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Towards community orientedcurriculum in Finnish literacyeducationMarita Mäkinen aa School of Education, University of Tampere, Tampere, FinlandPublished online: 27 Jul 2012.
To cite this article: Marita Mkinen (2013) Towards community oriented curriculum inFinnish literacy education, European Journal of Teacher Education, 36:1, 97-112, DOI:10.1080/02619768.2012.696193
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Towards community oriented curriculum in Finnish literacyeducation
Marita Mäkinen*
School of Education, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Finland’s successful PISA literacy results reflect the foundation of the Finnisheducation system, which could be characterised by the words equality, equityand individual support. However, international interest in this PISA success hasnot focused on curricular aspects, and yet the core curriculum specifies teachingand learning practices in Finland. This article presents a study on the develop-ment of the Finnish National Core Curricula for Basic Education (NCC), pub-lished in 1985, 1994 and 2004. Based on inductive document analysis, thearticle discusses the changing conceptualisations of the curriculum designers andcontributes to an understanding of the roles that the literacy core curriculum hasin defining the purposes of literacy education, as well as the cross-curricularintentions of literacy education from the 1980s to the present day.
Keywords: curriculum design; communicative language teaching; teacher edu-cation; Finland
Introduction
The successful results of the three Programme for International Student Assessment(PISA) surveys on literacy (OECD 2001, 2004, 2010) have reflected the two-foldfoundation of the Finnish education system: first, basic education is founded on liter-acy as a body of learning, second, the Finnish education system combines high per-formance with widespread equality, equity and individual instructional support. Thisis evidenced by the PISA results showing that Finland has the narrowest achievementgaps in the world. This kind of educational consistency is created by avoiding stand-ardised uniformity by high-stakes testing (cf. Sahlberg 2007; Skerrett and Hargreaves2008). Instead, cohesion has been achieved through a genuine respect for education,reasonable public financing, well-qualified teaching professionals, multidisciplinaryteacher education programmes and a national core curriculum. Thus Finland hasbecome an internationally examined example of a well-designed education system(cf. Skerrett and Hargreaves 2008; Westbury et al. 2005).
Yet the latter of these elements – the Finnish core curriculum – has not receivedmuch attention. One reason for this may be that the aim of PISA has not been toscrutinise the curricula of different countries and their contents but to assess stu-dents’ knowledge and skills in situations corresponding to the needs of everydaylife. In addition, the initial and continuing teacher education debate and its practices
*Email: [email protected]
European Journal of Teacher Education, 2013Vol. 36, No. 1, 97–112, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2012.696193
� 2013 Association for Teacher Education in Europe
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in Europe have not been engaged in multidisciplinary discourse concerning curric-ula approaches to literacy (called mother tongue in Finnish core curriculum).1
Yet, in Finland, the national core curriculum has a special status that cannot beoverlooked in discourses on learning or on teacher education. Accordingly, curricu-lum is firmly linked to social, cultural and economic policies, yet having its specialtraditions, values and diversity within different subject areas in relation to learning,teaching and knowledge (e.g. Pinar 2004; Pinar et al. 1995).
Focus of the study
The aim of the present study is to probe and extend the understanding of the roleof the literacy curriculum and its development since the 1980s. The study focuseson a three-fold question as follows: How do curriculum designers conceptualise lit-eracy, the purposes of literacy education and the cross curricular intentions of liter-acy education from the 1980s to the present day? The study presents criticalnotions for two interrelated problems. First, the study challenges assumptions abouteducational changes in literacy teaching. In particular, I highlight the crucial role ofliteracy education in order to enhance the cross-curricular intentions (cf. Alexanderet al. 2008). By cross-curricular intentions I refer to the value of student diversityand personal experiences (Arnsen et al. 2009; Fisher 2002; Hamre and Pianta2007), means of expression and identity forming (Moje and Luke 2009; Ricoeur1987) and community-based literacy for producing achievement (Luke and Free-body 1999). Second, the study offers an opportunity to identify and reflect on con-temporary linguistic and curricular aspects of literacy education in order to respondto increasing demands for high rates of literacy performance and to student diver-sity in curricula.
