The De-nationalization Of Teacher Policy In England And Finland

Author(s):

Tore Bernt Sorensen(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

28. Sociologies of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

28 SES 10, Sociologies of Mobile Students and Teachers

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

15:30-17:00

Room:

B116 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Emiliano Grimaldi

Contribution

Teacher education, teacher professional development and teachers’ working conditions have traditionally been the domain of states and sub-state public policy bodies. However, during the latest decade the attention directed towards teachers as key actors in ‘knowledge economies’ has been unprecedented. Especially the OECD and the World Bank have emerged as major transnational players and connected teachers to global policy agendas (Robertson 2012).

This paper forms part of a current PhD project which examines the construction of TALIS 2013, the second round of the OECD programme Teaching and Learning International Survey. TALIS focuses on working conditions, attitudes and practices among lower secondary school teachers.

The paper situates Finnish and English education policy in the European and global political economy and discusses whether teacher policy in these two countries is being increasingly de-nationalized. As an entry point for this discussion, the paper focuses on the agendas of the main political actors involved in TALIS 2013 on an international level and in England and Finland, including the OECD, the European Commission, state education authorities, international and national teacher unions, and private companies whose relationships to the state are often mediated through private-public partnerships. The paper thus adopts a multi-scalar perspective, paying attention to the relationships between organisations, institutions and companies with various horizons of action.

The paper answers the following research questions:

How do the emergent geographies of governance in the global educational policy field signify the de-nationalization of policies related to the teaching profession in England and Finland?
What are the associated normative implications with regard to the character of the teaching profession in England and Finland?

Theoretically, the paper draws on concepts from a range of social sciences, including education, sociology, geography, political science and political economy. In particular, two strands of political economy are applied in the discussion of the de-nationalization of teacher policy.

First, the literature on varieties of capitalism highlights the resilience of national institutional arrangements and the importance of the education sector in the welfare production regimes of contemporary competition states (Hall and Soskice 2001). In this respect, England and Finland constitute contrasting cases, as examples of liberal and coordinated market economies, respectively, although Finland has moved in a liberal direction during the 2000s (Menz 2005, Schneider & Paunescu 2011). Accordingly, England and Finland have also responded differently to OECD recommendations in relation to education policy (Rinne and Ozga 2012).

Second, the paper recognises the limitations of the varieties of capitalism approach in terms of its implied methodological nationalism and a-historicity. Thus, the emergence of the global educational policy field calls for concepts such as internationally variegated capitalism which emphasizes the international economic and political interdependence of national institutional configurations and their embedding in global markets (Streeck 2010). In this perspective, globalizing processes are also initiated deep within national institutional arrangements, according to context-specific capabilities, organizing logics and tipping points (Sassen 2006).

In the discussion of the normative implications for the teaching profession, the paper adopts the notion of pedagogic identities (Bernstein 2000) and Connell’s (1995) distinction between the various political foci associated with teachers’ work.

Method

In philosophical, epistemological and methodological terms, the paper is based on critical realism as conceived by Sayer (2010), Hay (2002) and Jessop (2007). This entails a theory-laden and inherently critical approach which considers statistical data, representing material realities, as well as the discourses of the main political actors. In addition to a literature review of key existing evidence (for example Finnish Ministry of Education 2003, Rinne and Ozga 2012, Simola 2005, Webb et al. 2004), the paper includes the analysis of empirical material consisting of (i) key policy documents, legislation and reports, and (ii) eight theory-driven qualitative semi-structured research interviews (Pawson 1996, Tansey 2007) conducted with key individuals of the main policy actors involved in the construction of TALIS 2013. On the basis of the literature review and the empirical material, the paper adopts a theory-guided process-tracing method (Falleti 2006). This approach enables the construction of theoretically explicit narratives that trace key events and causal mechanisms in the English and Finnish contexts, shaped by historical and social trajectories and institutional arrangements, and their interdependence with the global educational policy field. In this respect, critical discourse analysis is applied to capture the shifts in meaning when discourses develop, become re-defined or replaced (Fairclough 2003).

