The wrong answers to the wrong questions: Innovative Practices?
David Hoffman, Senior Researcher (Ph.D.) Finnish Institute for Educational
Research
Most of my research focuses on international comparative higher education, theory of the
middle range that highlights key societal, cultural and institutional tensions and the
implications these tensions have for Finnish universities, universities of applied sciences
– and our education system in general.
If I were to select a single point of focus for this short presentation, it would have to be
the tension between the demographic realities of Finland’s aging population and the
lack of convincing policy and organizational practice(s) within key institutions –
especially higher education – for meaningfully addressing those challenges on a
scale that will realistically impact the challenges concerning the following areas:
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Career mobility in the disciplines, fields of study and organizations that describe,
frame, interpret and explain the implications of international migration and ethnic
relations in the Finnish context. (The most ethnically homogenous groups trying
to understand and act on – by themselves – the nature and reality of
heterogeneous populations.)
Lack of organizational capacity – within higher education institutions, as
organizations, to engage the complex mobility patterns linked to simultaneous
traditional internationalization and demographically-driven massification
dynamics related to ethnic stratification. (A critical look groups present in society,
but absent from student and faculty ranks – and the linkages stratification within)
higher education has to stratification in wider society.)
A lack of critical problematization of a fascination with international
agendas concerning ‘Innovation’ and economic ‘competitiveness’ – and the
types of world class higher education institutions that pursue those agendas –
and the paradoxical reality that one of our single biggest competitive
advantages – on an international scale – is an equity agenda that has
stagnated to the extent that it neither applies – in real terms – to some new
groups in our domestic population, nor to our contribution the contested
social agenda of the EU. (We need innovation in areas we are not very good at.
We are already excellent in many areas where we are genuinely innovative.
Engaging emerging migration dynamics is not one of these areas.)
There are important exceptions to these points, however, these are exceptional in terms of
practice, not general impact on Finnish society.
The single best example I can offer are the most highly diverse, world-class units that
exist in Finnish higher education. These units, do not study the challenges I am talking
about. These are science, technology, engineering and math STEM research units, in
which everyone, from the head of the institute, to a freshly-entering student, might in fact
be from any country on the planet – or – a Finnish citizen, of immigrant origin. However,
the university units that research the types of challenges – outlined above – are generally
not to be confused with these units, as mobility linked to world-class competitive
horizons is decades away from being realized, because of the time-scales involved.
To conclude: I would offer a point from a recent study carried out in Japan (which shares
many key characteristics of Finnish society, the main ones being the demographic
challenges, the general tendency to essentialism foreignness and lack of convincing
policies and practices aimed at coping with the challenges linked to these.)
The most successful acculturation outcomes – in the long term – experienced by Japanese
employers and their foreign employees were shared by those who understood the
consensus-orientated nature of Japanese culture, but also who were able to problematize
it, in order to overcome the naivety linked to a lack of experience (for new immigrants
and employers, who often underestimate the complexity linked to acculturation) and for
the impossibility of most employers to actually know the realities of acculturation in their
own society.
We need to come up with different – more critical, constructive and problematic –
questions.
The key difference between Finland and many countries who are much more successful
in respect to engaging the types of challenges I’ve outlined is the nature of these types of
discussions at individual, group, institutional and societal levels. Many demographicallydriven migration dynamics are fairly generic. What is different is the cultural, political
and historical specificity – and the way in which this situated reality manifests in social
institutions – and the resulting stratification in society.
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