The dialogism of ideologies about equality, democracy and human rights within Finnish education: Many voices and many faces

Grounded within Mikhail Bakhtin's work on dialogism (Bakhtin, 1981; 1984; 2012) this PhD focuses on the relationships between meta-discourses about Finnish education and individual utterances in constructing representations about Finnish education. As meta-discourses about the successes and popularity of Finnish education are reproduced, concepts such as democracy, equality, and, human rights have seemingly become synonymous with Finnish education, and, the country of Finland more generally. The articles contained within this PhD summary chart and trace the ways practitioners in education (academics, policy-makers, teachers, NGO practitioners, amongst others) grapple with discursive constructs of democracy, equality, and human rights. The data set used within this PhD consists of interviews I conducted with NGO practitioners, interviews from a conference I co-organized at the University of Helsinki, and, a series of multimedia data (online videos and podcasts from leading Finnish educators and experts in the field). The data analysis methods consist of tools found within discursive pragmatics, including dialogism and heteroglossia, indexicality, ventriloquism, and, facework.

In recent years the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education in Finland have conducted curricular reviews documenting the need for more student participation and democracy within Finnish schools. One of the main concurrent questions within all of the journal articles in this thesis, ultimately, is how practitioners understand and express key notions such as democracy, equality and human rights. Here, Bakhtin's work on discourse theory and practice illuminates the constant refraction and metamorphoses of individual utterances about democracy, equality and human rights whilst the utterer seemingly is always hesitantly gesturing towards meta-discursive representations about the subject matters (for example, Finland is a pioneer of equality, Finland is an example of the best democracy around the world). Yet, this orientation towards the meta-discursive can be problematic. For example, when considering the critical work on education and intercultural communication stating that one country is better than another can potentially result in speakers reproducing ethnocentric, nationalistic and/or essentialist discourses. In this sense, discourses about democracy, equality and human rights can themselves demarcate essentialist boundaries which can engender forms of marginalization.

Thus, this PhD is positioned towards problematizing and revealing hidden and/or tabooed representations which may go unnoticed within the vast amount of meta-discourses about Finnish education. Consequently, the final section of this PhD summary will focus on a set of recommendations for academics within education, teachers, practitioners, and policy-makers to consider regarding the triple foci of democracy, equality, and human rights within Finnish education. The consequences for current Finnish education export are also explored.