The question of creativity in the Finnish elementary school curriculum

Abstract
This article is intended to examine the role of creative education in the design of the national curriculum and the division of lesson hours during the period 2010-2014. During this process, pupils, private citizens and experts from different fields were given the opportunity to submit their contributions to the exercise. The article intends to examine whether the curriculum development exercise fulfilled the conditions for a wide democratic consultation process. Three professional groups, elementary school teachers, artists (writers, visual arts teachers, musicians) and academic engineers (n= 1163) were the main focus of this research project. Creativity related claims, which were posted on the internet, were presented to the research subjects. The results from the study indicated that in many respects, the subjects’ concept of creativity and creative education differed statistically from each other considerably. The views from the teachers and artists revealed that creativity is seen as a source of joy and wellbeing. Engineers tend to view creativity from its utilitarian perspective, particularly with reference to product development and innovation. The results also reveal the challenges of developing a national curriculum through a wide democratic consultation process, an apparently simple exercise, which however failed in its objectives and intentions.
Main Authors
Format
Articles Research article
Published
2017
Series
Subjects
Publication in research information system
Publisher
Macrothink Institute, Inc.
The permanent address of the publication
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201709053663Use this for linking
Review status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2162-6952
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5296/jse.v7i3.11363
Language
English
Published in
Journal of Studies in Education
Citation
  • Hakala, J., Konst, T., Uusikylä, K., & Järvinen, E.-M. (2017). The question of creativity in the Finnish elementary school curriculum. Journal of Studies in Education, 7(3), 209-226. https://doi.org/10.5296/jse.v7i3.11363
License
Open Access
Copyright© 2017 The Authors. This is an open acces article.

Share