The first decades of independence – white finland

Abstract

The Republic of Finland was established after a bloody civil war between the Reds and the Whites in 1918. This chapter analyses the emergence of Finnish independence and the role higher education played in the new republic in the 1920s and 1930s. During this period, the University of Helsinki was Finland’s dominant higher education institution, even though one public pedagogical college and seven private higher education institutions were also established: two universities (one Swedish-speaking and one Finnish-speaking), three business schools, a technical university, and a higher education institution of social sciences. The author analyses the nature of Finland’s higher education policies, greatly affected by a conflict between Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers. In a right-wing student association, extremist nationalistic views even aimed at a radical change in society. The author also analyses students and their socio-economic background and gender. The author discusses why the Finnish system of higher education of the 1920s and the 1930s can be characterised as an elite system. There were two reasons for this: First, the University of Helsinki and Finland’s political elite were closely interconnected. Second, of each age cohort, only a small number of students were admitted to higher education, and most of these were from the highest social classes.