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      History teaching in Finnish general upper secondary schools: Objectives and practices

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            Abstract

            In Finland, the trend towards a new kind of history teaching emphasizing the understanding of historical knowledge and historical thinking skills began in the mid-1990s, when history teaching objectives were defined much more broadly in the curriculum than previously. In this article, we examine how, in over twenty years since the changes in curriculum objectives were made, general upper secondary school teachers have come to value the curriculum objectives of history teaching and how these have impacted on their teaching. The data for this article were collected by a semi-structured survey in 2016. Using counts, percentages, means, standard deviations and medians, a descriptive exploration was made of history teachers' perceptions of the essential objectives in teaching history and how often they were put into practice in related student activities. To investigate the balance between the objectives the teachers emphasized as the most essential and the teaching methods they actually used, we applied the Kruskal–Wallis test and the Friedman test. According to the results, what the teachers considered essential for teaching history did not correlate with their teaching methods. In addition, according to the results, this state of affairs is still undergoing change; old traditions and new objectives of history teaching are creating tensions. The results were interpreted in the light of the cultural viewpoints of Finnish teaching, the position of matriculation examinations in Finnish general upper secondary schools and the challenges the curriculum is setting for history teachers.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            75011015
            History Education Research Journal
            UCL IOE Press
            1472-9474
            1472-9466
            17 October 2019
            : 16
            : 2
            : 291-305
            Article
            1472-9474(20191017)16:2L.291;1- s9.phd /ioep/herj/2019/00000016/00000002/art00009
            10.18546/HERJ.16.2.09
            fbbecfdd-1ff9-4df7-8d8a-41ebadc91c62
            Copyright @ 2019
            History
            Categories
            Articles: General

            Educational research & Statistics,General education,History
            FINLAND,OBJECTIVES OF TEACHING,HISTORY TEACHING,GENERAL UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOLS,TEACHING METHODS,QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

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