Finland’s Famous Education System

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

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2. Introduction

   • Martin Thrupp, Piia Seppänen, Jaakko Kauko, Sonja Kosunen

   Pages 1-16Open Access

3. Politics, Policy, Teachers and Edu-business

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 17-17

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   2. Municipal Governance of Comprehensive Education: The Emergence of Local Universalisms

      • Mira Kalalahti, Janne Varjo

      Pages 19-34Open Access

   3. Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture in the Light of Its Working Groups

      • Jarmo Kallunki, Jaakko Kauko, Oren Pizmony-Levy

      Pages 35-50Open Access

   4. A Progressive Force in Finnish Schooling?: Finland’s Education Union, OAJ, and Its Influence on School-Level Education Policy

      • Nina Nivanaho, Martin Thrupp

      Pages 51-70Open Access

   5. Finnish Quality Evaluation Discourse: Swimming Against the Global Tide?

      • Hannele Pitkänen

      Pages 71-86Open Access

   6. Ecological Sustainability and Steering of Finnish Comprehensive Schools

      • Niina Mykrä

      Pages 87-104Open Access

   7. Unmentioned Challenges of Finnish Teacher Education: Decontextualisation, Scientification and the Rhetoric of the Research-Based Agenda

      • Janne Säntti, Mikko Puustinen, Petteri Hansen

      Pages 105-119Open Access

   8. Teachers’ Expectations and Expectations of Teachers: Understanding Teachers’ Societal Role

      • Sara Juvonen, Auli Toom

      Pages 121-135Open Access

   9. Businessing Around Comprehensive Schooling

      • Piia Seppänen, Iida Kiesi, Sonia Lempinen, Nina Nivanaho

      Pages 137-153Open Access

   10. Co-operation of Edu-business and Public Schooling: Is the Governance of Education in Finland Shifting from the Public Sector to Networks?

       • Iida Kiesi

       Pages 155-172Open Access

4. Equity, Inequality and the Challenges of Diversity, Language and Inclusion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 173-173

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   2. “Three Bedrooms and a Nice School”—Residential Choices, School Choices and Vicious Circles of Segregation in the Education Landscape of Finnish Cities

      • Venla Bernelius, Sonja Kosunen

      Pages 175-191Open Access

   3. Pupil Selection and Enrolment in Comprehensive Schools in Urban Finland

      • Piia Seppänen, Terhi Pasu, Sonja Kosunen

      Pages 193-210Open Access

   4. Everyday Life in Schools in Disadvantaged Areas

      • Marja Peltola, Heidi Huilla, Tiina Luoma, Riikka Oittinen

      Pages 211-225Open Access

   5. Divided Cities—Divided Schools? School Segregation and the Role of Needs-Based Resource Allocation in Finland

      • Isabel Ramos Lobato, Venla Bernelius

      Pages 227-242Open Access

   6. The Significance of Socioeconomic Background for the Educational Dispositions and Aspirations of Finnish School Leavers

      • Tero Järvinen, Jenni Tikkanen, Piia af Ursin

      Pages 243-256Open Access

   7. Controversies and Challenges in the History of Gender Discourses in Education in Finland

      • Elina Lahelma

      Pages 257-272Open Access

   8. Rainbow Paradise? Sexualities and Gender Diversity in Finnish Schools

      • Jukka Lehtonen

      Pages 273-288Open Access

This open access book provides academic insights and serves as a platform for research-informed discussion about education in Finland. Bringing together the work of more than 50 authors across 28 chapters, it presents a major collection of critical views of the Finnish education system and topics that cohere around social justice concerns. It questions rhetoric, myths, and commonly held assumptions surrounding Finnish schooling.


This book draws on the fields of sociology of education, education policy, urban studies, and policy sociology. It makes use of a range of research methodologies including ethnography, case study and discourse analysis, and references the work of relevant theorists, including Bourdieu and Foucault. This book aims to provide a critical, updated and astute analysis of the strengths and challenges of the Finnish education system. 

• Finnish Education System
• Finnish Policies and Education
• Finnish Education
• Social Justice and Education
• Political Structures and Education
• Policy Developments and Education
• Social Class and Education
• Gender Inequalities and Education
• Ethnic Diversity and Education
• Urban Studies and Education
• Policy Sociology and Education
• Finnish Schooling
• Bourdieu and Education
• Foucault and Education
• Open Access

• Division of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

  Martin Thrupp

• Department of Education, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

  Piia Seppänen

• Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland

  Jaakko Kauko

• Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

  Sonja Kosunen

Martin Thrupp has been Professor of Education at the University of Waikato in New Zealand since 2006. Prior to that, he held posts at King’s College London and the Institute of Education, University of London. Thrupp has also worked in Finnish education circles since 2016, including visits to Finland in all four seasons. His research interests are in education policy, with a particular focus on school reform as it plays out in different local and national settings. He has authored a number of books, including 'The Search for Better Educational Standards: A Cautionary Tale' (Springer, 2018), and has also co-edited collections about New Zealand's education system published in 2010 and 2019.

Piia Seppänen is Professor of Education, especially on comparative education and education policy at the University of Turku in Finland where she also works as Vice-Dean for research in its Faculty of Education. Her research with research groups at the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning and Education (CELE) focuses on pupil selection, urban social segregation, and classed practices within comprehensive schooling. Seppänen also studies commodification in public education systems and its connections to the global education industry.

Jaakko Kauko is Professor of Education Policy at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Finland. His research focuses on the fields of education policy and comparative education, and he has recently been researching transnational knowledge networks in higher education. Kauko is co-author of Dynamics in Education Politics: Understanding and Explaining the Finnish Case with Hannu Simola, Janne Varjo, Mira Kalalahti, and Fritjof Sahlström (Routledge, 2017), and co-editor of Successful Public Policy in the Nordic Countries: Cases, Lessons, Challenges with Caroline de la Porte, Guðný Björk Eydal, Daniel Nohrstedt, Paul ‘t Hart, and Bent Sofus Tranøy (Oxford University Press, 2022).

Sonja Kosunen is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is the leader of the research unit Social studies in Urban Education (SURE), which studies phenomena related to social justice, reproduction and inequalities in education from pre-primary through to higher education. Kosunen’s current research focuses on the stratification of the teaching profession, segregation of teachers, and the (re)production of class-based inequalities in segregated education markets.