The theoretical perspective of this study is informed by linguistic approachesand curriculum theories. Linguistic approaches refer to contemporary linguistic andcommunity-based theories related to research on literacy teaching and learning(Bakhtin 1981; Gombert 1992; Linell 1998; Luke and Freebody 1999; Vygotsky1978a). By curriculum theory I refer to the various curriculum designing patternsreflecting the values, attitudes and principles in relation to teaching and learning lit-eracy and the cultural and political purposes of education formulated as statements(Grundy 1987; McKernan 1993; Pinar 2004; Stenhouse 1975; Tyler 1949).
Curricular starting points for Finnish literacy education
Since the 1980s, when Finland changed to a comprehensive school system (Compre-hensive School Act 476/1983), the core curriculum (1985) can be described, inaccordance with Connelly, Clandin and Fang He (1997), as a contemporary docu-ment describing pedagogical, psychological and sociological as well as stakeholders’views on good educating. Through curricular modifications, the policymakers aim atextending the international and social modernisation agenda to include teacher edu-cation institutions. Thus the core curriculum can be defined as a tool for formingconceptual, theoretical and practical views on education and surrounding society.
Curriculum designers assume that the enactments transform teachers into life-long learners, reflective practitioners, who trace the trajectory of policy in practice(e.g. Connelly et al. 1997; Leinhardt et al. 1995). By contrast, research oneducational policy implementation proposes that strategic reforms rarely influence
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classroom practice as envisaged. Teachers ignore, resist, misinterpret or distort theintentions of the designers (Fisher 2002; Lefstein 2008). Therefore, alongside thecore curriculum, teaching is firmly linked to a hidden curriculum that includes prac-tices, knowledge contents, tacit rules, attitudes and expectations that teachers, stu-dents and communities have developed in order to cope in a learning environment(e.g. Margolis 2001; Mäkinen and Kallio 2007; Seaton 2002).
The core curriculum can also be seen as a description of the cross-curricularlearning opportunities offered by the school institution (e.g. Alexander et al. 2008;Boomer et al. 1992; Kelly 1999). In order to ensure educational equity and equality,a national model of individual instructional support called Part-time Special NeedsEducation (PSNE) has been developed. Although the title points towards a systemthat segregates students, PSNE has been placed from the very beginning withinmainstream education and defined in the core curricula. It refers to individual orgroup-based support provided to students struggling with minor learning difficultieswithout being formally enrolled into special student status. Similarly, the recentUNESCO (2009) Policy guidelines document focuses on inclusion by suggestingthat the ultimate goal for equity in education is to promote participation and equalopportunities for all students (cf. Ainscow 2005; Arnesen et al. 2009; Fredericksonand Cline 2009). Accordingly, the document (UNESCO 2009) points out the signifi-cance of supporting students’ identity forming, well-being and entitlement.
From this point of view, the foundations of education and PISA success in liter-acy could be seen primarily as an advance in the educational inclusion process inFinland, although the approach to diversity has been characterised by a strongmonocultural orientation. Following Gilborn (2004), there is a danger that monocul-tural education entails curriculum design that emphasises and reifies traditional, test-able academic skills while using seemingly equity-based, culture-free practicesaimed to improve students’ academic achievement.
The current education policy in Finland has become controversial and complex.The PISA achievement has created tensions in schools to duplicate the success storyby raising the effectiveness of educational practices, by extending the requirementsof knowledge content and academic achievement in the core curriculum and bymoving towards standardisation and test-based accountability.
At the same time, the new Basic Education Act (642/2010) and the NationalCore Curriculum (2010, Changes and amendments) have been reformed in line withdeclarations at global level (e.g. UNESCO 1994, 2009). The amended legislationpays increasing attention to student diversity by rebuilding the instructional step-upsupport system, where the support is divided into three steps: common, intensifiedand special support. In addition to these two distinctive educational intentions, thenew multicultural approaches are topical in Finland, entailing educational strategiesthat incorporate previously marginalised racial and ethnic groups into the curriculum(cf. Banks 1986).
Analytical framework
The data discussed in this article are drawn from the three Finnish National CoreCurricula for Basic Education (NCC), published respectively in 1985, 1994 and2004. The strategy for organising and analysing the curricula contents was based oninductive document analysis (cf. Flament and Villiot-Leclercq 2004). By inductiveanalysis I refer to a ‘bottom-up’ approach aiming to describe not just a set of liter-
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acy definitions, purposes or cross-curricular intentions for literacy education, but toidentify and to compare these intentions in addition to the curricular and linguisticconceptualisations of the statements.
