Finnish Educational Research Association

About Finnish Educational Research Association

Established On : 1954

The Finnish Educational Research Association was founded just over 40 years ago. The origins of the association, however, can be traced back to 1954, when a council of researchers was founded in association with the Pedagogical Society. The initial council was composed of six researchers in the field of education. Hence, a separate science unit had been formed within the society with the objective of promoting pedagogical research in Finland, co-operation between researchers, and internationalising the field of study. A few more researchers joined the council before its members decided to break from the Pedagogical Society in 1967 and found their own scientific association.
The constitutive meeting was held on the premises of the Department of Education of the University of Helsinki on February 18, 1967. The meeting was attended by some thirty educationalists, and around twenty new members of the future association had sent in their applications to join in. This meant that after the constitutive meeting, the new association had already 55 members. The following year the membership nearly doubled, and in 1972 there were nearly two hundred members. The number of members paying membership fees, however, was much lower. The number of members kept increasing – despite occasional decreases – and in 1988 membership had nearly reached three hundred. As the activities of the association have increased and expanded, the number of members has increased significantly since the end of the 1990s. By the end of the year 2006, the membership register of the association held almost seven hundred names, and the small science society from the 1960s had developed in forty years into a significant association.
The cornerstones of the association activities include the annual conference, publishing activities, and the special interest groups. For the first ten years the activities centred around the meetings arranged monthly during the academic year, nine times a year. The meetings were initially always held in Helsinki, but later on occasionally in other university cities as well. Although Helsinki continued to serve as the main venue for the monthly meetings, the gatherings organised outside the metropolitan area introduced the association and its activities to other university towns. This, for its part, led to an increase in the membership of the association. In 1972, the monthly meetings started to become less regular, and finally they gave way to the annual conference in 1979. The last monthly meeting was held in 1980.