Posts

Helsinki, Finland, 12th & 13th of June 2025
Location: House of Science (Kirkkokatu/Kyrkogatan 6, Helsinki; Tieteiden talo)

Programme Thursday 12th of June

10.00-10.30 Coffee and opening words. Tuukka Tomperi and Isabella Varricchio.
Jaakko Lindfors (Finnish National Agency for Education): Welcome Address from EDUFI

10.30-12.00 Presentations and discussions
Isabella Varricchio (Stockholm University): The role and significance of philosophy in meeting society in upper secondary school – philosophy subject curricula in the Nordics

Eero Salmenkivi (University of Helsinki & Finnish Matriculation Examination Board): The Curriculum and Matriculation Examination of Philosophy in Finland: Current Overview

12.00-13.00 Lunch break (Free buffet for all participants at the House of Science.)

13.00-15.00 Presentations and discussions
Ylva Backman & Anders Franklin (Luleå University of Technology), online: Preliminary Results from a Research Project about Philosophical Dialogues with Pupils with Intellectual Disabilities

Riku Välitalo (University of Oulu Teacher Training School): TBA

Eena Hämäläinen (Tampere University & Tampere Arts-Oriented Senior Secondary School): Common Ethics in School as an Educational Challenge: A Hundred Year Perspective from Finland

Programme Friday 13th of June

10.00-10.30 Coffee

10.30-12.00 Presentations and discussions
Eelis Mikkola & Mika Perälä & Arto Kallioniemi (University of Helsinki; University of Cambridge): Adapting Philosophy for Children for Finnish Upper Secondary Schools: A Comparative Analysis of Philosophy, Religious Education, and Culture, Worldviews and Ethics

Jóhann Björnsson (Reykjavik University): Reflections from the Field: Teaching Philosophy Through Dialogue in Compulsory Education – A Teacher’s Perspective

12.00-13.00 Lunch break (Free buffet for all participants at the House of Science.)

13.00-14.30 Presentations and discussions
Olle Uppenberg (Philosophie Doctor, Independent researcher), online: Student Relativism and Equality

Tuukka Tomperi (Tampere University): Bridging Pedagogical Philosophizing with Children & Didactics of School Philosophy

14.30-14.45 Closing Discussion & Presentation of the Nordic Network for Pedagogy and Didactics of Philosophy

14.45 Ending the meeting & Coffee

Participation is free of charge, but we kindly ask you to inform Tuukka Tomperi (contact details below) of your intention to attend, so we can estimate the number of participants.

Organisers:
Tuukka Tomperi (tuukka.tomperi@tuni.fi; +358 40 568 2118)
Isabella Varricchio (isabella.varricchio@su.se; +46 70 353 76 09)

Organised by Eurooppalaisen filosofian seura (Finnish Society for European Philosophy), FutuPedaFilo -research project (Kone Foundation), and research consortium DELIBERATE (Research Council of Finland)

Funding: Kulturfonden för Sverige och Finland

The DELIBERATE consortium met with researchers from the DEMOED group at the University of Oulu in a joint workshop on April 4, 2025. The consortium was invited to Oulu and the arrangements were overseen by Katariina Holma, who is the leader of both our consortium and the DEMOED group, and Hanna-Maija Huhtala, who is a DELIBERATE researcher for the Oulu theoretical sub-project.

During the meeting, seven different research projects were presented. Julia Jaakkola introduced the latest plans for the empirical sub-project’s questionnaire, which aims to collect nationwide survey data from Finnish teachers. A particular challenge in designing the survey is how to capture with questionnaire items teachers’ perceptions of teaching deliberative practices and competencies. Jaakkola presented a new set of questions she had developed to operationalize this theme in the survey, and a productive discussion ensued.

Tuukka Tomperi, on the other hand, outlined the research plans for the pedagogical sub-project for the current year, focusing on classroom practices through case studies of teaching experiments and teacher interviews. One aim is to map students’ experiences of barriers and difficulties in participating in discussions and, secondly, to investigate teachers’ experiences of using the television series Moraalimittari (“Morality Meter”) as a stimulus and guide for deliberative classroom discussions.