In order to understand the way in which the statements of the literacy curriculahave developed over time, I drew on curriculum theories and linguistic approaches.These two research traditions have rarely intersected in the past, perhaps on accountof their different theoretical assumptions. Through inductive analysis of the core cur-ricula documents, it was possible to combine these ambiguous perspectives to gainan understanding of how the national education policy influences literacy educationand how, in turn, those impacts lead to reforms influencing teachers’ work.
The analysis consisted of four stages: close reading, reducing, interpreting theparadigm changes concerning the study sub-questions and summarising. In closereading, the documents were examined as a whole, taking note of free theoreticalassociations. Next, the basic unit of analysis was defined as a notional statement.The various statements were reduced to categories positioned so as to encapsulatethe conceptualisations of the curriculum theories identified and/or the particular lin-guistic approaches as concisely as possible. In the third stage, the conceptual link-ages, approach changes and trajectories found were interpreted and compared. In thesummarising stage, the conceptual changes identified were scrutinised alongside theresearch questions.
Results
In the following paragraphs, I present the key findings concerning the trajectories ofthe literacy curriculum over three decades. The results revealed the paradigmchange addressing literacy approaches and curriculum theories. The results reflecteda transition from a cognitively oriented curriculum towards a multilayered commu-nity-oriented curriculum. The cross-curricular themes seemed fuzzy and reflected animplicit curriculum understanding. In the following paragraphs, I discuss each ofthese shifts in the approaches to curriculum design alongside the document analy-ses, and the theories of curriculum studies and linguistics accomplished as follows:
• change in conceptualising literacy: from individual ability towards community-based literacy
• change in objectives of literacy education: from cognitive skills towards com-prehensive literacy
• change in cross curricular intentions of literacy education:
� Facing student diversity: from equable objectives for all towards facilitationof diverse learning processes
� Perspective on learning experience: from cognitive orientation towards emo-tionality
� Forming identity: from recognising human image towards monitoring self.
Change in conceptualising literacy
From individual ability …
The 1985 curriculum emphasised literacy by defining it as an entity that includeshuman reasoning, objects of interest, literacy activity and familiarity with the use of
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literacy. The students were assisted in speaking and writing and in learning to readand were provided with a conception of the structure of language (NCC 1985). Thelatter part of the document revealed a glimpse of age-graded community as follows:‘students also get good models of language use from students of their own age’(NCC 1985, 64).
At this point, the curriculum was directed towards sensitivity to stimuli offeredby other more verbally talented, students. The statement about models of literacy usereceived from others gives reason to reflect on what students possibly learn fromeach other and what they learn about each other and themselves. According to Black(2004), in the interaction during lessons, students seemed to learn particularly how tobehave, what kind of language to use and who are considered good students. Thestudents analysed their position in the class hierarchy through class interaction. Thehidden curriculum (cf. Mäkinen and Kallio 2007; Seaton 2002) seemed to be linkedto these processes through class activities, teaching and the dynamics of interaction(NCC 1985) as follows:
The objective is that a student, after comprehensive school, dares to express his or heropinions by means of language … dares to participate in tasks requiring oral expression… has a clear pronunciation, presents the issue in a natural manner. (NCC 1985, 65)
If the verb ‘dare’ is understood through its synonym ‘be bold enough to’, the modelof linguistic interaction refers to individual activity. It is a question of the individual’sinternalised linguistic rules. This would mean that students are directed to encounterthe world instrumentally and superficially. Such interaction refers to monologism(Bakhtin 1981), which might strengthen unidirectional knowledge acquisition andreactivity to external stimuli. There is a risk of transmitting to the students thedemands of attentive waiting and verbal controlling. In that case, the students may,instead, learn to forget the meanings of their own experiential world and its authenticexpressions. Teachers may so evoke students’ feelings of helplessness and useless-ness. Such a monological-cognitivistic approach to literacy conception in the curricu-lum neglects interaction in literacy learning.
