Conference Agenda

Education, both as a social phenomenon and as an institution, reflects the changing economic, social, and political surrounding contexts (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). Within the realm of neoliberalism and contemporary changes, education still maintains its social function as a common good while increasingly shifting towards becoming a commodity and a global industry (Parreira do Amaral et al. 2019; Verger et al. 2016). This controversial logic permeates Finland, where the public sector remains the major provider in all educational levels, whereas Finnish authorities and entrepreneurs have increasingly designed policies, products, and services to support a flourishing education industry mostly focused on education exports (Candido et al., 2024; Rönnberg & Candido, 2024; Seppänen et al., 2023).

Like any other industry, education has its own trade fairs and events that gather different stakeholders (e.g., government authorities, researchers, entrepreneurs, teachers, school leaders, experts) to mingle and discuss education-related topics, display recent innovations, tools, and solutions in and for education, enforce agendas, and foster business opportunities. These events are complex social, political, and business gatherings that mobilize individuals and collectives, consolidate policy and business networks, legitimize visions of education, integrate corporate solutions into public education interests, set commitments and partnerships and encourage entrepreneurship in education amongst school staff and other stakeholders (Ball, 2012; Ball et al., 2017; Cook & Ward, 2012; Player-Koro et al., 2018). This is enabled in both formal settings during the events (e.g., presentations, keynotes, panels, roundtables) and informal ones (e.g., hallway conversations, meetings over coffee, registration desks).

In this paper, we investigate Finland’s leading event for the education and training sector, which is considered the largest event for this industry in the Nordic countries: EDUCA, organized by the Trade Union of Education in Finland (OAJ), the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, the Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI) and its agency Education Finland, and the Helsinki Expo and Convention Center. Our research aims to identify the political agendas embedded in the event and understand how this may affect the visions of Finnish (and global) education, as Finland is a global benchmark in education. We also examine how Finnish education has been portrayed to both the domestic and international audiences during the event. We rely on a theoretical framework that combines elements of the "politics of affect" (Massumi, 2015) with “politics of emotion” (Ahmed, 2014) to critically analyze the discourses manifested at EDUCA 2025 and 2026, especially focusing on its international marketing material and program. This framework enables us to scrutinize how affect and emotions serve as a (political) technology for overcoming the dichotomies and supporting the intertwinement of local and global education, mobilizing individuals for transnational policy transfer (Rappleye, 2012) or policy borrowing and lending (Steiner-Khamsi, 2021).

Over the past four decades, the Swedish school system has undergone a fundamental transformation—from a centralized and bureaucratically governed institution to one of the most market-oriented and decentralized education systems within the OECD (Fredriksson, 2010; Lundahl et al., 2013). While this development follows broader global trends in the marketisation of welfare services (Fuller, 2019), the trajectory of Swedish school reform is particularly radical, both in comparison to other domestic welfare areas and to international education reforms (Lundahl, 2016). As Fredriksson (2010) notes, few countries have shifted so markedly between opposing governance models in such a short span of time.

At the center of this transformation lies the introduction of a school voucher system (skolpeng) in 1992, which enabled students to choose between public and independent (friskolor) schools. These independent schools—publicly funded but often privately run—compete for students and resources in a quasi-market arrangement (Lundahl, 2002). Currently, around 16% of compulsory school pupils and 31% of upper secondary students in Sweden attend such schools. This institutional structure reflects both internal marketisation, such as decentralization and deregulation, and external marketisation, including competition, school choice, and profit incentives (Lundahl et al., 2013).

Previous research has offered valuable insight into the origins and consequences of marketisation in education (Fredriksson, 2010; Ringarp, 2011; Hultén, 2019). These studies have largely focused on policy documents, legislative processes, and curriculum reforms. However, they often emphasize dominant narratives and overlook the more contested, ambiguous, or marginalised perspectives. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the political landscape shaping the rise of independent schools, we turn to parliamentary motions—an understudied source in education policy research.

Although often seen as symbolic and ineffective due to their low legislative success rate (Cavari et al., 2023), motions serve important functions in democratic systems. They allow members of parliament to raise contentious or neglected issues, signal political identity, and challenge dominant discourses—even within their own coalitions (Bräuninger & Debus, 2009). Motions can thus be viewed not only as legislative instruments, but also as strategic and performative acts within broader policy debates.

