Programme

Kirjan julkistaminen / Announcement of FERA book
Leena KakkoriPalkintoseremonia / Awards:
Vuoden tieteellisen artikkelin palkitseminen / Science Article of the Year
Professori Laura Hirsto

Professori Matthew Clarke, University of Aberdeen, 
Chair: Professori Antti Saari, Tampere University

Education is often lauded as a vehicle for economic growth, social progress and individual development. Yet such claims appear problematic when we recall education policy’s history of “inflated claims about both the fulfilment of the child and the development of society [that] are endlessly broken in practice” (Donald, 1992, p. ix). As part of developing a less ‘inflated’ and more animated reading of the power of education to transform society, this paper argues for a ‘weak ontology’ perspective, in recognition that all fundamental conceptualisations of self, other, and world, while necessary or unavoidable, are nonetheless contestable. Crucially, a weak ontology tempers the certainty and instrumentality of dominant educational discourses but potentially enlivens a field that has been mortified by neoliberal education policies and practices. Such a perspective might fruitfully frame education in terms of three disjunctive registers that I refer to as the pragmatic, political and poetic. I argue that, in contrast to the dominant heroic, yet fantasmatic, view of education, as a universal panacea, we might aspire to what Sharon Todd (2009) describes as an ‘imperfect education,’ by keeping each of these registers in play as a way to create spaces for creativity, growth and transformation.

The keynote will be in Finnish with simultaneous translation to English.

Tiina Soini-Ikonen
Kasvatustieteellisen seuran puheenjohtaja /FERA’s Chair
Conference Chair