The authors investigated the microlevel processes of collaborative reasoning in heterogeneous peer dyads working on an open-design task in elementary geometry. Special attention was paid to the nature of student social interaction, problem-solving strategies, and mathematical language and how they shape collaborative problem-solving processes.…

This article focuses on the university graduates' perceptions of their employability, and particularly how the social prestige of degrees relates to such perceptions. It defines employability in terms of positional conflict and makes an argument that perceptions of the employability and prestige are socially mediated and require social…

Purpose: In a best-case scenario, both organisations and their employees gain from technological changes by staying up to date on developing digitalisation. However, opportunities to learn and use modern technologies may not be shared equally in the workplace. Employee groups can be divided between those with and without access to new…

We provide an integrative review of research on gender and academic careers conducted in the Nordic countries from 2003-2018. We investigate the nature and content of contemporary Nordic research and critically examine the methodological and theoretical approaches authors have used. We read, categorised, and analysed 74 articles retrieved from Web…

Finnish legislation and policy on early childhood education and care (ECEC) express sustainability as a basic value. The national core curricula state that, during their years in ECEC, all children have the right to develop necessary values, knowledge and skills for living a sustainable life. Furthermore, early years education should be permeated…

Women's under-representation in the fields of science and technology is strong; both in software houses and academic posts. We focus on the academic field by gender sensitive analysis of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) academics. The general picture given by statistics' meta-analyses illustrates male dominance even in Finland, which…

What is the significance of regulations of job contracts and wages when it comes to young people's access to labour market? This is an issue that has attracted and continues to attract a great deal of interest in both research and politics. Proposals for deregulated employment protection and reduced entry-level pay recur regularly in public…

Background: Early school leaving and dropout are widely recognized as problems, leading to further marginalization and exclusion of young people from society at large. The Finnish government has set a target that, by the year 2008, 96% of those who complete compulsory education will continue without interruption in secondary education or in the…

According to globalisation theories, the importance of international organisations such as UNESCO and EU regarding processes of policy-making is increasing and it is no longer the nation state alone that is regulating policy. Focusing on equity and social justice as central topics of the global discourse, the article raises the question of how…

This article deals with challenging the gender inequalities that exist in education and working life. It contemplates the kinds of discursive power relations that have led to gender equality work in Finland. In today's conditions where equality issues are being harnessed more strongly to serve the aims of economic efficiency and productivity, it…

This article examines the equality agenda in the context of Finnish university reform in the 21st century. In Finland, the academic regime went through an organizational transformation after the Universities Act in 2009. However, little attention has been paid to the questions of sex or equality. Since the policy influences on equality in…

Measuring the distance between countries and the goal of equality of opportunity in education has been the focus of recent contributions in the economic literature, which have concentrated either on intergroup gaps in access to a given level of studies or on intergroup gaps in educational achievement. We argue that both aspects are important and…

This study extends the comparative model of country groups to analyse the cross-national trends in the higher education expansion and opportunities. We use descriptive data on characteristics and outcomes of higher education systems in different countries groups, including the liberal market countries, the social democratic countries, the…

Since the 1980s, numerous education reforms have sought to dismantle centralised bureaucracies and replace them with devolved systems of schooling that emphasise parental choice and competition between increasingly diversified types of schools. Nevertheless, the "Finnish variety of "post-comprehensivism" continues to emphasise…

We indicate the size of family background effects in Sweden, Finland, and Estonia--countries that differ in both the rhetoric and extensiveness of the system-level school choice policies. Family background effect is defined as the dependence of student achievement on family background characteristics, such as parental education, income, and social…