Session Information
28 SES 06, Elite Education, Intergenerational Transmission of Education and Inequality: Discourses and Practices
Paper Session
Contribution
Finland’s excellent achievements in fashionable pupil assessments in cross-national data sets since 2000 (PISA 2000-2013 and IEA (2012)) show low variation in relation to pupils’ socio-economic status (OECD 2011, 88-89). This implies that there is quite a uniform comprehensive schooling system in Finland as it truly is almost totally publicly funded, free of charge, providing warm lunch and all learning materials to everyone. It is also non-selective in a sense that since a pupil passes compulsory education, general and vocational upper secondary certificates both provide eligibility for further studies in universities and universities of applied sciences. However, those cross-national comparisons are nationwide sample based assessments, presented as average scale scores compared between countries. It is claimed that differences between schools in pupil attainment are alarmingly wide in the capital city, Helsinki, because schools are segregated based on socio-economic status of pupils (Bernelius 2013).
The principals and practices that allocate pupils to schools along with social structures of the city define the pupil intake of schools. Pupil composition of a school and particularly classroom composition, e.g. in terms of the ability mix, might have an effect on the achievements of an individual pupil (so-called educational peer effects, Robertson & Symons 2003; Zimmer & Toma 2000) and is significant in schools with concentrations of disadvantaged students due to parental choices (Bifulco, Ladd & Ross 2009).
The over national policy on ‘parental choice’ (see e.g. Lubienski 2009) has been applied among public schooling system in Finland since mid-1990s. This changed tremendously a hundred-year-old tradition to allocate children to schools on the basis of residence. The legislation of education requires municipalities to ´name a schooling place´ for every child by taking into account safe and short school journeys and states that it is possible for a pupil to apply to another school than the allocated one. (Seppänen 2006.) It is constantly repeated as ‘an official truth’ in the literature that the Finnish comprehensive school system does not set or stream pupils on basis of ability (e.g. Reay 2012, 595; Sahlberg 2007, 154). Recent studies show opposite observation: streaming of pupils is overt in Finnish cities due to so called emphasized school classes because they select their pupils and are allowed to do so based on pupil’s aptitude on an emphasized subject that is taught typically more than core curriculum requires. These pupil selection policies are tied to parental choice policies that each local authority runs. (e.g. Seppänen, Rinne & Sairanen 2012, Seppänen, Kalalahti, Rinne & Simola, forthcoming.) As in other European as well as overseas context (comprehensive literature review provided e.g. in Thrupp 2005), also in Finland higher educated parents, particularly mothers (Seppänen 2006), use school choice option more often than other families and particularly this distinction is seen in relation to emphasized classes compared to general non-selective school classes (Seppänen, Rinne & Riipinen 2012). Furthermore, the reputations of schools according to large scale parental interviews in urban Finnish contexts differed not only between some schools but particularly between school classes (Kosunen 2013; Kosunen & Seppänen, forthcoming) and their desirability among parents varied (Kosunen & Carrasco 2014).
Research on pupil achievement differences between schools and their classes is scare in Finland. Nor there is will to publish ranking list between schools (Simola 2005). In this paper we explore drawing on comprehensive registry data of 13-year-olds in all schools and school classes of one city 1) do intakes of schools and particularly their various classes differ in terms of pupils’ school performance, gender and ethnicity and 2) are these connected to each other and to the selectiveness of a class.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bernelius, V. 2013. Eriytyvät kaupunkikoulut. Helsingin peruskoulujen oppilaspohjan erot, perheiden kouluvalinnat ja oppimistuloksiin liittyvät aluevaikutukset osana kaupungin eriytymiskehitystä. Dissertation. Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus, Tutkimuksia 2013: 1. Edita Prima Oy, Helsinki Bifulco, R., Ladd, H. F. & Ross, S. L. 2009. The effects of public school choice on those left behind: Evidence from Durham, North Carolina. Peabody Journal of Education 84(2), 130–149. IEA 2012. Trends in International Mathematics and Science Stydy (TIMSS) and Progress in International reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Accessed 29.1.2014. http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/data-release-2011/pdf/Overview-TIMSS-and-PIRLS-2011-Achievement.pdf Kosunen, S. 2013. Reputation and parental logics of action in local school choice space in Finland. Journal of Education Policy, DOI:10.1080/02680939.2013.844859 Kosunen, S. & Carrasco, A. 2014. Parental preferences in school choice: comparing reputational hierarchies of schools in Chile and Finland. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2013.861700 Kosunen, S. & Seppänen, P. Forthcoming. Koulujen maineiden rakentuminen ja hierarkiat. In Seppänen, P., Kalalahti, M., Rinne, R. & Simola, H. (eds.). Lohkoutuva peruskoulu. Perheiden kouluvalinnat, yhteiskuntaluokat ja koulutuspolitiikka. Lubienski, C. 2009. Do Quasi-Markets Foster Innovation in Education? A Comparative Perspective. OECD Education Working Paper No. 25. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. OECD 2011. Education at a Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing. Reay, D. 2012. What would a socially just education system look like?: saving the minnows from the pike. Journal of Education Policy 27(5), 587–599. Robertson, D. & Symons, J. 2003. Do peer groups matter? Peer group versus schooling effects on academic attainment. Economica 70(277), 31–53. Sahlberg, P. 2007. Education policies for raising student learning: the Finnish approach. Journal of Education Policy 22(2), 147–171. Seppänen, P. 2006: Koulunvalintapolitiikka perusopetuksessa. Suomalaiskaupunkien koulumarkkinat kansainvälisessä valossa. Dissertation. Kasvatusalan tutkimuksia 26. Suomen Kasvatustieteellinen Seura. Painosalama Oy, Turku. Seppänen, P., Kalalahti, M., Rinne, R. & Simola, H. (eds.) Forthcoming. Lohkoutuva peruskoulu. Perheiden kouluvalinnat, yhteiskuntaluokat ja koulutuspolitiikka. Seppänen, P., Rinne, R. & Riipinen, P. 2012. Oppilaiden kouluvalinnat, koulujen suosio ja perheiden sosiaalinen asema. Lohkoutuuko suomalainen perusopetus kaupungeissa? Kasvatus 43(3), 226–243. Seppänen, P., Rinne, R. & Sairanen, V. 2012. Suomalaisen yhtenäiskoulun eriytyvät koulutiet. Oppilasvalikointi perusopetuksessa, esimerkkinä Turun koulumarkkinat. Yhteiskuntapolitiikka 77(1), 16–33. Simola, H. 2005. Koulukohtaiset oppimistulokset ja julkisuus. Yhteiskuntapolitiikka 70(2), 179–187. Thrupp, M. 2005. School Quasi-Markets: Best understood as a class strategy? Waikato Journal of Education 11(2), 137–149. Zimmer, R. & Toma, E. 2000. Peer effects in private and public schools across countries. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 19(1), 75–92.
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