… towards community-based literacy
In the 1994 curriculum, literacy acquired multiform interactional meanings. Thestatements conveyed the writers’ intention to regard literacy as anchored in socialinteractional relationships (e.g. Vygotsky 1978b) and to understand both literacy andlanguage as mental and social phenomena. The end of the sentence ‘an instrument ofshaping a world view and of transferring and developing culture’ (NCC 1994, 42)was in accordance with Vygotsky’s (1978a) and Bruner’s (1996) ideas of the place-ment of learning within cultural frameworks larger than an individual. Linell (1998),too, argues that individuals are not independent language users but are always, inevi-tably, dependent on each other.
Vygotsky’s second thesis, however, was not reached by the curriculum (NCC1994). According to Vygotsky (1978b), the direction of language and learning isdescribed by the concept of internalisation. Learning starts in social interaction andbecomes an inner, mental process. Therefore, literacy is initially bound to the socialcontexts, from which it moves into those of the students, supported by social nego-tiations and the instruments of mind and body. The first point of literacy directed to
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the upper grades emphasised the student’s development as an expresser and recei-ver, which was cited as follows:
Communication situations, where you must be able to listen, ask, react to the speechof others, express and justify your own opinions and also to understand meanings ofnon-verbal messages. (NCC 1994, 43)
In the introduction to the 2004 Curriculum, literacy was defined by referring tospoken and written texts and to fiction and non-fiction, also including so-callednon-linear texts, visual, vocal and graphic texts. The conception was undoubtedlymore community-based and dialogical, in Bakhtin’s (1981) terms, polyphonic. Forhim, dialogue is linked to a sense of community, where the self only exists in rela-tion to other people. Learning entails interaction, dialogue. Dialogue is action, notsomething leading to it (Bakhtin 1981). Linell (1998), too, sees a person in a dia-logue both as an active actor and as a reflector. A typical aspect of such interactionis polyphony, where several voices act together in a relationship of interaction asfollows:
Teaching must be based on a community view of literacy: membership in a commu-nity and participation in knowledge are developed, when you learn to use languageand literacy the way the community does. (NCC 2004, 46)
According to Linell (1998), a central factor in dialogicality is the interactionalaspect of discourse, action and thinking. Linell also emphasises the contextuality oflanguage. Thus, literacy is linked not only to the moment but also a wider sociocul-tural context. The statement sample above offered a connotation of factual knowl-edge given from above and of the socialising function of literacy, while the nextsentence represents thin dialogicality:
The student becomes an active and ethically responsible communicator and reader,takes part in culture and will participate and have an impact on society. (NCC 2004,46)
Although the statement mentioned participation in culture and impact on society,it did not coincide with Linell’s (1998) view of dialogicality, namely that mean-ings are not given beforehand, but created as a result of collaboration amongindividuals in an interaction situation. People construct meanings together andtry as best they can to reach understanding. Above, activeness was linked toresponsibility, participation and having an impact. However, this 2004 text didnot mention active and interpretative listening. Linell (1998), by contrast,emphasises that the primary abode of language is in discussion and social inter-action.
Nevertheless, understanding is never more than partial, because linguistic utter-ances do not have one correct and perfect interpretation (cf. Linell 1998). Genuinecommunity-based interaction only takes place when a teacher joins the students ininteraction where their life-worlds meet (cf. Luke and Freebody 1999; Värri2004). These different cultures of education are disparate but concurrent life-worlds. They are external to each other, defined in relation to each other andteachers and students find their positions in them.
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Change in the objectives of literacy education
From cognitive skills …
Literacy seemed to be the backbone of all subjects. The curriculum of 1985addressed three significations. Literacy was seen as an object of learning, of teach-ing and as a basis for all studies: ‘Diversified language command is the objective,not the starting point of school education’ (NCC 1985, 64). Teaching literacy wasdivided into three sections: skills, knowledge and arts. The focus was on a solidskills basis to be delivered to each student. Skills were divided into receptive andproductive skills. Receptive skills were listening and reading, productive skills wereoral and written expressions.
