GLOBAL EDUCATION IS PART OF SCHOOLS’ INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES IN FINLAND, BUT HOW AND HOW MUCH?

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Author: Paula Mattila, PhD researcher, University of Jyväskylä, CALS

paula.k.mattila@student.jyu.fi

As a doctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä Centre for Applied Linguistics, I currently focus on the internationalisation / internationality of Finnish basic and upper secondary general education. Based on my research and experience, I am writing this blog post to contend that schools’ internationalisation is closely related to global education, and the two phenomena are quite entangled in schools’ realities. Hence, I wish to draw global education researchers’ attention to a related research gap which I will be outlining below.

A significant portion of my working life has revolved around the internationalisation of education, first at an emerging university of applied sciences (UAS) in the Helsinki region, and later, at the Finnish National Agency for Education (FNBE). This meant that I first came to examine internationalisation from the angle of higher education, and later through the lens of basic and secondary education. In both positions, I wanted to develop and better understand internationalisation as a multi-faceted tool in educational development. Perhaps more importantly, I tried to lure teachers and education leaders to take on such practical and intellectual efforts. I even wrote my licentiate thesis about the conceptualisation of internationalisation at my UAS (Mattila, 2006). Now a retiree, I delve into the internationalisation of school level and K-12 education.

In my PhD work, my overarching research question is: what is school level internationalisation all about? What definitions can be found in the Finnish context, more specifically in the respective core curricula? I utilize qualitative data analysis with epistemic governance (Alasuutari & Qadir, 2014) and methodological nationalism (Shahjahan & Kezar, 2013) as my key theoretical tools. I also draw insights from my decades long autoethnographic data. With epistemic governance theory I can unveil how several elements in schools’ internationalisation, while they have been accepted as facts or business-as-usual by many, have been born out of strategic and tactical turns, even rivalries, between actors who can wield epistemic, i.e. knowledge related power. Theory on methodological nationalism informs me of how definitions of nationality and cultural traits based on national borders are problematic, in so much as they exclude critical approaches and knowledges. An autoethnographic lens in turn provides me with detailed information about spaces (and struggles) where schools’ internationalisation has been in the making.

Next, I’d like to call your attention to an observation I’ve made through my career, namely, that there are several commonalities in internationalisation at all levels of education. Technically, internationalisation in all education encompasses remotely look-alike approaches and activities, including teaching international subject content, organizing international mobility of students and staff, running collaboration projects with foreign schools or other entities, and providing for the large variety of functions that pertain to IaH, internationalisation at home. IaH offers ways in which students can engage in international issues and develop related competences without leaving their local contexts (Opetushallitus, 2019; Tamtik & James, 2025).

Content-wise, a key observation stemming from my licentiate study, and further corroborated in my work with schools, is that those in charge of developing education internationalisation aim to enhance students’ global competences. That is, education at all levels has converged in attempts to provide students with such competences as will help them “not only to expand intellectual horizons but also to nurture a collective sense of responsibility toward humanity and the planet” (Bosio & de Wit, 2024, 9). In the 1990s such endeavours were called international education and later, global education (for the conceptual transformation, see e.g. Jääskeläinen, 2016).

Research is where commonalities seem to dwindle. While the internationalisation of higher education is the perennial object and source of copious research, school-level internationalisation is under-researched and largely untheorized (Bosio & de Wit, 2024; Medvedeva, 2018). It has even been postulated that schools’ internationalisation lacks the kind of intellectual attention that it has garnered in higher education (Waters & Brooks, 2024). Globally (sic), the situation is changing as more, and more diverse research is devoted to K-12 internationalisation (Tamtik & James, 2025). Keeping a watchful eye on what is studied in this arena, I know there is this still much space for research in Finland.

While global education is increasingly understood and practiced as a cornerstone of higher education internationalisation (e.g., Bosio & de Wit, 2024; Leask, 2015), it is also part of its research agenda. There is also a growing body of research concerning school education, encompassing such themes as education for sustainable development, multiculturalism, interculturality, etc., which all come close to how global education is defined. A tiny selection of research from Finland could comprise; Hahl, 2020 (interculturality, languages); Henriksson, 2022 (organisations and global education); Riitaoja, 2013 (multiculturality, othering); Rokka, 2011 (political dimension in internationalisation); Saloranta, 2017 (sustainability education). Their research investigates, among other data, Finnish core curricula, which is meaningful because the core curricula are norms in their respective educations. These researchers don’t, however, address schools’ international activities thus omitting a wealth of material. Namely, schools regularly claim that their international activities are ways to carry out what has been encoded in the curricula as global education, or intercultural and language education (autoethnographic data).

