Search results for "liberalismi"

Liberalism, Governmentality and Counter-Conduct; An Introduction to Foucauldian Analytics of Liberal Civil Society Notions

2015

This article gives an analysis of Foucault’s studies of civil society and the various liberalist critiques of government. It follows from Foucault’s genealogical approach that “civil society” does not in itself possess any form of transcendental existence; its historical reality must be seen as the result of the productive nature of the power-knowledge-matrices. Foucault emphasizes that modern governmentality—and more specifically the procedures he names “the conduct of conduct”—is not exercised through coercive power and domination, but is dependent on the freedom and activeness of individuals and groups of society. Civil society is thus analyzed as fundamentally ambivalent: on the one han…

“It’s Practically a Must” : Neoliberal Reasons for Foreign Language Learning

2017

“Stop whining and be a badass”: a postfeminist analysis of university students' responses to gender themes

2021

PurposeThis paper critically examines how female students at a Finnish business school understand gender in management.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis is based on female students' learning diaries from a basic management course.FindingsThe findings show how students respond to the topic of gender inequality through a neoliberal postfeminist discourse. The students' discourse is structured around three discursive moves: (1) rejecting “excessive” feminism, (2) articulating self-reliant professional futures and (3) producing idealized role models through successfully integrating masculinity and femininity.Originality/valueThis article contributes to current understanding of the role of…

Freedom and its diachrony

2021

Probably everyone involved with the related disciplines in the humanities for some time knows how difficult it is to discuss about liberty and freedom beyond one’s area of expertize or the inclinat...

Yliopistouudistuksen diskursiivinen rakentuminen Jyväskylän yliopistoyhteisössä 2009-2010

2012

Pro gradu -tutkielmassani tarkastelen Suomen uudelle yliopistolaille (2009) annettuja ristiriitaisia merkityksiä Jyväskylän yliopistoyhteisössä. Yliopistouudistus toi mukanaan merkittäviä taloudellisia ja ideologisia muutoksia suomalaiseen yliopistokenttään, ja siksi muutoksista on kiistelty paljon. Keskusteluissa on kuitenkin luonnehtinut ”yliopistouudistus hyvänä vs. pahana” -asettelu, joka ei ole paras mahdollinen tapa lähestyä uudistuksen jälkiteollisia syitä ja moninaisia seurauksia. Diskurssintutkimuksen näkökulmasta yliopistouudistuskeskustelut ovat kielellisten ”totuuksien” luomista siitä, mikä on suomalaisten yliopistojen tarkoitus nyky-yhteiskunnassa. Näillä ”totuuksilla” eli ylio…

Neoliberalism, curriculum development and manifestations of ‘creativity’

2015

There is a manifest tendency for national education policy to follow global economic trends. In many western industrialized countries this relationship has intensified or strengthened within the last decades. The strengthening of this relationship has been seen, among other things, as evidence of the growing power of neoliberal ideology. The background reference for this article is the emergence of a neoliberal education policy ideology in the two creativity related strategies implemented by the Finnish government during the first decade of the 21st century. The main focus of the study was the concept of creativity, for it has appeared to be the prevailing trend within the Finnish basic edu…

Balancing ‘flexibility’ and ‘employability’: The changing role of general studies in the Finnish and Swedish VET curricula of the 1990s and 2010s

2019

This article analyses and compares the evolving role of general subjects in the curricula of initial upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) in Finland and Sweden during the 1990s and 2010s. The research illustrates how Bernstein’s concept of ‘pedagogic code’ supports comparative studies on principles guiding changes to curricula and how the role of general studies in VET has been redefined. The findings show that while a principle of ‘market relevance’ has been central to VET over the decades since the 1990s, it has been subject to varying interpretations. The shifts in interpretations have guided the organisation of VET in these two countries in different directions, incl…

Precarious Sovereignty in a Post-Liberal Europe : the Covid-19 Emergency in Estonia and Finland

2020

The paper addresses a puzzle resulting from the current global state of alert: the coronavirus pandemic brought us back to the world of the allegedly sovereign nation states with borders and national governments in charge, yet in fact, this retrieved sovereignty looks very vulnerable and precarious. We explain this controversy through a triad of concepts—sovereignty, governmentality, and post-liberalism—that we apply to an analysis of a corona-imposed state of emergency in Estonia and Finland. Based on comparative case study research, we posit that sovereignty is precarious in post-liberalism due to its large dependence on the technologies of responsibilization and agency. From a biopolitic…

Transnational Social Fields

2018

This chapter excavates Bourdieu’s theoretical insights concerning political sociology to develop a theory of transnational structuration processes. The early Bourdieu implicitly imagined the state as a nationally bounded actor. Only later in his career did he begin to grapple with issues such as globalization, transnationalism, and neoliberalism; and it is this later germ of ideas that this chapter develops. Transnational social fields, this chapter argues, are not reducible to institutional or organizational structures. They require a more holistic analysis of institutions and their underpinnings. To provide an example of how Bourdieu’s political sociology can be extended to transnational …

The ‘spirit of the times’: Fast policy for educational reform in Finland

2020

This article examines the nature of neoliberal influences upon educational policy making in the Finnish education system in recent times. The article draws upon key policy documents, government reports, journal articles and media articles about reforms in the early childhood, basic/compulsory school and vocational education and training sectors to evidence these processes. Analytically, these reforms are understood as instances of what has been referred to as ‘fast policy’. Methodologically, we draw upon principles of zeitgeist analysis to reveal the features and effects of these fast policy influences as they relate to educational provision in Finland. These features and effects include i…