Finnish teachers’ approaches to personal worldview expressions: A question of professional autonomy and ethics

ABSTRACT

This research investigates Finnish teachers’ personal worldviews, by focusing on understanding what kinds of approaches teachers use concerning the visibility of their personal worldviews in an educational context. This issue is discussed in the light of teachers’ professional autonomy and ethics, since these are two fundamental dimensions of teacher professionalism that are discussed a lot. The research was conducted using a qualitative attitude approach, and included interviews (N = 20) from Finnish in-service basic education class teachers. The results show that teachers use three different approaches where their personal worldview and its visibility in their work are concerned. When reflecting on worldview questions, there was uncertainty about balancing between practicing teacher autonomy and following teachers’ official responsibilities. Teachers’ personal worldview expressions were limited to the institutional worldview, which means in practice adopting norms and language of the worldview majority, and professional ethics was highlighted even more than autonomy when reflecting on the visibility of worldviews.

KEYWORDS:

• Worldviews
• personal worldview
• professional autonomy
• professional ethics

Introduction

This article examines reflections on the use and visibility of personal worldviews of teachers working in Finnish basic education. The previous studies on teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and ideologies in relation to professionalism highlight the complexity of the issue when personal beliefs and values confront general educational aims (Häusler et al. 2019; Kuusisto et al. 2015; Lamminmäki-Vartia, Poulter, and Kuusisto 2020). Teacher’s perceptions and opinions about worldviews can affect the pupil’s opportunity to develop this worldview on a personal level (Van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema 2013). Rissanen, Kuusisto, and Kuusisto (2016) also highlight the importance of teachers’ reflection on their personal values and worldviews in developing sensitivity to children’s worldviews and giving them a broader understanding of how worldviews shape identities and practices in education. This study, however, will give voice to the way that Finnish class teachers (grades 1–6) see their personal worldviews as part of their professionalism. The aim of this study is not to define teachers’ worldviews per se, but to understand the approaches teachers take when considering their personal worldview in teaching, and how these approaches are reflected on. Related to teacher professionalism, aspects of autonomy and ethics raise questions whether the visibility of a teacher’s personal worldviews is acceptable or not. This study investigates those concepts through the following research questions: 1. What kinds of approaches do teachers use concerning the visibility of their personal worldview in schools? and 2. To what extent do these approaches reflect the principles of professional autonomy and ethics?

To study teachers’ personal worldview approaches in the Finnish primary educational context is interesting for at least three reasons. First, Finland has a strong, high-level, compulsory, and free public school system whose key element is highly educated and appreciated teachers (Lavonen 2018). Finnish teacher education is research-based and class teachers graduate as Masters of Education. They are qualified to teach all school subjects in grades 1-6, including Finnish worldview education subjects, Religious education and/or Secular Ethics. While teaching individual school subjects, teachers need to follow the general curricular guidelines and to implement the core values and objectives of the curriculum, not forgetting to support pupils’ holistic growth, including pupils’ personal worldviews through all class subjects.

Second, the way professionalism is understood in Finnish education emphasises a high degree of professional autonomy (Lavonen 2018), and professional ethics (Tirri and Kuusisto 2019). Teachers’ professionalism, and its construction is widely discussed and researched, and the aim in this study is not to study professionalism overall, but to focus on understanding how the concept of autonomy and ethics intersect and how they are negotiated. Teacher’s values and ethical principles define that teachers have a right to hold their own view of life and values when working as a professional (Tirri and Kuusisto 2019). Teachers’ strong autonomy affects all levels of education (Salokangas, Wermke, and Harvey 2020), which means in practice independent decision making whether a teacher’s personal worldview should be apart from the professional approach. However, teachers as civil servants have to follow the curricular and legislative norms where their personal worldviews are concerned (Tirri and Kuusisto 2019). The curriculum, however, is ambiguous about this issue. Therefore, it is hypothesised that teachers use different approaches to manage their personal worldviews in everyday pedagogical practices and teaching.

Third, the complexity of the landscape of religions and other worldviews in Finland offers an interesting field to study the issue. Strong traditions and power positions still exist between the Evangelical-Lutheran church and the state (Furseth 2018), as well as the church and education (Niemi and Sinnemäki 2019), but having said that, Finnish citizens today are relatively secularised.

Furthermore, religious plurality is increasing rapidly and diversity among Finnish worldviews is growing (Furseth 2018; Ketola 2020). Also, teachers’ working environments are progressively more diverse (Niemi et al. 2018), and this requires high-level ethical and pedagogical skills from teachers (Tirri and Toom 2020). As the Finnish social and religious context is in flux, this challenges teachers to balance between implementing traditional ways of understanding Finnish worldviews and new types of religiosity and secularised notions of lifestyles.

