Conference Agenda

This paper will explore the onto-epistemological issues which are at play when quantitative methods are employed within critical policy studies. By so doing, it will discuss whether there is a potential onto-epistemological tension to be found within European and international critical policy studies, deriving from the fact that the field often regards the critical researcher’s work to be inherently subjective in nature, but at the same time (often tacitly), to be speaking to objectively real structural injustices. When this tension plays out in quantitative work, the result can be a form of inadvertent crypto-postpositivism. This is defined as where postpositivism is held under the surface, comprising a combination of two simultaneous assumptions: researcher subjectivity and objective reality). Researcher subjectivity is acknowledged explicitly, while the objective reality of structural social injustices are taken as tacit or implicit. Thus, the quantitative analyst is found to be deeply entangled and implicated in terms of shaping and interpreting various statistical procedures, but these same quantitative data can also be seen to be derived implicitly from objectively real structural inequalities.

To examine this tension, the paper engages in discussion and comparison of six key selected texts, chosen because they explore definitions and purposes as to what constitutes critical quantitative work (Frisby, 2024; Gillborn et al., 2018; Rios-Aguilar, 2014; Stage & Wells, 2014, Strunk, 2023; Tabron & Thomas; 2024). The paper summarises what this key selected literature commonly holds are two core conditions for quantitative work to be regarded as critical in nature: “stance” and “purpose”. The first condition the researcher’s integral role in research production, to the extent that data and analysis cannot be seen to exist independently of the researcher. The second condition of “purpose” relates to the reason for doing the work, which is that critical policy studies (and critical quantitative work in particular) should serve an emancipatory purpose, through the study of unequal power relations (and their equalisation). However, through a close reading of the six selected articles, the present paper contributes by showing how this work actually strays into postpositivism and that its simultaneous desire not to do so (based on what is argued to be a misinterpretation or over-simplication of Horkheimer’s (1937) seminal work on critical theory) results in this being left unacknowledged, i.e., it leads to crypto-postpositivist.

The paper concludes by identifying some key ways forwards for the use of quantitative work within critical policy studies which will help to acknowledge and manage the onto-epistemological tension identified; this is elaborated upon below in the conclusions section. It further argues for quantitative work as a way of vital and essential way of engaging with policymakers and policy formation, based on Savage's (2024) argument for constructive engagement on the part of critical scholars (again, see conclusions section below).

The paper will analyse how the main stakeholders of Vocational Education and Training (VET) understand learning in Barcelona. In this city, hospitality, social services and the knowledge economy are quite important economic sectors. The paper will examine to what extent recent graduates coincide with employers and employment brokers such as internship coordinators and public employment services when conceptualising learning.

The politics of education increasingly influence the everyday life of vocational education systems. Previous research has unveiled the political features of VET systems, which must inevitably bridge gaps between education and employment. Scholars such as Busemeyer, Carstensen & Emmenegger (2022), Graf & Marques (2022) and Valiente & Scandurra (2017) have articulated the foundations of the political economy of skills. This theoretical approach distinguishes the Central-European coordinated systems from the Anglo-Saxon liberal systems. In the former, educators and employers make explicit agreements on qualifications and apprenticeships. In the latter, students choose among very diverse VET programmes and employers select candidates simply according to their human resources strategy.

Although other European countries have not become a copy of the German model, the features of coordinated systems have spread through the continent. At the same time as enrolment in VET programmes has increased in Spain, the government has actively engaged in generalising long internships and integrating the programmes run by schools, employment services and employers. In Barcelona, the Education Consortium of municipal and regional authorities has clustered school-based, employment service and continuous VET of the main specialisms in a new type of colleges.

An analysis of graduates’, educators’ and employers’ views on learning offers insights on the micro-level mechanisms of coordination in the city. It will draw on the political economy of skills to trace the links between societal structures and institutional arrangements, on the one hand, and students’ strategies and employers’ practices, on the other hand (Pilz, 2016).

The micro-sociological dimension of VET programmes hinges on the prevailing concepts of knowledge and learning. A pedagogical cornerstone of these programmes lies in their capacity to teach graduates how to articulate theoretical and practical knowledge. Although some VET students have just left compulsory schooling, most of them frame their programmes within their life projects for adult life. Thus, for them learning is both theoretical and practical and takes place in different settings (Young, 2007). Studies on adult education have convincingly argued that learning is connected to the motivation of students to connect their educational and professional projects within wider reflections on their biographies (Hallqvist, Ellström & Hydén, 2012; Biesta, 2006). Sociology has systematically researched reflexivity as the development of knowledge on one's projects and social position.It has clearly documented that such capability is deeply classed and gendered (Skeggs & Loveday, 2012; Golob & Makarovič, 2019). It has also observed how students express reflexivity when discussing their own decisions in the field of education and training (Barabash, 2014).

The paper will investigate the views of these stakeholders through this lens. This is a tentative exam of recent qualitative evidence that will feed further inquiries and articles. The leading research question inquires about the themes, types of knowledge and perceptions of graduates among employers. At the same time, it explores what is relevant for graduates, how they understand their learning and how they link this learning with their life plans.

This paper examines how edu-preneurs operate as influential actors in contemporary education governance by narrating, legitimising and affectively charging particular visions of educational futures. The study focuses on Finland, a context often positioned internationally as a model of strong public education, yet increasingly shaped by marketisation, privatisation and entrepreneurial interventions. By analysing how edu-preneurs describe their work, products and role in education, the paper asks how private actors contribute to reshaping educational imaginaries, governance logics and subjectivities in ways that resonate far beyond national borders.

