Paper Titles & Abstracts

In today's neoliberal dogma public discourse often renders strong economic development and welfare-state policies as highly incompatible. At the European level, the recent economic and financial crisis has worryingly reinforced this trend exemplified by the revolutionary cuts in higher education funding in the majority of EU member states. This paper takes the notion of present European crisis as its starting point. By drawing on the historic example of post-war educational (r)evolution in the Republic of Finland and Federal Republic of Germany, it argues that crisis can provide beneficial insights into the causes, capacities, forms, and mechanisms of change in current capitalist economies under increased austerity and globalisation. This paper thereby condemns the alleged incompatibility of economic growth and egalitarianism, and concludes by suggesting that investment in human capital via education needs to be maintained and increased in order to help the EU member states out of the economic crisis.