The core curricula comprise a key portion of my research data as well; I endeavour to find out what the high school curricula stipulate about internationalisation. I recently wrote with colleagues about transversal competences aka cross-curricular skills in high school curricula. We concluded that elements of global education have been an enduring part of these documents’ depictions of transversal competence (Mattila et al., 2025; also, Mattila, 2025).

Outside curricula, where there is literature on schools’ internationalisation (including reports, guidebooks, internet portals), the emphasis is mostly on solutions and outcomes that may support schools and their providers of education to further develop these activities (cf. Tamtik & James, 2025). My specific interest resides in what has been written as guidelines and reports concerning state level financing for schools’ internationalisation.

Unlike in higher education, the literature is scarce on the ontologies and epistemologies of schools’ internationalisation. Elsewhere I’ve written about some attempts to definitions authored between CIMO and the FNBE in 2008 – 2014 (Mattila, 2025). But basically, not much attention has been paid to what could be understood as schools’ internationalisation and why, or how the knowledges related to internationalisation are shaped, by whom, and why. This is where I’ve found Shahjahan and Kezar’s (2013) insights about methodological nationalism invaluable and will write about my findings in my next article-in-spe.

In Europe, with Finland as a strong case in point, education internationalisation is largely channelled via the EU Erasmus+ Progamme (Tamtik & James, 2025). A specific agency (“CIMO”, 2025) was established in Finland in 1991 under the Ministry of Education and Culture to govern and implement the growing number of predominantly EU-financed educational programs for all education sectors. Today, under a specific administrative structure at the FNBE, there are units responsible for the implementation of the EU and other international educational programs including programs associated with K-12 education.

An overview of what schools in Finland consider or wish to represent as their international activities is provided by the statistics that are collected by the FNBE annually. The data collection originated in 2009 with CIMO as a sideline of its reporting functions to the EU. The aim was and is to gather broad-based information on schools’ international activities (Mattila, 2025). However, over the years, the survey’s focus has been on transnational mobility and projects – see the headline emphasizing mobility in the 2024 survey report (Opetushallitus, n.d.-a). Employing epistemic governance theory I’d like to make a point here about statistics: they can be used to persuade actors to see certain entities (data, knowledge) as more valuable than others. If a survey to collect data on a variety of activities is titled with the name of one activity only, the surveyor obviously wants to invite the informants to set their focus on the named activity (Alasuutari & Qadir, 2014; Mattila, 2025).

To the reader I suggest a closer look at a recent survey report by the FNBE (Opetushallitus, n.d.-b.). It discloses that global education accounts for a significant proportion of schools’ international activities.  Moreover, schools often claim that their foreign mobility activities primarily function as students’ and teachers’ first-hand experiences about global education. What this global education encompasses, is not explained in the survey report while its focus is on mobility.

On a different note, and somewhat contradictory as regards the concept of global education, is how the survey also illustrates the nearly exclusively Europe-orientated distribution of schools’ internationality (Opetushallitus, n.d.-c). I hope this might also be of interest to researchers of global education.

So, I’m coming back to my wish to make GERIF colleagues interested in schools’ internationalisation. Despite the lively research on global education in school education, so richly attested in ANGEL’s Digests and Conferences, I find that it is not illuminated by looking into the diverse actions schools dub as their international activities. Yes, I have been actively browsing the Digests to find out. I also carefully looked at the Berlin 2025 Conference abstracts and could not spot a presentation about this topic.

Do contact me at paula.k.mattila@student.jyu.fi in case anything in this blog post made you wish to ask for clarifications, to make a comment or even suggest collaboration.

