Tracing Ideology in Education: Investigations in Discourse Theory

This dissertation scrutinizes the post-structuralist Essex School of Discourse Theory in the ideology-critical analysis of politics of education and Finnish education policies. In educational research, there is a notable shift of the turning away from theories of ideology and its categories. The use of ideology and hegemony as concepts is also marginal in education policy studies and policy sociology. However, ideologies will not disappear if we turn away from them; the workings of ideology will then remain on an implicit, tacit level in educational institutions and practices. In fact, one of the principal characteristics of ideology is precisely the naturalisation, decontestation, and normalisation of certain meaning, norm, culture, and order instead of any other alternative.

This dissertation argues that it is indispensable that we theorise the ideological and use concepts of theories of ideology in educational research to grasp these issues. In this undertaking, it will apply the Discourse Theoretic framework and conceptual toolkit in the analyses of empirical case studies and further develop frameworks of ideology-critique while also exploring the advantages, but also some limitations of this framework in educational research.

The dissertation consists of four case studies published as research articles and the integrative chapter summarising and expanding the investigations of the articles. The case studies include: I a cross-section of the education reforms of the Sipilä Government and a comprehensive review of their ideological tenets, II an investigation of inclusion ideology in the Finnish National Curricula, III an analysis of Finnish higher education reforms from the perspective of university workplace ethnography, and IV an investigation into the governance of higher education and science policy futures through the Vision Development for Research and Science 2030 -reform.

The main contribution of this dissertation is the reactivation of the concepts of ideology, ideological and hegemony in educational research and contemporary contexts. These concepts have an explanatory relevance especially when approached from the perspective of Discourse Theory, since they make it possible to explore the explicit normative surface of hegemonic discourse and political ideologies as well as their implicit affective persuasion, the power to speak to one’s desire, which is the ideological.

This dissertation critically examines the Finnish education policy reforms of the 2000–2010s, enhances the understanding of the ideological features of education, and opens up political value choices to public debate. Furthermore, it contributes to the discussions on ontological, temporal and affective turns in education policy studies and proposes a (re)turn to the ideological in education research in general.