Résumé
In this article the authors argue that the curriculum's public character depends on resources withdrawn from private interests and redirected towards collective purposes, mediated through professional practice accountable to democratic rather than sectional ends. The authors explore the genealogy of the Finnish educational context as a case study to illustrate how public education came to be and how it has been hollowed. The authors argue that historically Finland’s education system embodied “mediated publicness” through three interconnected elements: commitment to equity over consumer “wants”, a national curriculum framework embodying public deliberation and a teaching profession entrusted to mediate between students and the wider world. These interlinked elements form a tension-filled shield that protects the public education in Finland from collapsing into either privatised consumer satisfaction or technocratic service-delivery. The authors proceed to explore how each element in the shield contains internal vulnerabilities that leaves them exposed to systematic exploitation. This process threatens not merely structural arrangements but the fundamental tension that allows schools to educate children while simultaneously calling them into a public world beyond familial interests.