Could you describe your dissertation project and highlight a few key findings?
My dissertation focuses on the dynamics of the interactions between global, national, and local actors involved in policymaking processes. It analyses how references to international organisations (such as the OECD), their tools of assessment and guidance (such as PISA), and practices of other countries are used in discussions of education in the Portuguese parliament and in the media.
By combining diverse qualitative methods (qualitative content analysis, rhetorical analysis, and frame analysis) and aggregating different, complementary, theories (complexity thinking being my onto-epistemological background), namely multiple streams approach (by John Kingdon), the epistemic governance framework (by Pertti Alasuutari & Ali Qadir), and thematisation theory (by Saperas, Luhmann, and Pissarra Esteves for example) I developed a multifaceted analysis of externalisations to international elements in Portugal.
The study demonstrates that the selection of the international elements used in education policy discussions is contingent on national and local historical paths, and on the interactions and selections among political and social actors. These actors often struggle to earn enough support for their policy proposals and ideas, and need authoritative elements that can help to strengthen their arguments with the aim of changing the audience’s understandings and decisions. My main argument is that references to international elements are important tools of (de-)legitimation that can help to manage the contingency of the policy process and thus reduce this process’s complexity, with the aim of initiating social change.
Could you describe your participation in POLNET and share how your POLNET experience has influenced your PhD project?
As a participant in POLNET’s project, Evidence and Expertise in Nordic Education Policies: A Comparative Network Analysis from the Nordic Region, I certainly benefited of the project’s international meetings and of my co-authoring of some of the book chapters, namely with Chanwoong Baek, Dijana Tiplic-Lunde, Saija Volmari and Jaakko Kauko. The expertise of each member of the team help me to better understand the use of evidence in policymaking within the context of the Nordic countries, which was a region that although living in Finland I never had the opportunity to explore from a research point of view. I feel my involvement in this project was also very relevant in my professional development as an academic and a researcher in the fields of comparative and international education and policy studies.
What is your next research agenda?
I have many interests and a great attraction towards situations that push me to learn something new! In general, I aim to continue researching in the fields of comparative education and policy studies, including continuing to focus on the use of references to the international dimension as a form of legitimation. Also, in the past year I brought back some old interests, such as global citizenship, development cooperation, education for sustainable development. At the moment, I am working at the Faculty of Administration in Business of Tampere University, developing research on these areas, more specifically on what is Finland’s role in global education development, from the point of view of Finnish education experts working in international organizations.
Íris Santos' doctoral studies were completed in a cotutelle agreement between the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University, Finland and Institute of Education at the University of Lisbon, Portugal under supervision of Jaakko Kauko (University of Tampere), Luís Miguel Carvalho (University of Lisbon) and Vera G. Centeno (University of Tampere). The full text of Santos' dissertation can be accessed here.