References

Alasuutari, P. & Qadir, A. (2014.) Epistemic governance: an approach to the politics of policy-making. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 67-84. https//:doi.org/10.1080/23254823.2014.887986

Bosio, E. & de Wit, H. (2024). Fostering service to society, inclusion, and equity through Global Citizenship Education: A conversation with Hans de Wit. Prospects. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-024-09695-8

CIMO. (2025, August 28). In Wikipedia. https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIMO

Hahl, K. (2020). Kulttuurin muuttunut olemus opetussuunnitelmissa ja vieraiden kielten oppikirjoissa. In Hildén, R. & Hahl, K. (Eds.) Kielididaktiikan katse tulevaisuuteen: Haasteita, mahdollisuuksia ja uusia avauksia kielten opetukseen. Ainedidaktisia tutkimuksia: 17. (pp. 173-202). http://hdl.handle.net/10138/312321

Henriksson, H. (2022). Educating global citizens: a study of interaction between NGOs and schools in Finland. (Doctoral dissertation). University Åbo Akademi. https://www.doria.fi/handle/10024/91680

Jääskeläinen, L. (2016). The curriculum reform of basic education gives strong mandate to global educators in Finland. Sinergias – diálogos educativos para a transformação social, Setembro 2015 – n.º 2, 2-20. https://sinergiased.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/revista_final2.pdf#page=12

Leask, B. (2015). Internationalizing the Curriculum. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315716954

Mattila, P. (2006). Under a bright Star. Conceptualisation of polytechnic internationalisation. (Licentiate Thesis). University of Tampere. http://tampub.uta.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/76433/lisuri00049.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Mattila, P. (2025). How Has K-12 Internationalization Evolved in Finland? Mapping Intentions, Unveiling Epistemic Insecurities. In: Tamtik, M. & James, C., eds. International Education in the K-12 Sector: Topics, Trends and Tensions. Springer Publishing. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-89677-4_2

Mattila, P., Inha, K., & Hildén, R. (2025). Laaja-alaisen osaamisen kuvaukset lukion opetussuunnitelmien perusteissa: Jotain uutta, jotain vanhaa, jotain lainattua. Kasvatus & Aika, 19(1), 28–51. https://doi.org/10.33350/ka.142679

Medvedeva, A. (2018). University Internationalization and International Master’s Programs. (Doctoral dissertation) University of Helsinki. https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/235249/Universi.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Opetushallitus (EDUFI). (n.d.-a). International mobility of pupils and students as well as teachers and other staff. https://www.oph.fi/en/statistics/international-mobility-pupils-and-students-well-teachers-and-other-staff

Opetushallitus (EDUFI). (n.d.-b). Kansainvälisyyden muotoja English. https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/Kansainv%C3%A4lisyyden%20muotoja%20English_0.pdf

Opetushallitus (EDUFI). (n.d.-c). The origin and destination of countries… https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/Top10%20maat%20in%20English_0.pdf

Opetushallitus (EDUFI). (2019). Lukion opetussuunnitelman perusteet 2019. Helsinki: National Board of Education. https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/lukion_opetussuunnitelman_perusteet_2019.pdf

Riitaoja, A. (2013). Toiseuksien rakentuminen koulussa: Tutkimus opetussuunnitelmista ja kahden helsinkiläisen alakoulun arjesta. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Helsinki. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-10-7876-7

Rokka, P. (2011). Peruskoulun ja perusopetuksen vuosien 1985, 1994 ja 2004 opetussuunnitelmien perusteet poliittisen opetussuunnitelman teksteinä. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Tampere. https://urn.fi/urn:isbn:978-951-44-8456-8

Saloranta, S. (2017). Koulun toimintakulttuurin merkitys kestävän kehityksen kasvatuksen toteuttamisessa perusopetuksen vuosiluokkien 1-6 kouluissa. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Helsinki. https://helda.helsinki.fi/items/0f0c1b15-4f41-4f9e-bed7-f2b59c28409f/full

Shahjahan, R. & Kezar, A. (2013). Beyond the ”National Container’‘: Addressing Methodological Nationalism in Higher Education Research. Educational Researcher: 42(20).  DOI: 10.3102/0013189X12463050

Tamtik, M. & James, C. (2025). Introduction. Introducing the Global Landscape of K–12 International Education. In: Tamtik, M. & James, C., eds. International Education in the K-12 Sector: Topics, Trends and Tensions. Springer Publishing.

