Conceptual Change in Adopting the Nationwide Special Education Strategy in Finland, Situation Now
Author(s):
Helena Thuneberg Helena Thuneberg (presenting / submitting)
Jarkko Hautamäki (presenting)
Mari-Pauliina Vainikainen (presenting)
Raisa Ahtiainen (presenting)
Conference:
ECER 2011
Network:
4. Inclusive Education
Format:
Poster

Session Information

04 SES 9.5 PE/PS, Poster Exhibition / Poster Session

Time:
2011-09-15
12:00-13:30
Room:
Seminarzentrum - Posters
Chair:

Contribution

@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } The goal of this study is to add new knowledge in the stock of evermore important topic of understanding the implementation of educational reforms (cf. Fullan, 2006; Hargreaves 1999). We take advantage of an extensive reform in Finland, comparative in importance and extent to the foundation of Finnish Basic Education. A new Special Education Strategy (SPES) was launched in Finland by the Ministry of Education in 2007. There was the need for reconsideration of the system, because the number of the official special education referrals had been growing uncontrollably for years being 8% in the year of 2007 (Statistics 2007). For half of those students education was organized in segregated special classes or schools – this despite the country’s international commitments (e.g. the Salamanca statement, UNESCO,
1994) to promote inclusion and a common school for all. To solve this contradiction the new strategy emphasizes inclusion and the “neighborhood school principle”.

@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } The main research objectives were: (1) to analyze the conceptual change in the Special education strategy knowledge construction process. The change trend in municipality documents of four time-points was assumed to reflect the educational reform process in the field in general, by giving an overall picture of the reform advancement in the national level; (2) to identify the variation between the municipalities and to roughly classify the municipalities according to their stage of implementation of the strategy.
The systemic-discursive perspective (cf. Luhmann) was applied in order to understand the mechanics of the concept integration. For conceptualizing the change process we used, among others, the expansive learning model (cf. Engeström. 1989).

Method

Data: Four documents were obtained from the municipalities: 1. The initial applications (December 2007) for the Ministry of Education, which included an organization plan for special education, 2. The more specified plan (June 2008), for the Board of Education, 3. The intermediate report (April 2009) for the Board of Education and 4. The municipality’s plan of education (September 2009) for the Jyväskylä University and the board of Education. Method: For the first aim, the identification of the change trend, we applied the content analysis and quantification of the main SPES concepts in the document data in four time-points during one and half years. The reliability of the analysis was strengthened by the on-going expert team discussions. By a simple search-function of Microsoft Word, the term occurrences were identified, analyzed in their contexts and calculated. For the second aim, to assess the advancement and direction of the process, the documents were categorized using the criteria of stage of implementation (Hall & Loucks, 1977). Because intensified support was a new concept, its emergence and elaboration in the documents was considered as a valid indicator for the level of development.

Expected Outcomes

Comparison of the special and strategy term representations between the time-points revealed that the amount of the special¬-expressions significantly decreased and in the same amount the strategy-terms increased. Similarly the therapeutic/ symptom/medical terms were replaced by pedagogical terms. After one and half years of the process, at the first level of implementation: non use, orientation, preparation, were still about 22% of the municipalities, at the second level: mechanical use, routine, were 60% and at the third level: refinement, integration and renewal, were 18% of the municipalities. The conclusion is that they have advanced in applying the SPES in the intended goal-direction. However, from the systemic-discursive perspective, adopting concepts from an external input in a top-down process is not straightforward and, thus, it is quite probable that meanings vary considerably between the different discourses.

References

Daniels, H. (2006) The dangers of corruption in special needs education. British Journal of Special Education, 33 (1), 4-9. Engeström, Y. (2007) From Stabilization knowledge to possibility knowledge in organizational learning. Management Learning 38(3), 1–5 1350–5076. Engeström, Y. (1991). Developmental work research: A paradigm in practice. The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 13, 79-80. Fullan, M. (2006) The future of educational change: system thinkers in action, Journal of Educational Change, 7: 113-122. Hargreaves, D. (1999) The knowledge creating school, Bristish Journal of Educational Studies, 47 2), 122-144. Hastings, R., Sonuga-Barke, E., Remington B. (1993) An analysis of labels for people with learning disabilities.The British journal of clinical psychology, 32 (4), 463-5. Norwich, B. (1999) The connotation of special education labels for professionals in the field. British Journal of Special education 26(4). Osgood, R. (2006) Language, labels, and lingering (re)considerations: the evolution and fuction of terminology in special education. Pilosophical studies in education, 37, 135-145. Seidl, D. (2007) General strategy concepts and the ecology of strategy discourses: A systemic-discursive perspective. Organization studies 28(02), 197-218.

Author Information

Helena Thuneberg
University of Helsinki
Special education
University of Helsinki
Helena Thuneberg (presenting / submitting)
University of Helsinki, Finland
Jarkko Hautamäki (presenting)
University of Helsinki, Finland
Mari-Pauliina Vainikainen (presenting)
University of Helsinki, Finland
Raisa Ahtiainen (presenting)
University of Helsinki, Finland

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