The best and most respected teachers in the world?: Counternarratives about the ‘Finnish miracle of education’ in the press

Abstract

Adored worldwide for its ‘outstanding’ education system, Finland has relied on its excellent results in studies of the Programme for International Student Assessment to advertise and sell its education abroad. One of the keys to this success is often attributed to Finnish teachers, who are said to be ‘the best and most respected in the world’. This article questions this official narrative by examining the way teachers are perceived by Finnish society through analysing the front-page headlines of the Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat in 2000–2013. To the authors’ knowledge, the way teachers are constructed in the Finnish press has not been studied extensively, while international studies, especially from English-speaking countries, highlight negative constructions of teachers in the press and cultural products. The data consist of 81 front pages, which were analysed using three methods: content analysis, discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis. The study of the photographs used on the front covers complements the analyses. The results show that the way Finnish teachers are constructed on the tabloid front pages has changed significantly between 2000 and 2013, and they could signal changes in the way education and the status of teachers are considered in the Nordic country. They also show a shift in the way the power of teachers has been depicted.