Expected Outcomes

In accordance with the critical realist position underpinning the study, the purpose is not to generate representative or generalizable findings, but to qualify existing theories and thereby inform further research. The paper thus serves the dual purpose to (i) strengthen the awareness of the global educational policy field involved in the governing of teacher policies and practice; and (ii) develop a methodological approach that enables to capture the complex interaction between public and private actors with various horizons of action. In addition to the academic community, the findings will be of interest to teachers and political actors in the public and private spheres. The main argument of the paper is that the de-nationalization of teacher policy in England and Finland appears to be driven by public and private political actors with international as well as national horizons of action. This argument draws on the following findings: Despite globalizing pressures the historical trajectories of national institutional arrangements and their welfare regimes continue to decisively shape teacher policy and the character of the profession. While this supports the theoretical assumptions underpinning the varieties of capitalism literature, the analysis also highlights the limitations of the approach. Hence, both the English and Finnish education sectors represent institutional particularities which are hard to reconcile with the functionalist notion of efficiency-orientated welfare production regimes implied in the varieties of capitalism literature. Furthermore, the emergence of the global educational policy field since the 1990s involves increasing co-operation and interdependence between international and national agencies in terms of teacher policy. This contradicts the methodological nationalism associated with the varieties of capitalism literature. Together, the findings suggest that the notion of internationally variegated capitalism captures contemporary resilience and change in the national institutional arrangements concerning teachers’ work in England and Finland.

References

BERNSTEIN, B., 2000. Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. Rev. edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield publishers. CONNELL, R.W., 1995. Transformative Labour: Theorizing the Politics of Teachers’ Work. In: M.K. Ginsburg, ed. The Politics of Educators’ Work and Lives. London: Garland, 91-114. FAIRCLOUGH, N., 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. FALLETI, T.G., 2006. Theory-Guided Process-Tracing: Something Old, Something New. APSA-CP, Newsletter of the Organized Section in Comparative Politics of the APSA, 17(1), 9-14. FINNISH MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, 2003. Attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers: Country background report for Finland [online]. Available from: http://www.oecd.org/edu/school/5328720.pdf [Accessed 31 January 2013]. HALL, P.A. & D. SOSKICE, eds. 2001. Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. New York: Oxford University. HAY, C., 2002. Political analysis: A critical introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave. JESSOP, B., 2007. State Power: A Strategic-Relational Approach. Cambridge: Polity. MENZ, G., 2005. Varieties of Capitalism and Europeanization: National Response Strategies to the Single European Market. Oxford: Oxford University. PAWSON, R., 1996. Theorizing the interview. The British Journal of Sociology, 47(2), 295-314. RINNE, R. & J. OZGA, 2012. The OECD and the Global Re-Regulation of Teachers’ Work: Knowledge-Based Regulation Tools and Teachers in Finland and England. In: T. SEDDON & J. LEVIN, eds. World Yearbook of Education 2013. Educators, Professionalism and Politics: Global Transitions, National Spaces and Professional Projects. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 97-116. ROBERTSON, S.L., 2012. Placing Teachers in Global Governance Agendas. Comparative Education Review, 56(4), 584-607. SASSEN, S., 2006. Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. SAYER, A., 2010. Method in Social Science. A realist approach. 2nd edition. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. SCHNEIDER, M.R. & M. PAUNESCU, 2011. Changing varieties of capitalism and revealed comparative advantages from 1990 to 2005: A test of the Hall and Soskice claims. Socio-Economic Review, 10(4), 731-753. SIMOLA, H., 2005. The Finnish miracle of PISA: historical and sociological remarks on teaching and teacher education. Comparative Education, 41(4), 455-470. STREECK, W., 2010. E pluribus unum? Varieties and commonalities of capitalism. MPIfG Discussion Paper, No. 10/12. Cologne: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. TANSEY, O., 2007. Process Tracing and Elite Interviewing: A Case for Non-probability Sampling. PS: Political Science & Politics, 40(4), 765-772. WEBB, R., G. VULLIAMY, S. HAMAILAINEN, A. SARJA, E. KIMONEN & R. NEVALAINEN, 2004. A comparative analysis of primary teacher professionalism in England and Finland. Comparative Education, 40(1), 83-107.

Author Information

Tore Bernt Sorensen (presenting / submitting)

University of Bristol

Graduate School of Education

Bristol

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