Understanding worldviews from a personal perspective

A worldview is a complex concept that is understood differently in different contexts (Hutchings, T. and Shillitoe 2020; Van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema 2016). Hence, it has been debated whether the use of a too general worldview concept is relativistic, individualistic and is linked to the concept of ideology (Ubani 2021). The concept is much debated especially in the religious and worldview education context (Cooling, Bowie, and Panjwani 2020; Lipiäinen, Halahoff, Mansouri, and Bouma 2020), and Bråten (2021) has recently placed the concept of worldviews in an educational context more broadly. A worldview is understood in this study following descriptions of it as ‘a vision of life’ and ‘a way of life’ (Valk and Tosun 2016), and it has been divided into organised/institutional, and personal/private dimensions. Organised/institutional worldviews are considered fairly stable views of life shared with a group of people (Van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema 2013). On the other hand, personal/private worldviews are moderated by people themselves, and are more nuanced, changing, and heterogeneous (Riegel and Delling 2019; Valk 2017). In other words, a personal worldview is ‘the perspective and the meaning system of a particular person’ (Riegel and Delling 2019, 404), which affects all areas of life (Valk and Tosun 2016) including teachers’ values, views, opinions, and professionalism.

The broad understanding of the concept of worldview also emphasises its lived dimension. The lived dimension, so-called ‘lived religion’, or ‘lived worldview’ (e.g. Åhs, Poulter, and Kallioniemi 2019; Bråten 2021) means the lived reality of worldviews, which becomes visible in everyday practices and the way people live their lives. A personal worldview can consist of very different aspects, and it is just one actor in a teacher’s decision-making (Van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema 2013). The concept of worldview resists the deep dichotomy between religious and non-religious views and it emphasises the dynamic and interactive nature of an individual worldview (Bråten 2021; Droogers and van Harskamp 2014). It also allows a personal worldview to include a variety of intersecting non-religious, religious or spiritual elements (Valk 2010). Focusing on personal worldviews in general matches well with the current worldview identification of Finns which, according to the Church Research Institute, are more diverse than ever before (Ketola 2020). The majority of Finns (67.8%) are still members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Official Statistics of Finland 2020), but only 29% define themselves as ‘religious’ (Ketola 2020). The number of religious ‘nones’ has increased in all Western countries (Ketola 2020), but there are also new kinds of spiritualism in the Nordic countries (Furseth 2018).

Finnish teachers’ professional autonomy and ethics

Overall, teachers’ autonomy has been shown to correlate positively with motivation, work satisfaction, empowerment and perceived self-efficacy (Wilches 2007). In this study, teachers’ autonomy is conceptualised as a multidimensional and context-dependent phenomenon as in Salokangas, Wermke, and Harvey’s (2020) model of teachers’ autonomy. This autonomy is not only visible in an educational, pedagogical domain as teachers’ work is in practice more holistic, including social (managing for instance student behaviour, and transforming social rules at schools), administrative (e.g. dealing with timetables and resources), and developmental (e.g. future planning about education in general and teachers’ professional development) tasks. In addition, in their model, teacher autonomy is a layered phenomenon, because teachers operate simultaneously in classrooms (in relation to pupils and contents), schools (in relation to colleagues and parents), and in the professional dimension (as a part of a wider group of professionals).

Furthermore, responsibility is one key feature of teachers’ autonomy (Wilches 2007). Autonomy is not overall freedom, because it includes commitments to school contexts and its educational goals, such as curriculum, and school organisation structures (Wermke and Höstfält 2014). Autonomy can be called a scope of action, when teachers balance between their practices as a professional and organisations’ structures. Therefore, teachers’ autonomy can be called an ‘extended institutional autonomy’, meaning that individual decisions must follow certain guidelines, but are still made by individuals without specific instructions (Wermke and Höstfält 2014, 67–68).

