Photo: Jonne Renvall / Tampere University
In her doctoral dissertation, Vesna Holubek explored transnational educational cooperation between a Finnish university and universities in Palestine, Brazil, and Thailand. Prompted by the education export developments in Finland’s higher education, the research unpacks the questions of the exportability and transferability of educational ideas across country borders. While transnational education has often been discussed as an unproblematic one-way transfer of education from the provider to the receiver, this research reveals more complex cultural and pedagogical dynamics emerging in this type of international cooperation. To describe these dynamics, Holubek uses the concepts of diversification and hybridisation of pedagogical ideas. In light of these dynamics, the dissertation proposes a broader cultural approach to researching and practicing transnational education. The proposed approach takes into account the complex intermixing of different pedagogical ideas and contextual aspects surrounding transnational educational cooperations.
Vesna Holubek’s doctoral dissertation in the field of higher education research titled Teaching and Learning Cultures in Transnational Higher Education: From Dichotomies Towards Hybridisations will be publicly examined at the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University on 24 April 2026 at 12 o’clock.
The Opponent will be Research Professor Taina Saarinen from the University of Jyväskylä. The Custos will be Docent Vesa Korhonen from Tampere University’s Faculty of Education and Culture.