Browsing by Subject "EU"

This study explores how equality of education is addressed in the education policy analysis of the OECD and the European Union, while also assessing what other special educational aspects the analysis highlights. The study examines these questions in the cases of Finland, Estonia and Denmark. In previous literature, the OECD and the EU have been perceived as proponents of neoliberal educational policies, which are built on the principles of economic efficiency and competitiveness. These policies have been considered as potentially conflicting with traditional Nordic educational policies that emphasize equality. This study is a qualitative master’s thesis. The research material consists of the OECD’s Education Policy Outlooks and the European Commission’s European Semester Country Reports. The research method of this study is content analysis. The study showed that the OECD and the EU seem to have four distinct angles to equality of education in their country reports. These were the equality of students with immigrant background, socio-economic status and its effect on equality, gender equality as well as structural policies that can enhance equality. In terms of special education, the organizations emphasized student performance and questions regarding nature of schools and school quality. These two categories are further divided to more specific sub-categories. For student performance, the sub-categories are student learning results and taking part in education, whereas for nature of schools and school quality, the sub-categories consist of participation of the education system as well as schools as learning environments.