Meet the Mentors

Professor Jaakko Kauko, Tampere University

1. What is your area of expertise?
Education policy and comparative education.

2. What are the most interesting or central research topic within this research area at the moment?
In education policy, the ongoing discussion is the relationship between equality and equity to the economic goals or frameworks for education. My own long-term interest is in research of decision making in education policy, quality as a political and governance issue, as well as policy dynamics and power issues. Major discussions currently relate to, for example, private actors in the field of education (e.g. digitalisation) and the changing relationship between expertise and knowledge in decision-making (e.g. the use of knowledge produced for decision making).

3. Are you currently running your own research projects? What kind of?
I’m participating in a research project ”Policy Knowledge and Lesson Drawing in Nordic School Reform in an Era of International Comparison” which studies with the help of a network analysis how knowledge has been used in Nordic school reforms. The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

I’m also planning several research projects.

4. In which area do you want to provide mentoring to doctoral researchers?
Broadly related to education policy issues. My special expertise is in research of comprehensive school and university. I can provide support in theories in political science and comparative research.

5. What was the topic of your own doctoral dissertation? What method did you use in it?
I researched the dynamics of Finnish higher education on the basis of policy makers’ interviews and documentation. My “dynamics analysis” synthesizes various text analysis methods.

Read more: https://research.uta.fi/eduknow/people/jaakko-kauko/