Support in Finland: Who should decide where my child is schooled?

Author(s):

Sonia Lempinen(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

04. Inclusive Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

04 SES 06 C, The Role of Parents in Inclusive Education

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

15:30-17:00

Room:

W6.21

Chair:

Contribution

Neoliberal discourse on the freedom of parental school choice affects are know in countries such as England and France (Ball 2003; van Zanten 2005), however the affects are known to affect the Finnish education system as well (Seppänen et al 2015). Regardless, the government has maintained the principle of neighbourhood school allocation for now. Moreover, a recent reform of the special needs education of the Finnish education system was implemented in 2010, with intention to modify the organisation of educational support to be more flexible. Instead of the previously receiving special support or not, now all of the pupils are entitled to receive support in three categories of general, intensified and special (Basic Education Act 642/2010). The latest reform in 2011 did not stress the importance of neighbourhood schools for all pupils (Mietola and Niemi 2014; Lempinen, Berisha and Seppänen 2016). Instead, it stated that special support must be organised by taking into account the pupil’s rights and facilities to arrange teaching in regular education or partly or entirely in a special education class or in other suitable place (Basic Education Act 642/2010, 17§). Therefore, municipalities (and schools) differ in the organisation of special needs education by autonomously restricting idea of neighbourhood school allocation and possibilities for parental choice (Mietola 2014; Niemi 2015; Seppänen et al. 2015; Lempinen, Berisha and Seppänen 2016). addition to neightbourhood school allocation, support measures in education, class disposition and strategies, another important influence in the choice of schooling with those children cases who receive intensified or special educational support is the multiprofessional board.

The focus of this article is to examine from parental viewpoint the extent of parental, professional and bureaucratical school choices with regard to children´s allocations and support needs in basic education. The results of the study are based on a quantitative questionnaire, which collected responses from 208 participants drawn primarily from four different municipalities in Finland.

Research questions in study are as follows:

According to parents, who has influenced the allocation of children to schools?
What influenced the allocation children to schools and classrooms?

Method

Procedure Instrument called Parents and School Choice—Family Strategies, Segregation and Local School Policies in Finnish and Chilean Comprehensive Schooling (PASC 2010–2013), was used as a starting point to the questionnaire items (also used in e.g. Seppänen et al. 2015). In addition to the PASC-instrument for the basis of the questionnaire, an extensive literature review was conducted concerning the parental school choices of children with special educational needs. Versions of the instruments reviewed by three researchers who are experts on the topic. The level of clarity, relevance and significance of items were considered with regard to both the specific measured dimension and the whole questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted for a related sample of 15 special education teachers.After this, the questionnaire was revised by a statistician and then tested by three parents whose children were regarded as target group. Sample The population was divided into separate clusters, following a selecting of simple random sample of clusters. Overall, 16 middle- to large-sized municipalities in Central and Southern Finland were approached, from which 10 municipalities agreed to participate. During 2014 to 2015, the questionnaires were directed to the parents through the municipalities’ administrators, headmasters or teachers. The responses were gathered via a Webropol online questionnaire for reachability, affordability and safety. Finally, 208 parents of 1st and 7th graders, most of whom received special or intensified support, responded. The response rates varied from 1 to 35%, with an overall rate of 5%. Therefore, the overall response rate was low, meaning that the results cannot be generalised for all 10 municipalities. However, four of the municipalities could be considered to have high enough response rate to consider representative and generalizable. The response rates in these municipalities were 10, 14, 20 and 35%. The participants from these four municipalities covered 79% of the overall n. Since the total number of participants is 208, all of the responses were used in the analysis. Social class of the family was determined using the following variables: Classification of Occupation (Statistics Finland 2010), highest education degree and income (Erikson and Goldthorp 1992; Erola 2010; Seppänen et al. 2015; Kosunen 2016). For most of the analysis, the classes were recoded into collapsed categories of three loosely social classes. The set of analyses described was conducted using the SPSS 23.0 statistical package, and the results were interpreted at a significance level of p ≤ .05 (confidence interval of 95%).

Expected Outcomes

Although, the remainder of neighborhood schools allocation principle continues to affect in most of the pupils cases, those pupils receiving support in the special education category, received it in special education classrooms in the other than neighborhood school, allocation strongly influenced by the professionals. Choosing to live in a certain neighborhood and the use of specialized classes can be detected in this study as a schooling strategy for few of those parents who are from upper classes, a known strategy for those in regular support (Ball 2003; van Zanten 2005; Seppänen et al 2015; Kosunen 2016). In this study few of the parents whose children received intensified support used these strategies. This matter has not been studied in Finland broadly, but few parents of those children who receive support are reported to use the specialized class strategy for their children´s schooling (Lempinen, Berisha & Seppänen 2016). This is an interesting finding; some may argue that it speaks of equality because children with support can attend to specialized classes as well, when in fact it is a higher class schooling strategy that can deepen the social segregation. Although this is a relatively small study, none the less, such strategies could be detected.In conclusion, the more support the more professional decisions, the higher the social class the more choice strategies used.

References

Ball, S. J. 2003. Class Strategies and the Education Market: The Middle Classes and Social Advantage. London: Routledge Falmer.Basic Education Act. (642/2010). Erola, J. ed. 2010. Luokaton Suomi? Yhteiskuntaluokat 2000-luvun Suomessa. Helsinki: Gaudeamus. Horvat, E. M., Weininger, E. B., and Lareau, A. 2003. “From Social Ties to Social Capital: Class Differences in the Relations between Schools and Parent Networks.” American Educational Research Journal 40 (2): 319–351. Magnússon, G.2015. Traditions and Challenges: Special Support in Swedish Independent Compulsory Schools. Mälardalen University, School of Education, Culture and Communication, Educational Sciences and Mathematics. (REDDI)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5079-9581. (English)Doctoral thesis. Mietola, R. 2014. Hankala Erityisyys. Etnografinen Tutkimus Erityisopetuksen Käytännöistä ja Erityisyyden Muotoutumisesta Yläkoulun Arjessa. [Troubling Special. An Ethnographic Study on Practices of Special Education and Formation of Special in the Everyday Life of Lower Secondary School.] PhD diss., University of Helsinki, Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Studies in Educational Sciences. Niemi, A-M. 2015. “Erityisiä Koulutuspolkuja? Tutkimus Erityisopetuksen Käytännöistä Peruskoulun Jälkeen.” [Special Educational Paths? A Study on the Practices of Special Needs Education after Basic Education]. PhD diss., Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Studies in Educational Sciences. Seppänen, P., Kalalahti, M., Rinne, R., and Simola, H. (Eds.). 2015. “Lohkoutuva Peruskoulu – Perheiden Kouluvalinnat, Yhteiskuntaluokat ja Koulutuspolitiikka.” [Segmenting Comprehensive School – Parental School Choice, Social Classes and Education Policies]. Research in Education Sciences 68. van Zanten, A. 2005. “New Modes of Reproducing Social Inequality in Education: The Changing Role of Parents, Teachers, Schools and Educational Policies.” European Educational Research Journal 4 (3): 155–169. doi:10.2304/eerj.2005.4.3.1

Author Information

Sonia Lempinen (presenting / submitting)

University of Turku

Education

Turku

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