Browsing by Subject "OECD"

Wellbeing and its development has gained a remarkable position in welfare policy. Although as an objective for politics it is far from new, I argue, that the objective itself has found new forms and meanings. In my masters dissertation, I see wellbeing as an intrinsically philosophical concept, that when translated to politics takes rather normative forms. Wellbeing as an ideal for education has in itself normative ideas on how children and youths should be and how they should behave. Questioning the concept of wellbeing itself creates a space to examine what do we really improve when improving wellbeing in education and to what ends. By pointing out to the late changes in the welfare state, I suggest that the welfare state has changed to a ‘competitive society’. This, for example, manifests itself as a way of educating children to be self-responsible self-entrepreneurs gaining skills with which to compete in the future labour market. Equality has no space in competition, where only the best are rewarded. This goes against the core values of the welfare state, hence the competitive society. I take to closer examination the OECD report ‘Skills for Social Progress’ (2015), which I analyse discoursively from the point of view of governance. In a future of global challenges, accordinf to the OECD other attributes than cognitive skills will have more meaning in ‘life success’. Cognitive skills are important, but according to the report I have analyzed socioemotional skills have importance in bringing up a ‘happy and successful citizen’. I ask my data the questions (1) what kind of subjectivity takes form for youths in the OECD’s Skills for Social Progress report and (2) how is the developing of wellbeing (socioemotional) skills justified. I argue, that wellbeing as an educational ideal or objective is, instead of actually improving wellbeing, contributing to the neoliberal rationale of creating hard-working, self-entrepreneurial subjectivities. I do not deny that wellbeing could not be improved by these skills, but I argue that wellbeing takes a performative ultra-active form of a way of being. It contributes to the liberal, out-of-date illusion of the American dream ‘work hard and you will succeed’ and does not take into account the various embedded obstacles for ‘life success’.

Objectives. Earlier studies have shown that international education policies are increasingly spreading, and that transnational organizations such as OECD play a key role in this development. This study focuses on locating the main educational policy themes from OECD’s publications and compares them with the educational policy objectives of the government programs of the Finnish governments in the 2010s with the aim of locating the similarities between the educational policy objectives of the government programs and the main themes of the OECD's education policy. The research questions guiding the research are: 1. What are the main educational policy themes that can be identified in OECD educational publications? and 2. What are the similarities between the educational policy themes of the OECD and the educational policy objectives of the Finnish government programs for the 2010s? Methods. The research was carried out as a qualitative study. The research material was collected from the OECD educational publications and from the educational policy objectives sections of government programs of the 2010s. An analysis method used in this study was data-driven thematic content analysis. The analysis first highlighted the main educational policy themes from OECD's educational publications, and then compared these themes with the educational policy objectives of the government programs of the 2010s to identify the similarities between them and the OECD’s main educational policy themes. Results and conclusions. In response to the first research question, seven main educational policy themes themes emerged from the OECD’s publications. The main themes are competitiveness and work life, equality, educational performance, innovation, lifelong learning, educational coverage and internationality themes. In response to second research question, the main educational themes of OECD’s publications in comparison to the educational policy objectives of the government programs of the 2010 government of Finland revealed several substantive similarities between the main themes and the educational policy goals of government programs. The purpose of the results is to stimulate an education-related debate on transnational educational policy guidance.