This division was based on Gibson and Levin’s (1975) view of readingapproached through cognitive psychology: reading is an intellectual skill, the skillof extracting information from a text. Gibson and Levin define perfect literacy asan ability to use information for many different purposes. Such symmetrical liter-acy skills and functionality were already sought by Holmes in 1960. He strove toaccount for the dimensions of reading and concluded that reading is anaudiovisual-verbal skill of processing symbols which serves the reader’s purposes(Robeck and Wilson 1974). The purpose of literacy education was a mastery ofliteracy, to be achieved by an ample practice in basic skills: ‘Active practising ofskills is accentuated in mother tongue teaching’ (NCC 1985, 65). The statementrefers to the view of curriculum as syllabus, with the focus on the body of liter-acy parallel with traditional knowledge acquisition. Thus, literacy education wasunderstood as the transmission of these literacy skills to students (Curzon 1985;Kelly 1999).
The 1994 curriculum, too, emphasised basic literacy skills as follows: ‘Readingand writing techniques and other reading and writing skills are improved’ (NCC1994, 44). Furthermore, integrating literacy with other subjects was emphasised.Reading comprehension in particular was to be practised through texts on othersubjects. Knowledge and skills acquisition were pivotal and to be practised byexercises strengthening reading, listening and questioning. A novelty in the 1994curriculum was the shift of curriculum theory on the basis of which detailed skillcomponents were not listed. Curriculum was seen not as a syllabus of knowledgeand skills to be transmitted but rather as a process (McKernan 1993; Stenhouse1975). In this sense the curriculum facilitated educational processes in interactionbetween teachers, students and literacy.
In addition, the cognitive-psychological approach was intensified by emphasis-ing that language and other cognitive functions are inseparable. They constitute inti-mately connected parts of the same entity – learning and growing up. Thedevelopment of linguistic awareness was pivotal in teaching, as in the following:
Students’ linguistic awareness will be improved and they will be able to use the lan-guage in accordance with the task or the situation. (NCC 1994, 42)
The emphasis on linguistic awareness was followed by greater attention to meta-cognitive skills than in the previous core curriculum (Flavell 1987; Gombert 1992;Karmiloff-Smith 1986).
In addition to the notion of curriculum as process, the Curriculum 1994 wasassociated with product-based curriculum theory, as proposed by Tyler (1949),
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according to whom the real purpose of education is not for the teacher to performcertain practices but to bring about significant changes in the students’ behaviour.The statements (NCC 1994) stressed that the most important purposes of teachingliteracy were to enhance students’ self-regulation and ability to choose appropriatelearning strategies (e.g. Paris, Lipson, and Wixon 1983).
… towards comprehensive literacy
The 2004 curriculum was less verbose than its predecessors but theoretically morecomplex and cryptic. It presented the postmodernist objectives of cultural literacyskills, and expounded numerous purposes of literacy education. Students must beoffered information literacy (e.g. Doyle 1994), digital literacy (e.g. Gilster 1997),media literacy (e.g. Brem, Russell, and Weems 2001) and network literacy (e.g.McClure 1994). It should, moreover, be kept in mind in teaching that ‘literacy isfor the student both a learning object and an instrument’ (NCC 2004, 46; cf.NCC 1985, 64). This statement was an almost verbatim quotation from the 20-years-older curriculum (1985) syllabus. The return to a product based curriculumwas shown in the subject-centred descriptions of good skills criteria. The age-graded listings stipulated what each student should know and do in order to com-plete a certain grade (NCC 1994).
The danger of this perspective is that teachers may regard curriculum and teach-ing as of no concern to them, since it is not part of their duties to transmit literacyskills (cf. Sahlberg 2007). Such an inventory of skills, which avoids the multilayeraspect of learning, could lead to a reverse interpretation. Learning literacy appears afragmented, mystical and uncontrolled event. Yet the increasingly complex informa-tion flood of the multilingual multi-media society requires of the students a morecritical understanding than before of the meanings and structures of knowledge. Acognitively-oriented scheme or representation view can no longer cover the com-plexity needed to form a picture of the subject matter at hand.
Change in the cross-curricular intentions of literacy education
Facing student diversity: from equable objectives for all …
All curricula emphasised that the indispensable objectives in Finnish compulsoryeducation must be achieved regardless of differences in students’ basic standing. In1985, this was expressed as follows: ‘The linguistic background and the develop-ment of the students must be taken into consideration’ (NCC 1985, 64). The 1985curriculum replaced courses with different syllabus extensions with new types ofteaching practices, which were, in addition to PSNE, remedial teaching and differ-entiation: ‘In mother tongue teaching instrumental differentiation is applicable’(NCC 1985, 64). Teachers had to consider the students’ background and develop-ment in heterogeneous groups.