From the DEMOED group, we heard about the latest projects and publications from Veli-Mikko Kauppi, Henri Huttunen, and Samuel Iinatti. Additionally, we were introduced to the research interests of Tuija Kasa and Anniina Leiviskä, although they were unable to attend in person. The lively discussions during the meeting made it clear that the DEMOED group and the DELIBERATE consortium share many common research interests related to democratic education.

Inspired by the workshop, we plan to continue our collaboration closely in the future. As a concrete form of cooperation, the groups are planning to organize joint conference sessions and seminars during 2025, including at the FERA Conference on Education 2025 (Kasvatustieteen päivät), the main Finnish annual congress for educational research, which will be held in November at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi. Moreover, on June 11.-12. 2026, the groups will co-organize an international conference in Oulu, where the distinguished senior philosopher of education, Nick Burbules, has agreed to be a keynote speaker. To foster positive synergy, this conference will be held together with the annual meeting of the Finnish Society for History and Philosophy of Education. Stay tuned for more information!

The work of the development group set up by the Finnish National Agency for Education to formulate suggestions for reforming religious, worldview and ethics education (in Finnish “katsomusaineet”) has been completed and final report was published on March 5th. The development group consisted of experts in education, educational organisations and religious, worldview and ethics subjects. DELIBERATE researcher Tuukka Tomperi participated in the work that began at the end of 2022 and concluded at the end of 2024. During this time, the group met 21 times and heard a wide range of other experts and stakeholders. The group produced proposals for reforming the teaching of religious and worldview subjects in basic and upper secondary education. Most of the proposals would require impact assessments and legislative changes.

The group’s work was based on a previous report by investigators on the current state and development needs of worldview education. The report, published by the Ministry of Education and Culture in the spring of 2022, also proposed the establishment of this development group. The authors of the report, Eero Salmenkivi and Vesa Åhs, worked as permanent experts in the group.

The task of the development group was to outline short- and long-term development measures and to make implementation proposals for the next Finnish government programme. The proposals made by the development group are suggestions on which the reform of worldview education can be based. The Finnish National Agency for Education does not make legislative changes; these are the responsibility of the ministries, the government, and the parliament. Follow-up measures requiring legislative changes and curriculum reform are in the hands of political decision-makers.

The current model of worldview education and the underlying legislation are complex. It also includes significant equality issues, as noted both previously in the investigators report (2022) and now in the development group’s report. The current model treats members of different religious communities and those not belonging to any unequally in terms of subject choices. The development group paid particular attention to these equality issues. In this regard, the group made especially two specific reform proposals: The clear majority of the development group proposes that to correct inequality, the legislation should be amended to open the choice of subjects to students in upper secondary education; it is also proposed that an exam in Islamic religion be added to the matriculation examination, which has not been available before.

The two most important proposals for further research and didactic and curricular subject development needs are as follows: Establishing a working group to outline pedagogical and didactic solutions for the development of religious and worldview education, as well as possible common models, forms, and contents for teaching worldview subjects; Implementing a research-based teaching experiment on partially integrated worldview education in basic education.

Press release and announcement on the Finnish National Agency for Education website: https://www.oph.fi/fi/uutiset/2025/katsomusaineiden-kehittamisryhman-loppuraportti-julki-osa-ehdotuksista-vaatii. The expert group’s report (in Finnish; version in Swedish also available) can be downloaded at the bottom of the page. The page also includes a link to the investigators report (2022). The group’s report can also be downloaded from here:

At the beginning of 2025, university researcher Tuukka Tomperi from the DELIBERATE Consortium (together with writer and teacher Severi Hämäri, who served as the course’s online moderator) created an online course “Using debate to build critical thinking and communication skills” for the European School Education Platform (EU Academy, European Commission). The course was directed for teachers’ continuing education and provided teachers with a thorough introduction to applying debate as an approach that develops critical thinking and argumentative discussion skills.

In educational settings, debates serve as a way of learning dispositions of questioning and inquiry, research skills, content knowledge, and critical thinking. They motivate students and make learning holistic and interactive in a practical way. Thinking, public speaking and argumentation skills – justifying claims and evaluating reasons – are needed throughout society: in everyday life, the workplace, politics, courtrooms, scientific research, and personal decision-making in existential life choices.

