The study examines at to what extent the Finnish mathematics curriculum texts reflect and promote the concurrent paradigm shifts in mathematics education. In this study, we examine the curriculum texts of upper secondary mathematics through two different ‘lenses’ focusing on these changes. The first lens describes the paradigm shift in mathematics teaching where the central feature is the “social turn in mathematics education” e.g. turning of the individual, cognitive (constructivism) point of view to the social (constructivism) point of view. The second lens corresponds to the change in formulating the objectives of the mathematics teaching by learning outcomes instead of instructional/process objectives.

There are reasons why we can expect that some attempts to promote the social turn in mathematics education and the learning outcome –formulation of the objectives will be found from the subject the curriculum texts. Firstly, the still holding National Core Curricula published in 2003 by the Finnish National Board of Education is at least at the general level explicitly committed to the social-constructivist conception of learning. Its conception of learning is based “The National Core Curriculum is based on a conception of learning which states that “… learning is a result of a student’s active and focused actions aimed to process and interpret received information in interaction with other students, teachers and the environment and on the basis of his or her existing knowledge structures.” (Anonym 2003, 14) Secondly, in the European Union, the Bologna process spelt out a number of “action lines” where it is emphasized that learning outcomes should express what learners are expected to achieve and how they are expected to demonstrate that achievement (Kennedy et al. 2006). In mathematics the tradition has been to describe the objectives mainly as content based format “the student gets acquainted with …/learns… ”. Actually that is quite close to learning outcome -based formulation of objectives.

Contrary to the above said there are as well reasons to suspect that in the part of the curriculum where the subject specific objectives are stated, similar trends or paradigm shifts would not be detectable. The learning of mathematics is often seen as an individual effort and the meaning of the social activities have been diminished. In addition to that often the writers of the national curriculum texts are par excellence the experts of the mathematics subject and not as well familiarized with the theories of learning and the international trends of mathematical education which may cause the issue that role of the produced text is more focused on regulating what content and skills should be learnt than how the learning will happen.

For instance, Kennedy et al. (2006) has noted that the outcome-based approach has some behavioristic and ‘neo-magerian’ features. From this perspective the shift to social-constructivist approach in mathematics education and the ‘neo-magerian’ demand to use observable learning outcomes can be seen at least partly contradictory and may be challenging to match together in the writing process of the curriculum texts. 

Anonym 2003 National Core Curriculum for Upper Secondary Schools 2003. Regulation 33/011/2003. Helsinki: Finnish National Board of Education. www.oph.fi/download/47678_core_curricula_upper_secondary_education.pdf Kennedy D., Hyland A. & Ryan, N. 2006. Writing and Using Learning Outcomes: a Practical Guide. In E. Froment, J. Kohler, L. Purser, L. Wilson, H. Davies & G. Schurings EUA The Bologna Handbook. Berlin: Raabe, C 3.4-1. Silfverberg, H. 2010. Opetussuunnitelmatekstien verbianalyysi - lukion matematiikan oppimäärät opetussuunnitelman perusteissa 1994 ja 2004 [in Finnish]. In E. Ropo, H. Silfverberg & T. Soini (eds.) Toisensa kohtaavat ainedidaktiikat. Department of Teacher Education, Tampere University, Report A31, 369-382.