The focus of this article is on the history and current trends of feminist ethnography in Finland. It highlights the impact of feminist ethnography in Finnish educational research and illustrates how feminist ethnography has succeeded in asking novel questions and developing methodologies by drawing on multiple feminist theories. The article is…

This study investigates how nation is taught, learned, practiced, and performed in early childhood educational settings in Australia and Hungary. Analysis, based on comparative multi-sited ethnography, reveals nationhood as a taken for granted, unreflexively promoted framework for organizing social life. The "pedagogy of nation" operates…

This article provides a meta-analysis of what characterises existing ethnographic research on gender and class in the context of Nordic early childhood education. The encompasses research on education and gender or social class in the Nordic countries published in Nordic and non-Nordic scientific journals as well PhD theses published in the Nordic…

This article focuses on how students make use of different spaces in one compulsory school in Iceland and how gender is produced through activities in these spaces. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted for three months in 2016 among 8th and 9th graders at one public school in Iceland. Our analysis is based on poststructural and material…

Although Finnish politics relating to the Roma tend to be perceived internationally as fairly successful, several obstacles exist for the Roma in education and the labour market. Training of Roma mediators has been actively promoted in Finland to improve the school performance and equality of Roma pupils. This article, based on ethnographic…

Vocational education has a historical legacy of being low-status and aimed at producing skilled workers. Students with low marks in comprehensive school are still often guided to the vocational educational track. In this article we examine how mathematics teaching in a vocational educational context is framed (henceforth VET). Therefore, our aim…

In the current economic order, the basic duty of citizens is to find placements in the internationalising labour market. Internationalism has been a common educational objective throughout Europe. Previously associated as a feature of middle-class subjectivities and academic education, it is implemented in the agenda of vocational education as…

In this article, we discuss the usefulness of collaborative, multi-sited and cross-cultural ethnography. Giving three examples from our work, we suggest that it is possible to find new kinds of interpretations by joint reflections that draw from several studies with their own research questions. The cases presented discuss teachers' embodiment and…

In this article our focus is on the persistent gendered divisions in educational routes of young people who choose a vocational path after compulsory education in Finland. We analyse how gendered subjectivities are constructed within the practices of educational and vocational guidance and within student cultures in the comprehensive school, as…

This article is based on ethnographic studies in the context of vocational education: two in Sweden and one in Finland. The Swedish data originate from the Vehicle programme and the Child and Recreation programme; the Finnish data originate from the social and health-care sector. In this sense, the authors' perspective is cross-cultural. The…

This paper focuses on embodied practices in processes of nationalization among preschool children at the age of 6. It analyses how children define themselves and others, how they characterize and frame Finnishness through embodiment. The analysis is based on an ethnographic study in two preschool classes. It is argued that nationality works in a…

In children's lives the start of school is a turning point: compulsory education is their first encounter with civil duties. This important step in the process of becoming individual citizens is permeated with strong emotions and ambivalent expectations. However, the representations of school are created, established and negotiated in educational…

This article analyzes how professionals of early childhood education define Finnishness and how they deal with ethnicity. It illustrates how nationality and ethnicity are actualised in the everyday practices of preschool. As part of a one-year ethnographic study in two preschools, the study reveals that the liberal version of multiculturalism…