In this study, we investigate how independent schools have been framed and contested in Swedish parliamentary motions between approximately 1980 and 2024. We examine which themes emerge, how positions shift across political parties and time, and what these dynamics reveal about the symbolic and ideological dimensions of education policy. Special attention is paid to opposition-government dynamics, party strategies, and rhetorical framing.

To do so, we combine computational and qualitative methods. Using Structural Topic Modelling (STM), we analyse large volumes of motion texts to identify dominant themes and discursive patterns. These quantitative results are complemented by close readings of selected motions to uncover more nuanced rhetorical and ideological positioning. This dual approach allows us to explore both macro-political developments and micro-level discursive strategies.

Our theoretical framework draws on discourse theory and critical policy analysis, particularly conceptualisation of political change within policy paradigm theories (Hall, 1993; Baumgartner, 2013); emphasises the complexity in ideological movements. We also follow Cavari et al.’s (2023) reconceptualization of motions as agenda-setting tools rather than merely failed legislation.

By revisiting parliamentary motions as a site of contestation, this study contributes to a more pluralistic understanding of how Swedish education policy has been negotiated over time. It highlights the tensions, alternatives, and symbolic battles that have shaped the current school system – especially in relation to the role of independent schools in a marketised educational landscape.

In recent years the supply of technological solutions has increased greatly in education systems internationally. This applies to everything from the use of simple programs or apps in teaching to larger systems developed by various parties and sold to municipalities and the state. In the Icelandic context, administrative systems are used at different school levels to keep records of attendance and student assessment (e.g. Dýrfjörð et al., 2025). Furthermore, increasing demands are being placed on efficiency, outcomes and evidence-based practices in the school system, and on measurement and evaluation of what takes place there (e.g. Biesta, 2020). This development is part of what has been called marketization and datafication of education (Gulson & Sellar, 2019).

This environment has created a channel for companies and private actors of various kinds to sell preconfigured systems and solutions to schools at all levels. In doing so they strengthen their position in the education market and in some cases create avenues for profit-driven services within a school system that is generally not commercial (Peruzzo et al., 2022). These systems and solutions are intended, among other things, to support professional development and in-service training for teachers, policy-making, student assessment, and evaluation of school operations. It is not always clear how much educational expertise and experience the designers of such solutions have, or how well the use of such solutions aligns with teacher professionalism or is developed in collaboration with practitioners.

Warnings have been raised about this development, especially where it contributes to stakeholders outside the education system gaining the status of experts who not only have easy access to the system’s financial resources (Williamson & Hogan, 2020) but also considerable power over school practice and policy (Kerssens & van Dijck, 2021; Peruzzo et al., 2022) and ownership or big data (Williamson, 2019). Thus, these stakeholders have acquired certain power over the goals and purposes of education, without obvious ties to the professional expertise of those working in schools. It appears that teacher professionalism is threatened in this environment, as teachers must spend increasing amounts of time on various forms of recordkeeping and data collection, with associated burden, and it is not always clear how this benefits student learning (Dýrfjörð et al., 2024; Daliri-Ngametua and Hardy, 2022; Grant, 2022; Gunnarsdóttir et al., 2022;). In the Icelandic context a lack of public-school support services has been noted (Svanbjörnsdóttir et al., 2021; Sigurgeirsson, 2022), which creates a need for various private actors to enter the market.

Little is known, however, about the impact of domestic and foreign EdTech companies and other actors on the Icelandic education market on daily school practice, teacher professionalism and student learning. What is clear is that following the COVID-19 pandemic the use of such systems and technological solutions inevitably increased significantly, both in Iceland as in other countries (Grimaldi et al., 2025; Selwyn, 2020; Gestsdóttir et al., 2020), and there is reason to gain understanding of the scope and possible effects of such developments.

This study focuses on mapping the extent of purchased services and systems in the areas of consulting, assessment and technological solutions within public primary schools and to gain understanding of the rationale and professional criteria that guide the selection of technology solutions.