Another normative element in the Finnish teaching profession is a teacher’s professional ethics, which can be seen to be one of the profession’s central features (Wermke and Höstfält 2014). Like autonomy, teachers’ ethics is also bounded by the curriculum and legislation. However, according to teachers’ ethical guidelines, teachers have a right to their own view of life and values also when working as a teacher (Tirri and Kuusisto 2019). A teacher’s role as a professional is shaped by balancing between personal and social factors, which both affect the ways that teachers perform their professional tasks (Toom and Husu 2018, 6). Teachers make moral evaluations and express their views in multiple ways. They value both consciously and unconsciously, for instance, certain ways of thinking and behaviour to be better than others (Sabbagh 2009). Professional ethics becomes visible in teachers’ everyday decision-making processes, different teachers emphasising personal and social factors differently. When researching teachers’ moral reflection in resolving practical problems during school days, Husu and Tirri (2001) found three practical and three theoretical reflections that shape teachers’ educational decision-making. Practical elements were background beliefs, standards of action guides, and skills in dilemma managing. However, teachers can approach practical dilemmas and turn them into action by using theoretical reflections either alone or simultaneously with practical elements. Theoretical reflection includes the ethic of purpose, the ethic of rules and principals, and the ethic of probability (Husu and Tirri 2001, 355-356). When researching teachers’ personal beliefs, these reflections might be a useful tool when considering teachers’ professional ethics.

Worldviews in educational context, and teachers’ role

Despite high autonomy, a ‘culture of trust’, and a lack of standardised tests in Finland (Lavonen 2018), teachers need to implement the national curricular standards and achieve the learning objectives listed there (Tirri and Toom 2020). The Finnish educational system and the curriculum aim to transform Finnish culture and so-called Finnish values (NCCBE (National Core Curriculum for Basic Education) 2014). However, based on Niemi and Sinnemäki (2019) analysis, these values are rooted firmly in Lutheran values. Lutheranism has had a strong effect on the Finnish school system and curriculum making, and Finnishness and Christianity still have a strong link in an educational context (Niemi and Sinnemäki 2019). This kind of a fixed idea of Finnishness can define which kind of diversity is really accepted in Finnish schools in practice (Niemi et al. 2018).

The discussion about how teachers’ personal worldviews impact on teaching and teachers’ practices is quite recent (e.g. Everington 2016; Flanagan 2020). Flanagan (2020, 2) argues, that ‘teachers’ worldviews may impact their practice in terms of pedagogy, curriculum choices, and the value they assign to, and their enthusiasm for, a curriculum subject’. The visibility of a teacher’s personal worldview has been noted to vary depending for instance on the country, the teacher’s age (Everington 2016), and what the worldview is like (Arthur et al. 2019). According to Häusler et al. (2019), especially if a teacher’s personal worldview is religious, its visibility has been shown to be handled differently. Studies mostly from the USA conclude that there is a relation between teachers’ professional orientations and their religiosity. For instance, religiosity appears to be related to work commitment and to motivation, or to the ways teachers interact with their pupils (Häusler et al. 2019).

Overall, there are many previous studies about religious education (RE) teachers’ personal worldviews and a teacher’s role in teaching RE (e.g. Everington 2016, 2019; Flanagan 2020; Riegel and Delling 2019). Scholars also note that teachers use different discursive strategies for different purposes, for instance, using the so-called language of belonging to create inclusivity or exclude certain worldview positions in the classroom (Kimanen and Poulter 2018). An international comparative study of RE teachers’ shows that teachers from different countries identify the effect of their personal worldview with their teaching, though especially those who identified themselves as Christians avoided revealing their belief to pupils (Everington et al. 2011). However, studies from teachers other than RE teachers is lacking. Especially in the Finnish case, where class teachers teach all school subjects it is obvious that this kind of new knowledge is needed.

Materials and methods

The data of this study consists of twenty in-service class teachers’ interviews. The methodological choice for data collection was to use a qualitative attitude approach (Peltola and Vesala 2013; Vesala and Rantanen 2007), which is a particularly valuable tool when studying complex issues, such as ideologies and religions from a specific position. Teachers participated in interviews from their professional position, not from their private role. The qualitative attitude approach analyses argumentation by focusing on how participants assign values when commenting on a given issue (Vesala and Rantanen 2007). In the interview, participants were asked to freely comment on thirteen (made-up) claims concerning worldviews in school, and the interviewer (the first author) asked complementary questions if necessary (Peltola and Vesala 2013). The claims were tested in focus group interviews carried out in spring 2019. The full list of the claims is found in Appendix 1.

