Panel Discussion: Eclipsed by PISA Rankings: Research on Finnish Education

• Speakers: Jaakko Kauko, Mari-Pauliina Vainikainen, Jenni Helakorpi, Sonja Kosunen, Oshie Nishimura-Sahi, Saija Volmari

• Chairperson: Christian Lundahl

• When: 00 SES 07 A / Wednesday 19 August / 15:30 - 17:00

• Where: Main Auditorium | Main building A | 2 Fl.

PISA rankings spotlighted Finnish education in the early 2000s and this fame has endured even after declining results. Thrupp et al. (2023) suggest that this hype has both eclipsed existing nuanced analysis of Finnish education and highlighted “methodological nationalism” (Wimmer & Glick Schiller 2002). While many policymakers and some researchers were concerned on how to explain the PISA results, difficult questions on Finnish comprehensive school were overlooked. The embedded methodological nationalism in PISA rankings obscures contexts of learning, which would be important for research-based understanding.

In this special session, panellists discuss how the ‘Finnish success story’ narrative shaped the understandings of policymakers, researchers, and the public.

What is the problem here? Epistemic changes in education policymaking (Kauko)

Education policy seems to be conditioned by PISA (Waldow & Steiner-Khamsi 2019) and OECD’s human-resources-driven and instrumentalist view on education (Ydesen 2019). In Finland, policies have been isolated from the PISA results (Seppänen et al. 2019; Kauko et al. 2022), but a broad epistemic change in policymaking can be seen. The question is how the views on what is considered as reliable evidence in policymaking is gradually moving towards quantitative evidence.

What can we say with this methodology? Lessons learned and unlearned from the PISA data (Vainikainen)

Besides the assessment domains, PISA collects rich questionnaire data both from students and schools. The basic results of these data are published alongside with results on student performance, but they are often overlooked in ranking-focused public debate. This presentation discusses what kind of conclusions could be drawn from the PISA data if its scientific potential was utilised more extensively – and how the results cannot be interpreted despite of the high technical quality of the data.

Why do Finnish education policies fail in addressing racism and injustice? (Helakorpi)

Despite the PISA hype, racism and structural discrimination are embedded in Finnish education (Matikainen-Soreau et. al., 2025). There are policies promoting equality and non-discrimination, including those targeting the education of minoritised groups such as the Roma. However, these policies often remain disconnected from general steering education policies (Helakorpi & Holm, 2025). A central issue is how the Finnish education policies maintain racism and injustice while declaring commitments to equality.

Has PISA helped curbing segregation in Finland? (Kosunen)

Public debates often simplify PISA as the marker of deteriorating learning outcome averages; however, the reports are revealing overlooked threats to universalist ‘one school for all’. Pupils’ socio-economic background’s influence on learning outcomes and the variance between the best and the worst performing pupils has grown over time. The diversifying trend highlights the need to analyse residential and school segregation and educational policies and practices to explain the emerging educational inequalities.

For the benefit of the world? PISA boosting education export (Nishimura-Sahi)

While experiencing a decline in its performance in PISA, Finland still holds its status as a reference society (Waldow, 2017) within an emerging affective turn (Rappleye et al., 2024), where PISA collects data on students’ emotional experiences—such as happiness—and rank countries based on both learning performance and well-being scores. This presentation calls for a discussion on both their educational potential and the ethical challenges of education export in PISA’s affective turn.

What Becomes Thinkable? Futuring Education Under the Weight of History and Crisis (Volmari)

This presentation analyses the imagining of alternative futures in drafting the future vision for Finnish comprehensive education 2045. Finland’s PISA success and subsequent decline, the national narrative of comprehensive school as a societal cornerstone, and intersecting national and global crises framed the work. The presentation considers what becomes thinkable—and unthinkable—when the future of education is imagined under the weight of history, crisis, and constrained possibility.