The following decade (NCC 1994) witnessed a desire for renewal in literacyeducation to better accommodate student diversity. However, no new approacheswere proposed. There was a wish that ‘didactic and other circumstances’ in main-stream education would be favourable from the point of view of literacy learning.However, the statement referred to an educational culture that would strengthencooperation between teachers. Students with reading and writing difficulties were
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to receive ‘didactic and other support in cooperation with the special needs teacherand the mainstream teacher’ (NCC 1994, 19).
… towards facilitation of diverse learning processes
The 2004 curriculum emphasised cross-curricular perspectives on a student’s subjec-tive right to individual support in studies when needed. The overall aim of teachingliteracy included a remark: ‘Note should be taken in teaching that students may bein very different stages of their learning process’ (NCC 2004, 46).
The statement referred again to the model of curriculum as process (McKernan1993; Stenhouse 1975). According to Stenhouse (1975), the curriculum should begrounded in practice, and is a proposal for action that sets out the essential pur-poses, endeavours and means for enhancing learning. The minor statements wereconcerned with implementation. The curriculum (2004) included some proceduralsuggestions about PSNE as follows:
Support should be given as team teaching, in small groups or individually and, as toits objectives, it should be linked to the other education in which the student partici-pates. (NCC 2004, 28)
According to education statistics (Statistics Finland 2010), the focus in PSNE hasbeen on supporting students to achieve literacy. For example, during the academicyear 2008–2009 about one fourth (23%) of students in basic education participatedin PSNE. Almost half of these (42%) received individual support in problemsrelated to literacy.
One noteworthy risk is that the PSNE practices merely maintain the maximisa-tion of individual students’ cognitive potential in literacy. Following Hargreavesand Fink (2006), increasing standardisation has become an enemy of diversity.Thus, the big challenge for future curriculum designers and teachers will be thechange in improving single fixed equity-based, culture-free literacy intelligence andtest-based literacy achievement (Gilborn 2004) to a growing acceptance of multiplelinguistic and cultural diversities (Kucan and Beck 1997; Volet, Summers andThurman 2009; Vygotsky 1978a).
Perspective on learning experience: from cognitive orientation …
Finnish youngsters have been particularly successful in those PISA tasks that mea-sured the application of knowledge needed in everyday life and in working life (cf.Luyten, Peschar, and Coe 2008). Yet the curricula discussed here evinced only sep-arate statements on the importance of students’ experiences in literacy education ashomogeneous for all students. In writing skills there was a statement that literacylearning ‘broadens the student’s realm of experience’ (NCC 1985, 64). The 1994curriculum points out that through reading, students acquire ‘knowledge abouthuman experience’ (NCC 1994, 42). In the 2004 curriculum, experience becamevisible indirectly in connection with learning concepts:
Learn concepts which can be used to give a linguistic form to the world and one’sown thinking … construct new worlds and link things to new connections. (NCC2004, 46)
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Generaly, experience was marginal in the statements on literacy education. It wasmainly an instrument of communication between individual and society. Thecurriculum (2004) also showed that literacy offers students experiences but theirexpression was seen as the production of thought. Experiences were thus anchoredto rational thinking, but emotions were perceived as entirely irrational. Chubbuckand Zembylas (2008) argue that learning and teaching have been backed by decadesof research in cognitive psychology and therefore emotions are deemed purely cog-nitive activities.
… towards emotionality
Through literature and drama students were claimed to obtain ‘a diversity of sensa-tions and experiences’ (NCC 1994, 43). In the next decade an identical intentionwas expressed as follows: ‘Literature gives elements to develop students’ emotionallife and their conception of the world’ (NCC 2004, 72). From this perspective, emo-tions became elements of construction of the students’ inner world and the use ofemotions in learning remained slight. Neither did the Finnish curricula rise to theexperience-based curriculum theory sketched by Dewey (1956), according to whichthe primary task of education is to bridge the gap between knowledge content andthe student’s experience. Feelings and experiences were placed on the same footingas the student’s world view.