All informants were qualified class teachers from Helsinki. They represent different school districts, working years and genders. For ethical reasons, and due to the focus of this study, teachers were not asked to define their personal worldview or their memberships of religious communities. However, many of the teachers described their personal worldview indirectly during the interviews. It is worth of noticing, that the nominal memberships of religious communities were not emphasized in descriptions. Teachers’ personal worldviews were more ambiguous, for instance:

‘Teacher has responsibility to tell the truth about these things, which is that religions simply are not true.’ (018)

‘Even though I belong to the Church, I have my own way to believe.’ (003)

‘I have been thinking, that is it wrong if I am unsure. […] That I believe, or not. Or I believe now, but I doubt. Or tomorrow I may not believe or other way round.’ (005)

The interviews lasted from 45 to 90 minutes, and they were conducted either in each teacher’s school premises, or due to the global covid-19 pandemic, via video interviews. Participating in the study was voluntary, and research permission for the interviews was obtained from the schools’ principals and the City of Helsinki.

Analyses of the study was conducted by both authors using the two-stage analysing method of the qualitative attitude approach; first the classifying and then the interpretative analysis (Peltola and Vesala 2013; Vesala and Rantanen 2007). First, in the classifying stage, all arguments where teachers considered their personal worldviews were selected from the interview material and similar arguments were identified and classified. The first stage analyses were used to answer the first research question about the approaches that teachers have, and how these approaches are justified. Then, in the interpretative stage, classified arguments were considered from the theoretical point of view, focusing on the teachers’ autonomy and ethics and thereby answering the second research question.

Results

Based on the findings, Finnish teachers reflect on questions relating to their personal worldviews in many different situations during the school days. Based on the first, identifying and classifying stage of our analysis, three different approaches to considering personal worldviews were found in the data.

These approaches were named as follows; pupil’s personal worldview approach, teacher’s personal worldview approach, and institutional worldview approach. After the classifying stage, the approaches went through the interpretative stage where the results were interpreted in the light of the key theoretical concepts of this study. Next, we will present all three approaches and the reflections used.

Pupil’s personal worldview approach

When considering the use and visibility of personal worldviews, teachers often started their argumentation from a pupil’s perspective, relating their reflection to the pupil’s age, or to a particular educational situation and context. Teachers considered young children to be more prone to a teacher’s influence than older pupils and also mentioned that sometimes worldview matters were difficult to understand for young pupils. One teacher problematised this approach as follows:

‘My answer [whether a teacher can or cannot tell his/her personal worldview to pupils] changes based on the pupil’s age. You cannot discuss abstract or conceptual things with younger pupils. And you should not contest their kind of childish faith in any way. I think a younger child needs to be handled with sensitivity.’ (010)

Teachers justified the visibility of their personal worldview only in cases where pupils on their own initiative asked about the teacher’s personal worldview:

‘But if a pupil asks whether you believe in god then you can answer yes or no. But I would not explain why so that it would not affect the pupil’s views about that religion.’ (007)

‘But if pupils ask whether you are a member of a church or are you a vegetarian then I think it is OK to answer. But you cannot impose it [that view].’ (008)

In this approach, teachers seemed to be very aware of the influence of their personal worldviews on their pupils. Based on the arguments, both theoretical and practical reflections (see Husu and Tirri 2001) were found when teachers resolved practical dilemmas relating to worldviews. Teachers stated that they were not allowed to impose, or even speak about their private views, or take a stand on worldview-related questions.

However, it seems that the process of balancing between ethical principles and personal worldviews, and following the curriculum and legislation is not unambiguous, because teachers rationalised and narrowed their arguments in multiple ways. In this case, the teacher is in the middle of Wemke’s and Höstfält’s (2013) described dilemma, balancing between practising his/her professional autonomy and following organised structures. Teachers’ autonomy as a multilayered phenomenon (Salokangas, Wermke, and Harvey 2020) was visible when teachers operated simultaneously with their personal worldviews, and social aims and values of education, which become visible in implementing the curriculum

‘Luckily I live in a world where I can teach according to the curriculum’s values. It would be very difficult to work in a place where I cannot keep that [curriculum] as a guide.’ (002)

A teacher’s role in worldview questions was generally seen as a neutral presenter who tells about different views and who is responsible for evaluating information. Arguments relating to this approach also included ways of avoiding answering pupils’ ‘too personal’ questions and turning questions back to the pupils themselves. Some of the teachers justified this as a teacher’s neutrality, emphasising also the family’s role in defining the pupil’s worldview as follows:

‘I would avoid telling my opinions; I try to say that you can think about this issue in different ways. I want them to think for themselves. I want them to listen to what the others are thinking and I want them to make conclusions by themselves. […] But I try to say that everyone should discuss at home how we consider these issues in our family.’ (009)

