In this study, we analyze how curriculum in Finland is constructed and to which extent the process can be regarded as democratic and participatory. The new Finnish national core curriculum has been introduced in 2014, and the new local curricula will be implemented in schools in August 2016. The national core curriculum includes the objectives and core contents of different subjects, the principles of pupil assessment, special-needs education, pupil welfare and educational guidance. It also includes principles of a good learning environment as well as teaching and learning methods. Teachers, teacher educators, parents, educational researchers and other citizens and non-governmental organisations have been involved in a public discussion about the aims, methods and values manifested in the core curriculum. The education providers, i.e. the municipality authorities and the schools, draw up their own curricula within the framework of the national core curriculum. In the local curriculum design processes, the local community members are also involved.

Our object is to determine how open and participatory the national curriculum design process in Finland actually is. Our research question is: “Can curriculum design in Finland be regarded as democratic process?” In order to answer this question, we apply the theoretical framework of discourse theory of law which was introduced by the well-known German philosopher Jürgen Habermas in one of his last books, ‘Faktizität und Geltung’ (Eng. Between Facts and Norms; 1992). The discourse theory of law offers us a description of ideal conditions for legislation in democratic societies. In democracy, action norms such as laws and decrees are enacted though a democratic process. Curriculum design has features which resemble legislation. Like laws, curriculum is, on one hand, a binding norm, but on the other hand, it is continually contested and subject to discussion. 

 Habermas has drafted his model of democratic will-formation in his earlier theories of communicative action and discourse ethics. The most important premise of these theories is an ideal model of free discourse (“ideal speech situation”).  In the real world, however, there is no such thing as purely open and free discourse but there may be spaces which are more or less communicative and participatory. This leads into an inevitable tension between the facticity and validity of norms; the factual norms (“facticity”) are never quite the same than the moral and ethical ground of the norms (“validity”) which is ideally achieved through an unforced consensus. In an ideal situation both facticity and validity are strong. Norms also may lose their moral and ethical acceptability as time goes by. The consensus achieved through actual discourse is always provisional. That is another reason why there always is a tension between validity and facticity of a norm even in a democratic society. This tension can be diminished but never abolished. In order to diminish the tension between facticity and validity the process of creation of an action norm should be open, critical, reflective, democratic, and empowering.

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