Many European countries' education policies attempt to strengthen the egalitarian and inclusive structures of education (Hernández-Torrano et al., 2022). This is also the objective of the Finnish curriculum reform concerning support structures for learning in basic education, which we examine in this research.

The Finnish basic education system is governed by legislation and a detailed national core curriculum that provides the basis for adaptations to local curricula (Finnish Basic Education Core Curricula, 2014). When implemented effectively, the local curriculum functions as a concrete, practical handbook that guides daily teaching, pedagogical decision-making, and school culture. In addition to the local curricula, the teaching practices are also defined in school-specific academic year plans.

In spring and summer 2025, all Finnish municipalities were required to revise their local curricula due to legislative changes in the Basic Education Act and the subsequent update of the National Core Curriculum. The three-tiered support model was replaced with a new structure that distinguishes between group-specific support and pupil-specific support measures. This shift moves attention away from categorized support levels toward the organization of pedagogical arrangements within the mainstream learning environment.

In addition to structural changes, the reform emphasizes strengthening learning prerequisites through pedagogical arrangements, developing school culture toward more inclusive practice, and enhancing pupils’ participation in their own learning processes.  This is partly a reaction to the vagueness of the normative guidance of basic education in Finland: despite a general commitment to the ideal of inclusion, inclusive arrangements vary extensively depending on the interpretation of inclusion made by municipality officials, principals, and teachers (Honkasilta et al. 2024; Tervasmäki 2022). Thus, the reform intentions align with international expectations placed on inclusive schooling, which highlight early support, universal pedagogical design, and collaborative teaching models.

However, the reform has generated concerns within the Finnish educational field. Scholars and practitioners (e.g., Alajoki & Mäkinen, 2025) have voiced apprehension that the new support model might unintentionally redirect resources and attention away from inclusive mainstream arrangements toward increased use of full-time special class placements. Such a shift could signal a re-emergence of the dual system of general and special education that characterized Finnish schooling, particularly during the 1980s–2000s (Kivirauma et al. 2006), but of which still occurred locally at some municipalities and schools in 2010-2020s due to unclear guidance in the curriculum (Lempinen 2018; Tervasmäki 2022). These concerns point to a potential discrepancy between the reform’s stated goals and the risk of unintended consequences during implementation.

For the support model to function as intended, a notable transformation in school culture is required. Classroom-level support measures, defined in legislation as general remedial instruction provided by teachers, language support instruction, and special education delivered within mainstream teaching, must genuinely serve as the primary means of supporting pupils’ learning. This implies that general and special education teachers need to collaborate effectively, ensure flexible learning arrangements, and promote preventive support within the everyday routines of mainstream classrooms.

This study examines how the revised legislation and national curriculum updates are interpreted, framed, and translated into municipal-level local curricula and school-specific academic year plans. The research questions are: 1) How does the reform appear in local curriculum texts? 2) How is the practical implementation of the support model described in schools' academic year plans?  By analyzing the ways municipalities articulate classroom-level support, define pedagogical responsibilities, and describe the practices expected from teachers, the research explores how local curriculum texts may either facilitate or constrain the development of inclusive education.

The study highlights differences between policy and practice in the reform of special education and inclusive education, which may be useful in the development of other European school systems.

Local curricula are a central instrument steering educational practice in Finnish basic education, as they operationalize the objectives, principles, and pedagogical guidelines defined in the National Core Curriculum. Although based on the national framework, local curricula allow municipalities and joint municipal authorities to contextualize and emphasize specific goals, content areas, and school-level practices relevant to their communities. The data was collected by reviewing the Finnish-language basic education curricula of all Finnish municipalities (n=290) on their websites using Google search or the National Board of Education's e-Requirements service. Local special provisions concerning the organization of group-specific forms of support were collected from the curricula. During the collection of data, it was found that 98 municipalities (34%) had outdated curricula on their websites or e-platforms. The curriculum could not be found in 22 municipalities (8%), and no local specifications could be found at all in 30 municipalities (10%). The final data of the study consists of 140 (48%) local or regional curriculum texts in Finnish concerning group-specific forms of support, their objectives, and their organization. The length of the texts varied between 14 and 369 words. Since the local curriculum texts were relatively short, almost direct copies of the curriculum guidelines, and often referred to school-specific academic year plans, 30 academic year plans from schools of different sizes and from different parts of Finland were also collected as data. The collected data will be analyzed using the Essex School of discourse theory (e.g. Howarth et al. 2000), which provides a fine-tuned approach to the social construction of meaning and the practices of inclusion/exclusion in education policies (Tervasmäki 2024; 2022).

Based on a preliminary analysis of the material, the first stage of the curriculum analysis gave researchers an impression of a school with unlimited support resources. Funding has been allocated for the reform, but municipalities can decide independently how it is distributed. The texts in the curriculum indicated that the forms of support are known in advance and "set in stone." The material only briefly discussed the development of support practices or opportunities to develop them in collaboration with other schools. However, the new support system is not complete without further development, especially since it was introduced on a very tight schedule, and the new law and curriculum might be interpreted on the basis of old practices. By analyzing school-specific plans, we expect to gain a broader picture of the group-specific support practices in schools.

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