Sven-Erik Hansén

Research on Teachers and Teacher Education in Scandinavia: a retrospective review

Abstract The important role in learning and upbringing played by teachers has been acknowledged for a long time. However, research on this question belongs with few exceptions, to the post‐war area in all the Nordic countries. During the last few decades a extensive research within a variety of studies have addressed the question. And, in accord with realistic expectations, the research conducted within this area since the middle of the 1950ties reflects a change in the interest of researchers similar to that found outside the Nordic countries, from studies of teacher behaviour to research on teacher cognition and analyses of the interactions between students and teachers in the classroom. The review also reveals a clear and significant change in the use of research methods: quantitative methods have declined while qualitative methods have expanded. It seems characteristic of research within this area that a great number of studies have been explorative in nature and that few of them have been followed up...

The Curriculum as a Governing Instrument A Comparative Study of Finland and Norway

Traditionally, the Nordic curriculum has been viewed as a document with school subjects in focus. This article reports on how two national curricula function as instruments for governing education and explores the possible differences in how national curricula govern education. This investigation was carried out by researching curricula for compulsory schools in Norway (2006) and Finland (2004). In Norway, the governing that emphasises output mechanisms is compared to Finland where the governing is distributed in a more intricate manner at three identified levels. All three levels in the hierarchical legal levels (Act, Regulation and circular letters) are directly activated in the formal rule system, whereas only the two first levels, as part of the formal rule system, are used within the Finnish curriculum decision-making structure. A second finding is that a consequence of the use of the formal rule system is that, at the higher level of the legal status, legitimacy is acquired through a process of essential voices being heard in the process of creating the curricula. Unlike the Finnish curriculum, the Norwegian curriculum does not have the same level of democratic procedures behind it concerning consultation over the content.

Organizing curriculum change: an introduction*

Abstract This paper introduces the questions and approaches of a five-nation cross-cultural study of state-based curriculum-making discussed in this issue of JCS. The paper reviews the two decade-long interest of many nations in state-based curriculum-making and presents a framework for thinking about state-based curriculum-making as a tool of educational governance.

The Swedish ‘people’s school’ in Finland and the language question: homogenization and differentiation

This paper presents an historical overview of issues around the language of instruction and the curriculum of mother‐tongue education for the Swedish‐speaking minority in Finland during the half‐century after the establishment of the public school in 1866. In a linguistic‐ and culturally‐diverse society like that of Finland it has not been self‐evident that the question of language as a medium of instruction and as a school subject would be understood and shared in the same way by Finns and Swedes. This paper focuses on two collective themes, homogenization and differentiation. Homogenization stands for forces aiming at securing equal opportunities for education, regardless of vernacular languages and cultures. Differentiation refers to the possibility of accommodating the education to specific needs of the Swedish‐speaking population.

Word and world in mother tongue teaching in Finland: Curriculum policy in a bilingual society

Abstract The paper looks at the teaching of Finnish and Swedish as mother tongues in Finland in modern times. It uses a variety of perspectives, historical, social, political, linguistic, and pedagogic in order to formulate some general principles about the development of the mother tongue as a school subject in a broad societal context. The paper shows that mother tongue syllabi in Finland were shaped, to a large degree, both in content and pedagogy, by three successive waves of nationalism. The first, at the end of the last century, was concerned with the establishment of national identity in a European context. In the mother tongue classroom it put the focus on basic literacy and on national history and literature. The second, after the First World War, led to Finnish independence. A programme of Finnification followed, and Herbartian ideals of self‐reliance and social concord, already prominent in Finnish educationsince the beginning of the century, became dominant in the educational system as a whole...

Mother‐tongue teaching and identity: The case of Finland‐Swedes

Abstract Finland is a bilingual country with two national languages, Finnish and Swedish. The Form of Government (issued in 1919) stipulates that the cultural and economic needs of the two population groups of the republic must be provided for the same principles. Today Finland has a compulsory school which is divided on a language basis into a Finnish and Swedish educational system. The Swedish spoken in Finland is a variant of standard Swedish and is generally referred to as Finland‐Swedish. What is most striking about the Swedish language in Finland today is that a. it is the language of a minority in a bilingual country and b. the language norm, especially the written norm is chiefly formed in another country, i.e. Sweden. Finland‐Swedish lives also under pressure from the two other language systems, viz. Finnish and the Swedish dialects in Finland. The language situation being summarised as above, great methodological problems are experienced by the Swedish‐medium educational system. This language—ec...

Special education needs activities for children with language difficulties: A comparative study in Belarusian and Norwegian preschools

ABSTRACT For the purposes of this study, we investigated how special educational needs activities were carried out in the available physical space for preschool children with language difficulties in Belarus and Norway. Muller’s and Bernstein’s concepts were used to recognise patterns of knowledge construction in special needs education. A qualitative comparative case study approach was used, and through video observations, four categories were identified that exposed various positions within the continuum of the following binary pairs: regulated – flexible; pre-defined – diffuse; consequential – casual; repetitive – disruptive. The preschools in both countries showed different profiles. The Belarusian preschools were oriented towards the first notion in the binary pairs, while the Norwegian preschools leaned towards the latter. The implications of the study’s results deal with the question of preschool staff preparation, knowledge construction in special needs education, construction and content of curricular documents and the question of promoting a closer dialogue between different practices.