Debates are sometimes perceived as nothing but competitive games focused, regardless of the truthfulness of the claims defended, on defeating the opponent for the amusement of the audience. Once discussion, dialogue, and debate, however, were the core of the intellectual practices of the great Greek philosophers. When implemented in a pedagogically well considered and balanced manner, practicing debating teaches essential deliberative skills and dispositions.

As we live in a media culture and digital media environment, we are constantly targeted by persuasive attempts. Critical thinking, the evaluation of reasons, and the analysis of arguments have become essential civic skills. Pedagogical debate is an effective way to support these skills. Debating should be an integral part of democratic education. Tomperi has previously used debating in his own teaching and written and lectured on using debate as a pedagogical approach: see, for instance, the book Väittely opetusmenetelmänä (in Finnish), and the more recent article Debate as a Pedagogical Practice: A Case Study from Finland on Teaching International Law.

Although the course has ended, the wide range of course materials remain open and you are welcome to visit the online platform by registering as a user of the EU Academy: https://academy.europa.eu/courses/using-debate-to-build-critical-thinking-and-communication-skills

Doctoral researcher Julia Jaakkola and professor Jan Löfström attended the Annual Symposium of Subject Didactics organized by The Finnish Association for Subject Didactic Research on Friday 14^th of February, 2025. The topic of Julia’s presentation was about her doctoral research with the title “Deliberative democratic education in Finnish schools: Teachers’ conceptions and experiences”. Professor Jan Löfström, who leads the Turku subproject, also gave a presentation at the seminar discussing middle school history teaching.

Julia’s doctoral research focuses on Finnish teachers’ conceptions of deliberative practices in the classroom and school community, how teachers implement them in everyday school life and how teachers’ background factors and their societal values and attitudes may influence their teaching practices. The aim is also to create a relevant way of measuring deliberative practices quantitatively in a survey form as this has not been done before in the Finnish context. 

Participants of the Symposium consisted of researchers and teachers in subject didactics and educational sciences. Julia’s and Jan’s presentations were part of the theme group on history and social science didactics. Seminar participants and audience offered valuable comments and discussion on deliberative education from the point of view of history and social sciences teaching.

The Research Council of Finland funded research consortium “DELIBERATE: Education for deliberation: Practices of inquiry in dialogue-based democratic education” was launched Sep 1st 2024. DELIBERATE seeks a novel understanding of the practice of deliberation in democratic education with three sub-projects focused on philosophical, empirical and pedagogical questions of dialogue-based democratic education. 

The project team consists of six members from three universities: professor Katariina Holma (consortium leader) and postdoctoral researcher Hanna-Maija Huhtala at the University of Oulu, professor Jan Löfström and doctoral researcher Julia Jaakkola at the University of Turku, and professor emeritus Veli-Matti Värri and university researcher Tuukka Tomperi at the Tampere University. 

The project team is pleased to have a distinguished group of international collaborators supporting our work: Nicholas C. Burbules, Professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and the editor-in-chief of Educational Theory; Silvia Edling, Professor of Curriculum Theory at the University of Gävle; Andrea R. English, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at the Moray House School of Education, The University of Edinburgh, and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; Maughn Gregory, Professor of Educational Foundations at Montclair State University (USA), and successor of Matthew Lipman as the director of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC); Walter Kohan, Professor of Philosophy of Education and the Director of the Center of Studies in Philosophy and Childhood at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, and co-editor of the journal Childhood & Philosophy; and Dina Mendonça, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Nova University of Lisbon (IFILNOVA) and coordinator of the research group on Philosophy and Argumentation in Society (PAIS).

The consortium team held one-day workshops at the House of Science and Letters in Helsinki on Sep 6th and at the Tampere University on Oct 31st, for planning the implementation and tuning the sub-projects.

The consortium held a semi-public kick-off workshop at the University of Turku on Nov 20th, on the pre-seminar day of the Finnish Educational Research Association (FERA) Conference of Education 2024, with participation of two European collaborators, Professor Andrea English and Professor Silvia Edling, and with invited guests from Finnish universities.