The views of Global Education experts on the aims, challenges, achievements, and implementation of Global Education in Finnish primary education

Abstract

This qualitative master’s thesis attempts to understand the views of Global Education experts’ perspectives on the challenges, achievements, and implementation of Global Education in Finnish primary education. During the last years there has been a growing amount of Finnish research in the field of Global Education. However, prior research has focused mostly on teachers’ and principal’s perspectives. Therefore, we decided to choose a different standpoint on our research.

We interviewed five Finnish Global Education experts who worked in different positions in the field of Global Education. The interviews were semi-structured and conducted through Zoom. We used qualitative content analysis to analyse our data. Based on these research findings, the familiarity of Global Education has increased in the last 20 years. This can be seen in the way Global Education has been included in the Finnish National Core Curriculum, NGOs collaborate with schools and have made plenty of material for schools related to the topic. Regardless of the achievements, there is a need to educate teachers more on the topic and the implementation of Global Education is not yet as structured as it could be. Our research findings signal that the implementation of Global Education varies greatly depending on teachers’ interests.

We hope that this thesis highlights the achievements that have been accomplished in the field of Global Education in Finland and also sheds light on the magnitude and diversity of Global Education. Our findings suggest that there are multiple ways to develop the implementation of Global Education in schools. This gives us hope that Global Education will one day achieve the significant position it deserves.