Browsing by Author "Puistolahti, Assi"

This thesis studies the roles of the Finnish state in the education export sector, focusing on the case of Finland-Brazil. The objective of this thesis is to seek the different discourses around education from 2010 to 2018 in the context of Finland, how these discourses define the role of education in development, and what is the significance of the change in the way we understand the role of education in a society. In this study, education is analysed through the concepts of human capital, neoliberal education and public good in the context of development theories. In addition, Foucault’s conceptualization of power and governmentality are analysed within the theories of post developmental critique. The study is divided in the following parts. The first part consists of theoretical and conceptional framework, and the methodologies of the study. The second part provides an analysis on the policy documents of Finnish education export conducting a discourse analysis on how Finnish education export is perceived in media. Additionally, a qualitative data analysis is conducted of the interviews and qualitative research questionnaire. Discourse analysis is used to analyse the context in which the education export is functioning and has functioned. The final part of the study consists of the discussion and conclusion. The primary data consist of interviews that represent three different actors in the Finnish education export (governmental, private and public education institutions), a research questionnaire, as well as media coverage from Finnish and Brazilian media and governmental documents from Finland and Brazil. The findings of this thesis demonstrate that while in classic education theories, the roles, functions and objectives of education are of a common good has the framing of education been changing towards a neoliberal direction. The findings indicate of a profitable new market for Finnish education export globally. Additionally, while education export is being promoted as a solution for global education crisis to improve education quality and increase equality of global education, there are no clear indications that education export as such has any apparent intention to truly improve the quality of education globally. Moreover, the analysed discourses in this research show that the role of the Finnish actors operating in the field of education export are not required to have any impact in the receiving countries. The case of Finnish education export to Brazil indicates that the Finnish state actively promotes education export to the global south through different discourses. The findings of the thesis lay out a vision of a relatively new industry that operates in the very core of the creation of individual identities and societies but is operated with market-driven interests that neglect the public good notion of education. Therefore, the impacts and opportunities for regional development and economic growth through education export remain minimal, while the business is relatively lucrative and risk free for private companies creating new ways to frame education.