Waters, J. & Brooks, (2024). The art of internationalisation: ‘unstrategic’ dialogical cosmopolitanism within secondary schools in England. Social and Cultural Geography. 10.1080/14649365.2022.2143880

An educational approach to integrating diverse cultures in Finland and South Korea

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Introduction

When I first came to Finland from Korea, I experienced a type of identity loss I had never felt before. I almost felt that, with my black eyes and hair, it was no longer possible for people to see me as a primary school teacher, a doctoral researcher, and a double master’s in education, but simply and automatically as “Other” or “Foreign”. I felt, as a natural reaction to seeing foreigners in any place, people pretended not to be interested, frequently glanced at, or stared at me steadily. In most cases, young children showed more honest and curious facial expressions.

This recognition of differences means that we, all humans, are basically on the same line to learn from each other, regardless of ethnicity, religion, and cultural background. Previously in my time as a primary school teacher in Korea, teaching in a culturally homogenous classroom, I had thought that multicultural education was not something relevant to my work or life. However, through my own experiences of “otherness,” I have become increasingly curious about multicultural education in both Finland and Korea. Both countries have a history of long trends of cultural homogeneity, and both tend to score highly in global educational rankings. So how does multicultural education operate in these two countries, how do practices and policies attempt to support students, and is there something both countries can learn from each other?

Multicultural / Intercultural education in Finland and Korea

In Finland, current trends in educational research have been moving away from ‘multiculturalism’ towards ‘interculturalism’ or ‘interculturality’, which emphasizes mutual understanding and communication (Layne & Dervin, 2016). Rather than merely learning about others’ cultures, it is the interactions between groups within schools and society that plays a crucial role. Throughout Northern European history, the term ‘multicultural’ often referred to non-Western and non-white people as an opposite group, immigrantness (Hummelstedt et al., 2021). However, the changes became the starter to establish the principle of security and non-discrimination in educational policies. For example, S2 students (students with Finnish as a second language)  are entitled to a language policy that supports Finnish language development alongside the development of an individual’s mother-tongue language (THL, 2023). The preparatory education for immigrant students with little knowledge of Finnish for one year aims to develop their language skills and provide other skills for studying (City of Helsinki, n.d.; Rask, 2023). In terms of supporting mother tongue, the local government offers education in one’s mother tongue with native speakers or professional teachers in educating foreigners (The Finnish National Agency for Education, EDUFI, 2017).

Despite this Finland still struggles with educational inequities. One might be surprised to hear it, as Finland’s education systems are often highly praised, but academic achievement gaps between Finnish students and first or second-generation immigrants in Finland remain wide particularly compared to other OECD countries (OECD, 2019). Moreover, immigrant students in lower-secondary schools are three to five times more likely to experience bullying (Hummelstedt et al. 2021). According to the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL)’s biennial School Health Survey, gender and income differences, along with color and place of origin, are also associated with school violence. Specifically, the report noted that a lack of societal resources has a direct impact on experiences of racism, for instance, bullying can persist for years if teachers lack the time and resources to address issues and talk with students.

Korea is not without its struggles regarding multicultural education as well, despite its high global rankings in education (OECD, 2019). In Korea, we emphasize the term ‘Multicultural sensitivity education’ which refers to the attitude of openness to heterogeneous cultures and their owners (Lim et al, 2019). This is rooted in the national survey instrument, the Korean Multicultural Acceptability Inventory (KMAI) which covers adults (n=5000) and adolescents (n=5000) and consists of three sub-categories; diversity, relationships and generality, in the 3-Year Cycle Project since 2012 (MOGEF, 2012). The report plays a crucial role in multicultural education as well as integration plans and policies. However, having high multicultural acceptability scores in the survey does not meet the educational field in practice, which is much more nuanced in nature. Primarily the generality of ‘we must understand and respect cultures different from ours’ is emphasized, and this does not lead to individual willingness or action on how to create relationships, build discourse among different groups, or how to execute successful multicultural teaching practices (Seo & Yang, 2021).

Korea has maintained a single ethnic history for a relatively long time. Although we did not have independent and sequential exchanges with the world, ‘globalization’ in Korea is now a part of everyday life. 10 years ago, about 1.1% of all primary school students were multicultural students. Now, primary school students accounted for 4.2%, an increase of 1.5 times from 5 years ago and 3.3 times from 9 years ago. Yet, the use rate of daycare centers (or kindergartens) for infants and toddlers, which is a major predictor of academic achievement at school, is about 10% lower than the average for multicultural children, and low-income families often do not use institutions. In addition, the dropout rate of multicultural students is very high and often caused by difficulties in establishing relationships with friends or teachers and adapting to school life (KESS, 2022). The violence exposure rate of students with multicultural families was 8.2% as of 2018, which is relatively high considering the average rate among all students in the same year was 1.3%.

