerged during guidance sessions. Even lengthy marriages were seen to be burdened due to the stress of reunion and men’s wartime infidelity, increased inclination to drinking and aggressive behaviour. The article discusses the meaning and construction of marital expectations with respect to the development of post-war marital dissolution, and argues that wives in particular tried to adjust their marital expectations in accordance with the general developme…