In terms of the key dimensions of experiences, consensus is emerging amongresearchers that both instructional and emotional aspects of the classroom predictgains in student achievement, particularly as they moderate the effects of certainrisk factors for poor achievement (e.g. Eccles and Gootman 2002; Hamre andPianta 2007). Several studies have confirmed the importance of emotions in learn-ing as well as in teaching (e.g. Hirsch 2006; Zembylas 2007). Chubbuck andZembylas (2008) suggest that emotions and reason are not mutually exclusive, butrather interrelated, and any division in favour of reason is misleading.
Forming identity: from recognising human image …
As discussed above, the students’ experiences were of slight and implicit importancein literacy education. The statements of the curricula combined experience, humanimage and self-esteem. It was said that writing strengthens understanding the world asfollows: ‘… offer material for the construction of the conception of world and humanbeings’ (NCC 1985, 64). In the next decade this was expressed as follows: ‘The stu-dent obtains knowledge about him or herself and about other people’ (NCC 1994, 42).The 2004 curriculum gives directions to offer ‘chances to read and to write wherebythe student constructs his or her own identity and self-esteem’ (NCC 2004, 46).
Considering the quotations from the curricula, the major-cross curricular idea ofliteracy education is to support students in identity building. The term ‘own iden-tity’ refers to the ipse-identity of Ricoeur (1992), an individual identity defined bythe question ‘who am I’. At this point in the curriculum, the idea emerges that iden-tity is one and the same throughout a person’s life (cf. Erikson 1994; Mead 1934).However, several scholars (e.g. Ricoeur 1987; Gee 2010; Lewis and del Valle 2009;Moje and Luke 2009) have pointed out that identity forming to be seen throughseveral identities, which are multiple and always in flux as people see and representthemselves differently in various relationships or contexts.
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Accordingly, the curriculum (1994) displayed a form of collective identity, claim-ing that the purpose of literacy to ‘introduce the student to different cultures and tosupport the construction of a personal cultural identity’ (NCC 1994, 46). Thus iden-tity was understood as a generalising self-image, which the members of a certaingroup or collective have of themselves as a group (cf. Ferdman 1990; Ricoeur 1992).The curriculum emphasises supporting students’ identity forming, referring by this tostrengthening the Finnish cultural identity. The increasing multiculturality of Finnishsociety had also given rise to the issue of cultural identity in curriculum design. Fol-lowing Banks (1986), the Finnish curricula reflected the orientation of multiculturaleducation as a set of practices incorporating in the curriculum the cultures and histo-ries of previously marginalised groups.
… towards monitoring self
In addition to collective identity, the curriculum (1994) proposed that personal iden-tity forming takes place through various literacy activities. However, one statementis bewildering:
The identity becomes stronger when the student is motivated to observe his or herown use of language. Additionally, he or she is trained in the norms of public lan-guage use. (NCC 1994, 40)
Obviously, there is nothing undesirable in acquiring the norms of public appear-ances. However, it is problematic that the curriculum statement assumes that stu-dent’s identities are strengthened through self-monitoring. The statement alsoreflects the importance of identity forming, which is seen parallel to the dominantofficial language. By acquiring adequate literacy skills, the students can enter themainstream of activity in society (cf. Delpit 1995).
By contrast, critical multicultural education emphasises cultural awareness andexplicit curricular strategies intended to promote equality and eliminate all forms ofdiscrimination (Troyna and Carrington 1990). According to Moje and Luke (2009),sustained group memberships may be less important to a social view of identitythan is the idea that identity is constructed, produced, formed or developed in anysocial interaction, such as in classrooms that support or constrain the developmentof literacy. Thus, in future it will be essential to conceptualise both literacy andidentity as social practices included in curriculum design.
Pinar et al.’s (1995) autobiographical curriculum theory, for instance, paysattention to students’ autobiographical experiences and learning. Thus, Pinar (2004)emphasises the closeness of curriculum design and students’ autobiographical pro-cesses. This is the cyclical processes of learning, where students’ past experiencesand future visions meet.
Discussion and concluding ideas
This study aimed to extend the understanding of the role of the core curriculum inpromoting literacy education. In particular, the analysis reflected on the basis ofFinnish literacy education resting on curricula over 25 years old. The six changesin approach detected in curricula content over 30 years reveal that the educationalorientations to literacy curricula have developed alongside the contemporary policy
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strategies and pedagogical trends of responding to increasingly complex diversitywithin schools.