The central research questions are:

1. How do edu-preneurs narrate the problems of public education and position edu-business as a necessary solution?

2. What kinds of affective attachments are mobilised in these narratives, and how do emotions such as optimism, frustration, freedom, boredom and certainty function within them?

3. How do affective storytelling practices contribute to the formation of edu-preneurs as particular kinds of subjects and to the broader governance of education futures?

The paper is grounded in critical scholarship on education governance, marketisation and privatisation of education, which has demonstrated how education is increasingly governed through economic rationalities, competition, and future-oriented promises across Europe and globally. Less attention has been paid to private educational actors as cultural and affective producers of meaning. This study addresses this gap by foregrounding edu-preneurs as narrators and affective agents who actively participate in shaping how education is imagined, valued and governed.

The theoretical framework combines three interrelated strands. First, the analysis draws on critical approaches to education governance that conceptualise governance not only as formal policy and regulation, but as a broader assemblage of discourses, practices and actors through which educational aims, responsibilities and futures are negotiated. From this perspective, edu-preneurs are understood as part of a wider governance apparatus that operates alongside and within public education systems, contributing to shifts in how education is framed across European contexts.

Second, the paper engages with affect theory to conceptualise emotions as socially and politically productive forces. Affect is approached as relational and embedded in discursive and material arrangements, shaping what appears desirable, necessary or inevitable in education. This allows the analysis to examine how edu-preneurs’ narratives are infused with affective intensities that attach value to entrepreneurship, innovation and positivity, while simultaneously devaluing public education as outdated, slow or uninspiring.

Third, the paper develops the concept of affective subjectivation to analyse how edu-preneurs come to understand themselves as particular kinds of subjects through their engagement with edu-business. Affective subjectivation refers to processes through which individuals are shaped as entrepreneurial, optimistic, self-governing and future-oriented subjects by aligning emotions, aspirations and identities with economic imperatives. This concept builds on and extends work on subjectivation in neoliberal governance by highlighting the central role of affect in producing governable educational actors.

Empirically, the study is based on qualitative interviews with edu-preneurs operating in Finland, many of whom have backgrounds as teachers or school leaders. While situated in a national context, the findings speak to broader European and international developments, as similar forms of edu-business, entrepreneurial storytelling and affective governance are increasingly visible across education systems. By analysing Finland as a case that both exemplifies and challenges dominant narratives of public education, the paper contributes to international debates on how education futures are being reimagined through market-oriented and affectively charged forms of governance.

In education policy research, scholars increasingly call for studies that follow policy processes in real time rather than analysing them retrospectively from a bird’s‑eye view (Carney, 2019). Having previously examined policies mainly after their implementation—relying on document analysis and elite interviews—I hoped for an opportunity to study policy as it unfolded, to be present for the negotiations, tensions, and situated decisions that shape policies (Stone, 2012). This opportunity emerged in December 2024, when I received permission to study the Ministry of Education and Culture’s futures work for comprehensive education.

Between January 2025 and February 2026, I followed this work, focusing particularly on the work of the national advisory board appointed by the Ministry. Comprising experts from diverse sectors of Finnish society, the board bore primary responsibility for shaping the vision published in February 2026. During this period, I observed meetings and workshops, followed email correspondence, traced the evolution of draft reports, and conducted longitudinal interviews with 35 of the 47 advisory group members. This paper examines the field negotiations and methodological challenges that arose in tracing policy in the making through this ethnographic engagement.

The study was originally designed around elite interviews, which can offer valuable analytical insight into the complexities of policy work when successful (Dexter, 2006). Yet, as Dexter (2006) and Mykkänen (2001) caution, elite interviews carry methodological risks and should not stand alone. I therefore complemented interview data with observations and document analysis within a multi‑sited design. This generated a level of immediacy and depth not possible in my earlier retrospective studies, allowing me to pose more timely and contextually attuned questions as discussions developed and controversies emerged.

The research unfolded amid significant national and global turbulence, shaping both the narratives shared in interviews and my own observations. While I anticipated securing access to be the primary methodological challenge (Beamer, 2002; Dexter, 2006), access proved less difficult than the ongoing work of field negotiation itself. Each encounter—whether an in‑person meeting or an online interview—involved continual negotiations of access, trust, and sometimes credibility. Power asymmetries characteristic of elite interviewing (Aberbach & Rockman, 2002; Neumann, 2011) were ever present, often felt bodily even when not consciously articulated.

Initially, I resisted framing my methodology as ethnography, preferring to describe it through familiar lenses of expert interviewing and qualitative observation. Yet sustained reflection on my positionality—and the constant external and internal need to renegotiate it—made it clear that I was conducting policy ethnography. Methodological and ethical negotiations extended across every phase of the research process, much as Addey (2019) describes as characteristic of ethnography within policymaking’s inner circle. Elites’ specialist knowledge and recognition of their privileged position reshape traditional ethnographic power dynamics, as they control what information is accessible and when; trust needs constant nurturing as it is easily broken; and research‑relationship work is continuous (Busby, 2011).

This work of gaining access, renegotiating positions, maintaining trust, navigating ethics and anonymity, and determining how findings would be represented also involved an internal process of negotiating my own social locations and shifting roles, repeatedly considering my research from participants’ perspectives (Busby, 2011).

Barad (2007, p. 185) reminds us that “we know because we are of the world,” blurring sharp distinctions between epistemology and ontology. This paper reflects on the positions, field negotiations, questions, and unsettled assumptions—while acknowledging the persistent temptation to retreat into a detached bird’s‑eye view rather than remain in the uncertain, embodied, relational terrain of being of the world of policy elite. It also considers the challenges of conducting policy ethnography amid a volatile national political climate and global turmoil in which trust appears delicate and institutional structures fragile.