Session Information
19 SES 02 B, Teacher Education and Teacher Collaboration
Paper Session
Time:
2009-09-28
11:15-12:45
Room:
JUR, HS 12
Chair:
Karen Borgnakke
Contribution
In the 1990’s Finnish comprehensive school had still a quite well-defined border between the elementary school (class teachers) and the junior high school (subject teachers). The new Finnish school legislation in 1.1.1999 removed the governmental border between the 6th and the 7th grades. It located all pupils from the first to ninth grades and also class teachers and subject teachers “under the same roof”. For teachers the unified comprehensive school would provide varying career possibilities and also new opportunities to share expertise and do teamwork.
In our study we try to understand how teachers see the unified comprehensive school. Is it really working? We don’t just take teachers words, but also try to reveal forces which push different teachers groups together and what at the same time segregates them. In this task, we try to keep in our minds the lessons of history (school reform in 70’s) and national peculiarities (Pisa success). We also ask if current commitment towards the real unified comprehensive school is just another fad orchestrated by the administration insulated from the reality of the school life. And what it really takes from different teacher groups to engage in the development prearranged for the best of the pupils. It seems that successful school reformation is based on developing the school culture, where the key persons are teachers themselves (Fullan, 2001, p. 115).
Method
We have used observation and theme interviews in the tradition of ethnographic case study (Pole & Morrison, 2003) to understand the present state of a unified comprehensive school. By using teacher autobiographies we have also studied how teachers’ professional identities, roles and tasks have changed in post-war Finland. We have tried to reveal societal, economical, cultural as well structural historical forces behind those stories by locating them in “the big picture” of Finnish society and its’ change after the wartime (Goodson, 1995, p. 98).
Expected Outcomes
All Finnish teachers are educated in universities, but class teachers (M.Ed.) and subject teachers (M.Sc.) still have different paths to teacher’s occupation and they are paid and employed differently. Both teacher groups have to deal with pupils’ emotional and social problems as well as learning, but subject teachers are expected to emphasize their own subjects while class teachers are supposed to take care of educational overall responsibility for the younger pupils. Although the new school legislation and the National Curriculum promote a unified comprehensive school, the majority of elementary schools and upper high schools live in all but name divided into two different school cultures.
We are willing to discuss how to unify not just the schools but also "the tribes" living in it and turn the battle between different teacher groups into teamwork by linking theory and researched practice.
References
Fullan, M. (2001). The new meaning of educational change. 3rd ed. New York: Teachers College Press. Goodson, I.F. (1995). The story so far: personal knowledge and the political. In J.A. Hatch & R. Wisniewski (Eds.), Life history and narrative (pp. 89─98). London: Falmer Press. Pole, C., & Morrison, M. (2003). Ethnography for education. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.