Browsing by Author "Vaara, Jenni"

The early childhood education and care (ECEC) and Basic education introduced a new national Core Curriculum by the Finnish National Agency for education in 2016. Both national norm curricula can be found confluence, and since ECEC transformed under to Finnish National Agency for education in 2015, ECEC, preschool education and basic education becomes an integral part of the lifelong path of growth and learning and of the continuum of curricula. The purpose of this study is to clarify ECE leaders’ and basic education leaders’ views on curricula and curriculum leadership. The research questions are following: (1) How does Curriculum appear in ECE leaders and basic education leaders discussion? (2) What discourses can be identified in both discussions? (3) How does Curriculum Implementation appear in both discussions? This study was conducted using qualitative methods and the used data consists of theme interview collected in the Eduleaders project training. The training involved 10 interviewees working in the context of educational leadership. The material was analyzed by a using discourse analysis with the aim of defining curricula discourses in leaders’ discussions. Four significant discourses were mentioned and can be identified as the following: 1. The discussion about curriculum as a framework 2. The discussion about curriculum as a vanguard. 3. The discussion about curriculum as a challenge. 4. The discussion about curriculum as an enabler. The research results show that both early childhood education leaders and basic education discuss about curricula within the same framework and with the same concepts. The results reveal the curriculum to be in reformation phase in which the old and the new curriculum are confronted. Furthermore, the national curriculum gained a central role as a fundament of work. The distributed leadership and pedagogical discussions occurred in the discussions of both leaders as ways to implement the curriculum. In the discussions about curriculum as challenge the leaders pointed out it being difficult to implement the curriculum in classrooms or child groups, where teachers prefer rather traditional teaching than the alternative methods of the new curriculum. Eventually the slowness and extent of development as well as short-sightness in the field were identified as challenges. However, the discussion illustrates the curriculum positively in terms of child orientation, opportunities to try new things and co-creation.