Conclusion

With the development of technology, transportation, and communication methods including smartphones and social media, multicultural classrooms, and societies are becoming more and more common. Therefore, if education does not provide a foundation for balanced perspectives of diverse cultures in school children and execute education in a way that strives for equity, current intercultural conflicts could even intensify as children grow up. Not addressing inequity and issues of social justice within education systems around the world will only serve to further perpetuate societal inequities and stratification. So, is there something Korea and Finland could learn from one another, and is it useful to compare these two education contexts?

As a teacher, I believe we need to support the healthy growth of students with immigrant backgrounds by supporting the learning of the local language and mother tongue languages, as this serves as a compass that helps students to find their own identity, as a person with a foreign background living in Finland. In this respect, I believe Korean education systems could learn something from Finland’s language policies. In turn, state-led standardized multicultural surveys can be useful in presenting a big picture of policymaking, and perhaps Finland in turn could find these useful. As an educational resource, students and teachers should be prepared to discuss topics such as social justice, non-discrimination action, social justice issues, and internationalization according to the level of students.

Ultimately, more research is needed on educational approaches to integrating diverse cultures into educational systems and societies and should be geared toward supporting teachers and creating more equitable outcomes for students. Both Finland and Korea have this to work on, but perhaps being open to exploring educational models from other countries can potentially provide useful insight and help illuminate these issues, not only in Finland and Korea but globally as well.

*Eunji Kim is a doctoral researcher currently at Tampere University researching teachers’ perspectives and roles in the effective implementation of mathematical communication in primary mathematics classroom with a comparative approach between Finland and Korea. She has posted several articles related to education issues on ERICK(Education Research & Innovation Center of Korea). ERICK (https://21erick.org/) is a non-profitable organization to enhance the quality of  Korean education (NPO). The articles were written in Korean, but it would be good to explore and understand common phenomena between Finland and Korea.

#Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eunji-kim-197b27248/

References

City of Helsinki. (n.d.). Oman äidinkielen opetus. Helsingin kaupunki. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/fi/kasvatus-ja-koulutus/perusopetus/mita-opiskellaan/kielten/oman-aidinkielen-opetus/oman-aidinkielen-opetus

Hummelstedt, I. P., Holm, G. I., Sahlström, F. J., & Zilliacus, H. A.-C. (2021). Diversity as the new normal and persistent constructions of the immigrant other – Discourses on multicultural education among teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 108, 1–10.

KESS. (2022). Brief statistics on Korean education-Multicultural Students. Korean Education Statistics Service. Retrieved February 13, 2023, from https://kess.kedi.re.kr

Layne, H., & Dervin, F. (2016). Problematizing Finland’s pursuit of intercultural (kindergarten) teacher education. Multicultural Education Review, 8(2), 118–134.

Lim, S. I., Oh, Y. H., Cho, I. J., Lee, Y. M., & Lee, E. K. (2019). A Study on the Limits and Diversification of Multicultural Sensitivity Education in Elementary·Secondary School. The Journal of Cultural Exchange. Korean Association of International Culture Exchange.

Ministry of Gender Equality & Family (MOGEF, 2012). A study on multicultural acceptability in Korea.

OECD. (2019). Where all students can succeed (Pisa 2018 Results (Volume II).). OECD Publishing Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/b5fd1b8f-en

Rask, S. (2023, February 14). Shadia Raskin Kolumni: Koulukeskustelussa UNOHTUU Keskiluokkaisten vanhempien vaikutus. Yle Uutiset. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://yle.fi/a/74-20016613

Seo, J., & Yang, S. (2021). A Study on the Relationship of Multicultural Acceptability and Multicultural Education: Centered on Relationship. The Journal of Humanities and Social sciences 21. Asia Culture Academy of Incorporated Association.

The Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI, 2017). Perusopetukseen valmistava opetus. Opetushallitus 4:2017.

THL. (2023, January 20). Integration and inclusion. Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. Retrieved February 14, 2023, from https://thl.fi/en/web/migration-and-cultural-diversity/integration-and-inclusion