Purpose: One key aspect of European curriculum reforms is to empower students with the skills needed to engage actively in the pluralistic and multicultural global society of the 21st century. This study aims to examine the extent of multicultural education within the national core curricula of three European countries: Hungary, Finland and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the utilization of the opportunities offered by teacher and school autonomy in entrepreneurship education with companies involved. The research question was: How do schools and teachers use their autonomy in the implementation of entrepreneurship education? This research question was complemented by two…

Purpose: Shared understandings of curriculum reform within and between the levels of the educational system are suggested to be crucial for the reform to take root. The purpose of this paper is to explore variation in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact among state- and district-level stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach: The…

Finland has recently reformed the national school curriculum, basing it on so-called twenty-first century skills. The curriculum prescribes that schools must organise at least one multidisciplinary learning module per year. In this case study, we investigate the implementation of such a module in secondary school (grade 9) from the perspective of…

This qualitative study on the Finnish basic education curriculum (2016) had two goals. First, to survey the origins of first two new curriculum competences: 1) thinking and learning to learn, and, 2) cultural competences. Second, to analyse the local curricular implementation and comprehension in a rapid socio-cultural change. To reveal the…

In order to thrive in today's uncertain environment, there is a need to master 21st century skills as well as knowledge of key subjects. Project-based learning (PBL) has been recommended as an important instructional strategy to prepare students for their future work and life. As teachers play an important role in classroom instructional practice,…

Teachers play a key role in transforming the national curriculum reform into classroom practice. This study explored individual variation in Finnish teachers' (N = 901) perceptions of curriculum coherence during a one-year follow-up during the early stages of its implementation in schools. Latent profile analysis revealed five distinctive…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of how national board administrators, more precisely, officials at the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) have perceived the primary influencing factors, or "regulators", of the national core curriculum reform and the success of the implementation. The alignment…

The study aims to gain a better understanding of the national large-scale curriculum process in terms of the used implementation strategies, the function of the reform, and the curriculum coherence perceived by the stakeholders accountable in constructing the national core curriculum in Finland. A large body of school reform literature has shown…

In 2004 the Finnish National Board of Education launched a new curriculum framework that includes principles, instructional aims, and a brief list of content by subject areas. The intent of this framework is that teachers should interpret the core curriculum at the local level and apply it in their own schools and classrooms. This approach…