This presentation introduces a study comparing the teaching of history, geography and social sciences in Finland and Norway. In Finnish lower secondary schools, the teaching of these fields is organized as three separate subjects. In the Norwegian lower secondary education, knowledge from the three fields is integrated into one social studies (Samfunnsfag) subject. The aim of the study is to investigate, by comparison, what kind of knowledge is selected from the disciplinary fields of history, geography and social sciences and how it is organised in curriculum making when it is implemented in the form of three separate subjects or as an integrated subject. The main research question of the study is, does an integrated subject create structures that can support the teaching of topics that cross disciplinary boundaries? On the other hand, does the integration weaken the disciplinary structures, or “the palimpsest of knowledge” (Muller, 2024), that build coherence for a school subject?

The concept of curriculum integration has received a large variety of interpretations (see e.g. Burke & Lehane, 2023). Usually, the aim of curriculum integration is to increase the coherence of a curriculum as opposed to fragmented pieces of facts without contextualisation. In this study, curriculum integration is understood as a dynamic between integration and differentiation of knowledge ( see Niemelä, 2022a; cf. Bernstein, 1977 on classification of educational knowledge). It means that differentiation of knowledge can be seen as a vehicle for integration. In practice, this means formation of school subjects, units, modules, courses etc. However, too strong differentiation can lead to fragmentation, when the boundaries between differentiated subjects insulate them. In turn, too little differentiation produces too large wholes that do not construct structures that integrate knowledge into a coherent form. The key issue is to find a balance between sufficient differentiation and integration of knowledge in curriculum making. Finnish and Norwegian cases represent two different attempts to integrate social science curricula.

The study is theoretically placed within the framework of the concept of powerful knowledge. While discussing what makes knowledge powerful, Young and Muller (2016) have emphasized the potentials of specialised knowledge for education that can provide all young people opportunities to expands their worldviews beyond their everyday realities. The boundaries of school subjects enable the studying of specialised knowledge that provides conceptual tools for both deep and broad understanding of the world. However, Young and Muller claim that these boundaries, many times reflecting established power relations, should not be taken for granted (see Goodson, 2017). For Young and Muller, a favourable curriculum for the future maintains subject boundaries but also supports crossings the boundaries to address interdisciplinary topics. The crucial point is that boundary crossing, or interdisciplinary curriculum, presumes the existence of boundaries, or disciplines (see Wheelahan & Moodie, 2024).

The powerful knowledge thinking leans strongly on Bernstein’s (2000) idea of knowledge recontextualization from the academic disciplines to school subjects. Recontextualization refers to the transformation process where knowledge produced outside of schooling is turned into knowledge for schooling (see Gericke et al., 2018). The construction of subject boundaries and the design of the written curriculum are essential steps on the official recontextualising field. In turn, the production of learning materials and teachers’ conceptions of the subjects are parts of the pedagogic recontextualising field. The study examines the recontextualization process in the two contexts and on three stages: the written curricula, textbooks, and teachers’ understanding of knowledge on the fields of geography, history, and social science education.

The empirical research consists of interviews with both Finnish and Norwegian teachers, content analysis of textbooks, and a comparison of the national written curricula. Mind mapping is applied as the main research method of the study (Wheeldon & Ahlberg, 2019). The Finnish interviewees are teachers who teach geography, history, and social studies. The Norwegian interviewees are subject teachers of social studies (Samfunnsfag). In group interviews, teachers create mind maps to reveal their understanding of what are the key aims and contents of geography, history, and social science education and draw connections between different domains. Through thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of textbooks, maps are built to describe what kind of educational content is selected in them and how the textbooks aim at integration internally and via boundary crossing. Further, the contents of the written curricula are analysed to compare how the aims and structures of the subjects differ in the two contexts, and what kind of objectives and means for boundary crossing the curricula include. The ideas of boundary objects and bridging concepts are used to guide the analysis that has its focus on knowledge integration. A boundary object refers to an entity that is shared by various disciplinary communities but viewed or used differently. In turn, a bridging concept means a concept that actively bridges different disciplines (Baggio et al., 2015). The bridging concepts point to possible powerful boundary-crossing points between the subjects. In turn, boundary objects can address topics shared by various disciplines/subjects but sometimes with competing or even contradictory understandings. These objects point to common ground between the subjects, which utilisation for boundary crossing however might require special attention for becoming powerful. For example, “cities” represent a boundary object shared by geography, history and social sciences. However, it does not itself yet provide an intentional pathway to integration of knowledge from these disciplines. In turn, “urbanisation” can represent a bridging concept that describes a phenomenon that can integrate knowledge from the three fields for understanding the growth of cities. The bridging concepts integrate the meaning of knowledge from various disciplines rather than context that is shared within boundary objects (see Bernstein, 2000). Because the interdisciplinary schoolwork increases the knowledge demands of both students and teachers (Pountney & McPhail, 2019), curriculum integration by reducing subject boundaries might produce a contradiction i.e. leading to fragmentation, if integration is not supported by a sufficient structure of bridging concepts.

The data collection for this study will be finished in the autumn 2025. According to the preliminary analysis of the written curricula, the Norwegian social studies curriculum reflects the change towards competence-based curriculum (see Løken & Wetlesen, 2024; Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2019). In turn, the Finnish curriculum (Finnish National Agency of Education, 2016) includes more specified disciplinary content, which means disciplinary substance, discipline-based skills, and disciplinary ways of thinking, except in the case of social studies, which is an integrated subject also in the Finnish curriculum integrating knowledge from various social science disciplines. The preliminary analysis of the teacher interviews reveals that both groups of teachers’ conceptions of the subject(s) are somewhat aligned with the curricula. The Finnish teachers identify a variety of discipline-based content and aims, whereas the Norwegian teachers emphasise more students’ personal development connected with the current events and present the aims and content of the subject more abstractly. The main structures of the Norwegian social studies textbooks are much similar, including similar themes in similar order, although the curriculum does not closely specify the content of the subject. This means that the textbooks play particularly significant role in the making of the Norwegian social studies subject. The Norwegian textbooks are build around social and historical themes, thus giving geographical perspectives merely a complementary role (see Storrøsæter et al., 2025). The Finnish history textbooks are constructed chronologically, geography textbooks are focusing on disciplinary perspectives from human and natural geography, and social studies textbooks are organised thematically resembling the Norwegian textbooks. Further research will focus on the boundary objects and bridging concepts found in the research materials. From the theoretical point of view, the study is expected to contribute to the development of powerful knowledge by evolving the idea of powerful cross-disciplinary knowledge.

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