Chapter 3: Rural Education in a Globalized World: The Cases of Norway and Finland

In this chapter our aim is to identify, exemplify, and discuss how and to what extent various aspects of globalization have an impact on, and also possibly threaten, rural communities, rural life and culture, and, in particular, rural schools. Although we will draw mainly on Norwegian and Finnish research and examples, the overall picture will be very similar to that of many other Western and Northern European countries. Based on a brief account of the concept of globalization, the authors identify aspects of globalization of particular importance in a rural context: the neoliberal downgrading of national or regional authorities, deregulation and privatization of public services, the introduction of New Public Management (NPM) applying business models for governance to the public sector, the international testing regimes, and the global flow of information and ideas. To focus on Finland and Norway as cases and analyze the long term development of rural education in these countries may be particularly interesting. Although both countries are similar in terms of geography, size of population and culture, there are also striking differences. Economically, the last international recession has hit Finland much harder than it has Norway. In educational performance, Finland stands out as a winner in the global testing game, whereas Norway, in spite of being among the countries spending the most per capita on compulsory education, is just mediocre in its performance. In our study we try to explore how, and possibly why, aspects of globalization result in different manifestations of rural educational development in the two countries.