The Finnish literacy curricula from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s reflected thedilemma of subjectivity and cognitively oriented education (cf. Chubbuck andZembylas 2008). The aim of educational equity and equality has necessitated ensur-ing that all students acquire basic literacy skills. The dominant idea has been thatstrong cognitive instruments empower and elicit students’ educational potential.According to Gilborn (2004), such an approach indicates the orientation of mono-cultural education. The early 2000s are an era of culmination. Finnish teachers arepresently facing a confusion of 20-year-old cognitive literacy conceptions and thenew socio-cultural ambitions of multilingual multi-media and community-based lit-eracies (cf. Coiro et al. 2008). Rethinking is needed on the key principles for ensur-ing equality and equity for all students in educational settings that are critical,multicultural and inclusive and include a wide range of curricular and pedagogicalstrategies aiming to eliminate any individual and institutional forms of segregationand marginalisation.
For instance, the traditional PSNE has focused on supporting students with diffi-culties in essential basic literacy skills. Nowadays, individual support is deemedresponsive pedagogy for all students. The ongoing renewing policy (Basic Educa-tion Act 2010/642; Special Education Strategy 2007) for educational inclusion hasmade this possible by creating the step-up support curriculum. Thus, student diver-sity appears as a fundamental manifestation of the richness of human experience(OECD 2010). Indeed, teachers play a crucial role in the evolution of the new edu-cation system. In light of the ongoing reform, there is a challenge to maintain aninspiring societal mission that attracts the best candidates into teacher education andsupports teachers in meeting students’ needs.
However, the present study suggests that underlying the successful PISA periodthere may be a risk of transitions towards increasing commitment to standardisationand marketisation. Skerrett and Hargreaves (2008) predict that monocultural andstandardised curriculum along with high-stakes testing will influence much of globaleducational policy and practice in the future. Accordingly, they argue that this trendwill inhibit teachers’ flexibility in implementing culturally responsive inclusive ped-agogies.
The results suggest that the literacy curricula did not encourage teachers enoughto engage in collaborative pedagogy that would promote the construction of the stu-dents’ experimental and interactive relationship with the academic content and thesurrounding culture. The curricula analysed reflected a neglect of students’ ownexperiences, feelings and identity-forming in learning. Thus, the curriculum empha-sising cognitive orientation represents a narrow interpretation of curriculum design.
The problem is topical in the Finnish curriculum discourse and, according to thepresent document analysis, it is also the main developmental challenge, especiallyin literacy education. Thus there is a need for a more comprehensive interpretationof the curriculum as an intentional and dynamic process, revealing the values, expe-riences and emotions in relation to literacy learning, and the cultural and politicalpurposes of education. All this calls for a blending of the models of praxis curricu-lum (Dewey 1956; Grundy 1987) and autobiographical curriculum (Pinar 2004) inwhich community-based practices and students’ identity-forming are brought to thecentre of teaching and learning processes. This will require a more flexible, local-level teacher- and student-designed curriculum. It is crucial that literacy teachers
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themselves critically reflect on their experiences of teaching in relation to curricu-lum design and to encounters with students. To realise the unpredictability of thepostmodern information society is a demanding process.
The findings confirm the importance of encouraging prospective teachers toreflect their learning and teaching experiences critically on initial teacher educationprogrammes. This might make them more sensitive to school students’ experiencesand needs, consider alternative learning structures and engage in curriculum develop-ment later in their careers. In addition, every curriculum should be based on explic-itly formulated interdisciplinary curriculum theories with connections to literacyconceptualisations. In all, teacher education needs to focus on preparing teachers forfuture-oriented, proactive curriculum design, rather than providing them with rhetori-cal and homogeneous curricula that perpetuate the status quo of teacher educationwithin narrowly focused specific disciplines.
Note1. The concept of literacy does not exist literally in the Finnish language. Since the con-
struction of the 2004 curriculum, the term ‘literacy’ has been introduced and translatedas ‘tekstitaidot’ (text skills). I use the term ‘literacy’ throughout the article except inquotations.
Notes on contributorMarita Mäkinen is a research director in the School of Education, at the University ofTampere. Her research interests include teacher education, literacy education, curriculumstudies, and higher education.
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