0000000000477903
AUTHOR
Juha T. Hakala
Neoliberalism, curriculum development and manifestations of ‘creativity’
There is a manifest tendency for national education policy to follow global economic trends. In many western industrialized countries this relationship has intensified or strengthened within the last decades. The strengthening of this relationship has been seen, among other things, as evidence of the growing power of neoliberal ideology. The background reference for this article is the emergence of a neoliberal education policy ideology in the two creativity related strategies implemented by the Finnish government during the first decade of the 21st century. The main focus of the study was the concept of creativity, for it has appeared to be the prevailing trend within the Finnish basic edu…
Why Did They Leave School? A Self Determination Theory Perspective into Narratives of Finnish Early School Leavers
The present study aims to provide insights into the experiences of early school leavers within the Finnish context. We conducted a narrative inquiry among eleven early school leavers who were in prison when they were interviewed. Self Determination Theory (SDT), more specifically the concept of frustration of the three basic psychological needs of competence, relatedness and autonomy, and the tendency of people to move towards more supporting environments, was used as an interpretative tool, along with contextual information. We identified three pathways out of school, differing in the locus of need thwarting circumstances and the availability of access to transfer into a more satisfying en…
Tensions in the New Millennium : Inclusion Ideology and Education Policy in the Finnish Comprehensive School
This article examines the discrepancy between the ideology of inclusive education and the national education policy in the Finnish comprehensive school education. The study covers twenty years and is based on observations that indicate that the change in comprehensive school education, grounded in inclusive education ideals, has been slow. This has been the case, even though Finnish education policy has, on principle, committed to many international statements that promote inclusion ideology. The data consists primarily of statistics indicating the number of students in special education and national and international research on the subject. It confirms our supposition, but also the fact t…
Curricular Reform, Constantly Changing Values and Consequences for Teacher Education
Abstract In many European countries revised notions of learning and the dynamic nature of knowledge have brought about changes in teaching in primary education. The new views of learning, together with profound social changes, have similarly created pressures for curricular reform. This paper examines the repercussions of extensive curricular reform for teacher education, especially with respect to what can be done to develop teachers’ didactic skills and capabilities for curricular planning. The latter calls for profound skills and a sensitivity in following the changes taking place in society, and also the ability to discuss the values towards which the concrete goals of the teaching shou…
The Question of Creativity in the Finnish Elementary School Curriculum
This article is intended to examine the role of creative education in the design of the national curriculum and the division of lesson hours during the period 2010-2014. During this process, pupils, private citizens and experts from different fields were given the opportunity to submit their contributions to the exercise. The article intends to examine whether the curriculum development exercise fulfilled the conditions for a wide democratic consultation process. Three professional groups, elementary school teachers, artists (writers, visual arts teachers, musicians) and academic engineers (n= 1163) were the main focus of this research project. Creativity related claims, which were posted o…