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This article concerns the discursive power relations that have led to equality work in Finland. In addition to marketisation, publicly-funded projects, especially those funded by the European Union, have permeated the public sector. Equality has been labelled women's work and something that women do and the continuity of equality work requires a complex form of competence. In this article, ways have been looked to analyse the current situation by conducting an analysis that will enable to see not only the discursive power relations that shape gender equality work but also how it has been possible that gender equality work has succeeded in remaining continuous. Persistence of problems concerning equality as well as co-operation between women and the 'discourse virtuosity' of equality work have opened up opportunities for continuity but not without problems.

This article concerns the discursive power relations that have led to equality work in Finland. In addition to marketisation, publicly-funded projects, especially those funded by the European Union, have permeated the public sector. Equality has been labelled women's work and something that women do and the continuity of equality work requires a complex form of competence. In this article, ways have been looked to analyse the current situation by conducting an analysis that will enable to see not only the discursive power relations that shape gender equality work but also how it has been possible that gender equality work has succeeded in remaining continuous. Persistence of problems concerning equality as well as co-operation between women and the 'discourse virtuosity' of equality work have opened up opportunities for continuity but not without problems.

Drawing on affect theory and research on academic capitalism and 11 international case studies, this book examines the contemporary crisis of universities, from the coloniality of academic capitalism to performance management and the experience of being performance-managed.

This book intends to deepen the knowledge of the extended and uncertain transitions from school to work and to higher education by analysing the perspectives of youths and young adults and by addressing policies and institutional practices. The book critically examines the 'transition machinery' consisting of various education and training measures, projects and schemes, provided by educational institutions, the EU, ministries, municipalities and non-governmental organisations. Treating lack of education and unemployment mainly as individual problems, personal deficiencies or identity issues, the solutions are likewise individualised. The book illustrates how youth transitions are intertwined with social structures, power relations and differences.

Researchers often find themselves reflecting on either/or questions. This article examines the multiple discursive reality of gender equality, a topic comprising several juxtapositions connected to either/or thinking which also provide the topic its legitimacy. The examples come from the context of gender equality work and gender equality policy, which has been shaped in Finland by public bodies focused on equality, the Government and Government bodies, ministries, political parties, labour market organizations and NGOs, particularly the women's movement. Our aim was to establish a discursive-deconstructive reading that would allow us to move from either/or thinking to a both/and approach. This kind of approach enables to consider and acknowledge differences as cultural categorisations enabling to categorize and hierarchise people. ; Peer reviewed

Prison education is seen in both criminal and education policies as a way of assimilating inmates 'back into society'. In spite of the policy emphasis on education, the practices in prison education vary from prison to prison. The stated aim of prison education in EU and in Finnish national level policies is to teach inmates the skills and knowledge that they can use in life after release and thus reduce recidivism. In this paper, we analyse policies and practices related to education programmes in closed prisons in Finland with discourses of employability and therapisation of education. International and national policy documents and ethnographic data and interviews with young people and teachers have been use as data sources. Our aim is to draw a picture of multiple and complex power relations that shape the young adults in prison as flexible subjects that are able to make the transition from prison 'back' to civil society. ; Peer reviewed

In this article, identity politics is understood as a form of politics stressing collective but malleable group identities as the basis of political action. This notion of identity politics also allows thinking of identity as intersectional. The focus of this article, and a problem related to identity politics, is that when discussed in the context of the neoliberal order, identity politics has a tendency to become harnessed by the ethos of vulnerability. Some implications of the 'vulnerabilizisation' are considered in the field of education, which is a field currently thoroughly affected by neoliberalism. Therefore, it is also important to look closer at the relationship between identity politics and the ethos of vulnerability. In addition, we re-consider poststructuralist thinking as a theoretical and political approach to see what it can offer in terms of re-thinking identity politics and in analyzing the ethos of vulnerability. When categories of vulnerability keep expanding into various psycho-emotional vulnerabilities defining subjects that can be known and spoken about, it is crucial to ask whether we regard these changes as educationally and politically progressive. The article discusses some problematic policies in educational environments and the phenomenon of trigger warnings. ; Peer reviewed

Public debate and media attention concerning mental health problems, stress, psycho-emotional vulnerabilities, and anxiety among university students has reached record level. Informed by media representations, student mental health guides, and our observations, we focus on the ethos of vulnerability as an articulation of psychologized student subjectivity in Finnish academia. We explore the multiple registers in which the ethos of vulnerability tends to operate as an assemblage to depict and govern student subjects.

Drawing on two interrelated areas of youth work, outreach youth work as a place of coordination of work, social benefits and social services, and youth workshops as a place for work training for young people "at risk", our aim in this article is to analyse how young people in poor financial circumstances are governed through policies and practices in these institutions in Finland. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with young people and professionals working with young people, we ask how the subjectivities of young people "at risk" (and particularly those in debt and poverty) are shaped in the context of economic vulnerability. This shaping is not only from top-down dimensional formation of a subject, but also from the multidimensional flow of power/knowledge via subjects that sometimes possess opportunities of acting otherwise, as delineated in the end of our analysis. In the context of ubiquitous neoliberal governmentality, we delineated a landscape of survival strategies for economically vulnerable young people in these power/knowledge relations. ; Peer reviewed

Special issue: The efficacy of policies, theories and actions to support the inclusion of refugees ; This article scrutinises the normalised realities behind integration policies and training for refugees and immigrants that are claimed to be inclusive. The 'great narrative' of Finland has been focused on equal opportunity via education and training, which makes it even more important to examine the hidden realities and how such realities affect the integration process. We focus on labour market-oriented integration training, since employment is considered to be the most important element for successful integration and social inclusion. Our data consists of interviews with 20 refugees, 5 immigrants, 6 integration professionals and 3 policy makers, in addition to ethnographic field notes. Through a discursive approach and utilising studies on governmentality, we unveil how governing through integration practices works. The article explores how integration practices that claim to be inclusionary are maintaining forms of exclusion, which becomes a mechanism of exclusionary inclusion. Our analysis shows what refugees and immigrants have to adopt and adapt to as part of their own subjectification in order to become integrateable, and thus includable. ; Peer reviewed

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a controversial phenomenon and the link between schooling and the burgeoning occurrence of ADHD diagnoses is problematic. This paper contributes to the discussion regarding the issue by providing a literature review of the evidence on the influence of relative age effect (RAE) on being diagnosed with ADHD. Firstly, the review presents a general cross-national trend for a positive association between relative age and the probability of being diagnosed with ADHD compared to peers, thus showing that the younger-in-class children are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Secondly, this paper outlines and discusses the suggested explanations of the phenomenon as depicted in the reviewed literature. Finally, the paper proceeds to provide alternative frameworks for the explanation of the RAE on ADHD diagnosis that go beyond individual psychopathology and instead take into account the broader social, cultural and political contexts in which the phenomenon takes place. ; Peer reviewed