This paper centers on to evaluate whether and to what extent the learning objectives of the geography curricula emphasize students' higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), and whether students are capable of answering to HOTS-questions by using the Finnish upper secondary geography education as an example. The revised Bloom's taxonomy was used as a…

This paper discusses the relationship between knowledge and society in social studies by analysing how society is presented in four Finnish social studies textbooks currently in use in comprehensive education. Besides its empirical contribution, the paper examines the possibilities of applying Michael Young's understanding of powerful knowledge in…

Given the emerging interest in institutional positioning and to augment the small number of empirical studies in this field, this paper presents discussion about how Finnish universities of applied sciences implement their profiling strategies. The analysis is based on an examination of documents recently submitted by these institutions when…

This study examines university strategies from the content perspective. Since the early 1980s, the pressure to adopt strategic management in universities and other higher education institutions has increased because of issues including reduced public funding, pressures and possibilities for internationalization, developments in teaching…

This article presents an analysis of the experiences of scholars in a university-wide curriculum reform in one public research university. The focus is on the intentions and dynamics that shape the curriculum process in the local communities of practice (CoPs). The data, comprising interviews with 25 scholars, are examined as experience-centred…

This case study explores how Finnish primary school teachers orchestrated school days and how teachers and headmasters organised virtual workplace collaboration and collaborated with parents during a period of distance education forced by the COVID-19 crisis in Spring 2020. The data was collected by interviewing primary and secondary school…

Having been on the agenda in Finnish policy-making for a decade, tuition fees for students outside the European Union and the European Economic Area became reality in the beginning of 2016. Drawing on institutional theory the current article tracks this development through the analysis of documents and interviews on different levels. The…

Principal's hands-on strategies reflecting their theories of changing have a substantial effect on the development of their schools and on how the large-scale reform takes root. The study explores five comprehensive school principals' leadership strategies during a large-scale school reform in Finland. The principals' strategies in the middle of…

Since the recent global paradigm shift in the governance of higher education toward business and marketing, internationally competitive education is increasingly considered as an asset for governments. Consequently, governments started to invest in education branding and marketing their educational systems. In Finland, national interest in…

Pedagogical transformations in universities are typically explored as "top down" attempts or in the context of training programs targeted towards educating more pedagogically aware individuals. In this study, promoting pedagogical development is explored on a community level as change agency: acting as a broker between the…

Universal public childcare for children under seven has been central in Finland since the mid-1990s, capacitating both gender equality and children's human capital and wellbeing. In 2015, as a further step in the development of this system, early learning and childhood pedagogy was strengthened through the early childhood education and care (ECEC)…

This study examines university teachers' beliefs about the role of technology in achieving the pedagogical aims of learning within teaching development initiatives at a Finnish university. The initiatives targeted technology adoption in teaching and learning and were enhanced within teacher groups, with support from a university-level network…

The purpose of this study was to examine changes that have taken place in centre-based early childhood education (ECE) in the USA, Russia, and Finland between 1991 and 2014. The cross-culturally conducted study aimed to identify and contrast socio-cultural differences and similarities of the perceived changes in the context of the studied…

This study aimed to analyze the recently updated teacher education programmes in two universities in Finland and Thailand. The article reports the characteristics of the elementary and secondary school teacher education studies in the selected universities, and discusses the roles and significance of 21st century skills and their modifications in…

The paper examines if there has been an increase in the attention paid to social and environmental issues (SEI) in accounting curricula. Using schools participating in the Aspen Institute's Beyond Grey Pinstripes (BGP) program, we measure the increase in the number of accounting courses incorporating SEI across the biennial application years of…