Browsing by Subject "vaalikone"

Educational equality has long been the aim of the Finnish education policy. In the early days of the welfare state, education was considered, as far as possible, as an independent right, unbound by socio-economic status. A key element in promoting equality was the creation of a cohesive primary school. With the advance of the neoliberalist view, educational equality was defined as an individual's possibility to pursue their own endeavors. School market and school choice enabled t to support the students' talent and interest. While controlling education, municipalities have played a key role in promoting educational equality. Earlier research suggests that individual equality is more supported by the right-wing parties and the Greens, while supporters of social equality have been more common in the left and center groups. Less researched is, what the city's decision-makers refer to as equality. I examine which views of social and individual equality, in connection with the school choice, are seen in the voting advice application answers of elected Helsinki City Council Members. I analyze the Council Members' justifications for their perceptions of educational equality and their opinion on the matter. In addition, I review which measures Council Members propose to promote educational equality. The data for the study was the answers of the elected Helsinki City Council on the issue of school election in the Helsingin Sanomat VAA. I collected the answers from the electoral machine after the final municipal election result in spring 2017. I analyzed the material with a theory-driven content analysis method. Educational equality appeared to be a complex phenomenon. High quality was striven for all schools, but at the same time the answerers tried to meet the demands for individual services and different life situations. The answers focused on the view of individual equality, but the concepts of equality did not comply with previous studies of party division in all respects. Actions to promote equality was most strongly linked to social equality. My research specifies the meaning of educational equality in a situation where the coming regional reform puts primary education in the center of the city council's responsibility.