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ABSTRACT
Given that curriculum materials serve as cultural artefacts, this study addresses the need for more research on curriculum materials in different contexts. Most studies concerning curriculum materials have been conducted in US and, therefore little is known about the nature of materials in other cultural-educational contexts. The aim of this paper is to identify the underlying cultural norms of potentially constructed classrooms, by analysing recurrent activities in the most commonly used Finnish teacher guides at primary-school level. We identified three norms embedded in them: (1) creating opportunities for learning through a variety of activities and communication; (2) keeping the class gathered around a specific mathematical topic; and (3) concurrent active involvement of teachers and students. The results add to knowledge about both teacher guides and the Finnish educational context. Moreover, it adds to the growing body of methodologies, as our analytical approach is novel in the context of textual analysis.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 In Finland, comprehensive school is from Grades 1 to 9, and comprises primary school (Grades 1–6) and lower secondary school (Grades 7–9). Children start school, beginning with Grade 1, the year they turn seven.
2 As the textbook series, to some degree, reflect the textbooks’ underlying assumptions and ideas through their distinctive titles, the first author of this article translated the Finnish titles into English.
3 All the excerpts from the teacher guides are translated from Finnish into English by the first author of this article.
4 The commas in the numbers of this excerpt are the Finnish convention for denoting a decimal, equivalent to the English convention of using a full stop.