Firmly Bolted into the Air: Wishful Rationalism as a Discursive Basis for Educational Reforms

Abstract

The aim of this article is to promote a better understanding of the problematic relations between public reform discourse and the reality of schooling. The subject is the paradox of educational reforms: while superficially decisive, they seem, at the same time, to be deficient and insufficient. The article proposes that one explanation for this “vicious circle” of educational reform might be traced to the discursive dynamics of school reform rather than to the reforms themselves. The article is based on empirical findings and theoretical constructions developed in a Finnish study. Although the case is limited to a peripheral and small country, it may have more general implications. The analysis of changes in official Finnish school discourse since the late 1960's identifies four characteristic features: individualization, “disciplinization,” goal rationalization, and decontextualization. These changes then constitute a curious intertwining of utopianism and rationalism, a “wishful rationalism,” as a tacit discursive principle of the authoritarian approach to school reform. Reading official school discourse with this specific logic in mind seems to reveal something about the inner dynamics and paradoxes of educational reform.