Teachers’ personal worldview approach

The second approach concerning a teacher’s personal worldview consisted of arguments that considered worldview questions from the teachers’ point of view, emphasising the teachers’ right to have their own worldview. Teachers argued that everyone has a worldview, which affects all levels in life, including a teacher’s profession (see also Valk and Tosun 2016). Teachers described the impossibility of being completely neutral or hiding personal standpoints. Teachers argued that personal values and attitudes are indirectly part of teaching and might be, as Van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema (2013) suggest, one aspect of a teacher’s decision-making. Some teachers even argued that personal worldviews affect a teacher’s practices in implementing the curriculum:

‘In any case a teacher’s worldview becomes visible. If a teacher is a full Atheist it affects the situations when s/he needs to teach religion. The curriculum may not be followed [Fin. ei välttämättä noudateta].’ (011)

Teachers’ professional autonomy enables teachers to emphasise certain contents in the curriculum, and to leave some contents out. This is an example of teachers’ multidimensional autonomy, and the way in which teachers’ decision-making can affect the curriculum context (Salokangas, Wermke, and Harvey 2020). In this approach, personal worldviews were linked to one’s personality in a boarder sense. According to the teachers, their personality is an important tool in carrying out their profession, and separating one’s personal worldview from one’s personality was considered difficult:

‘How can we even limit ourselves so that the [personal] worldview would be invisible? If nothing is visible then we would be wishy and bland, a kind of neutral robot’ (005)

However, two of the teachers held the opinion that teachers only have a right to the own worldview in their free time, not when working as a teacher:

‘In my opinion teachers’ do not have a right to personal worldviews (laughing). I mean teachers’ have a right to have a personal worldview in their free-time.’ (006)

Some teachers considered that teaching content could be separated from personal beliefs. It was also felt that teachers had an ethical responsibility to be sensitive to the kinds of values and views they might express to the pupils unconsciously (Sabbagh 2009). Teachers need to strike a balance between teacher autonomy, personal worldviews, and covering the general goals of the curriculum:

‘I have often used [the expression] ‘I personally’ … and sometimes pupils have asked from me directly do I believe that or what do I think about something. And I try to make a difference between a worldview and my personal opinion.’ (010)

Teachers did not name any commonly accepted worldviews, but they did consider that there were some worldviews that did not belong at school as these teachers declare

‘But if you are for example … here we go again to this extremist thinking, that if you are for example a Laestadian [Lutheran revivalist movement], or an extremist Muslim or a confessional socialist or a communist or something like that, then you [a teacher] need to be very careful with what you say … I always take a stand against all extreme worldviews.’ (001)

‘I would decline all extreme worldviews and prefer keeping those in everybody’s own mind. […] All worldviews are equal in school if they follow a good manners and legislation.’ (016)

It can therefore be assumed that there is some kind of an idea of acceptable worldviews in schools. Lipiäinen, Jantunen, and Kallioniemi (2020) identified similar results related to extremist views that were not considered acceptable at school.

Institutional worldview approach

In the third approach teachers mentioned worldview arguments that relate to the institutional worldview and teachers’ responsibility as public servants. Overall, teachers were strongly aware of their official responsibilities, and that their personal worldviews needed to adapt to those demands. Even though the majority of teachers approved or supported a teacher’s right to define and hold a personal worldview, teachers did not have the same rights to make their worldviews visible as pupils do. This means that there were no rules in common for both teachers and pupils about their worldview expressions. Whereas pupils’ worldviews could be visible, teachers’ role as public servants limited the expression of their worldviews.

Based on the data, teachers’ personal worldview expressions were limited in cases where they needed to follow employers’ instructions, such as teaching a specific school subject or participating in some school celebrations. The majority of informants agreed that teachers were not allowed to refuse tasks for worldview reasons, even though the task would be against their personal views. In these cases, the institutional worldview limited teachers’ autonomy. Overall, autonomy was not highlighted as in the other two approaches, because this category consisted of constructed arguments relating to teachers’ official duties rather than personal viewpoints. However, teachers’ professional ethics was emphasised as teachers’ moral commitments to do given tasks was considered prior to anything else. In the following example, moderate the personal worldview, even completing controversial duties, was seen as a part of professionalism:

‘A teacher’s job is to work. This is different for pupils because they receive knowledge and it is different for teachers because they work here and are not allowed to refuse something. A teacher has to attend any kind of worldview or religion-related event even though s/he does not believe at all, or teach some school subject even though not believing any of it. That is just professionalism.’ (004)

The teachers’ role was seen to be an example, and therefore refusing to attend some religious tradition was not acceptable. In this approach, a teacher’s role in transferring values was noted, and the need to have a high level of worldview consciousness was emphasised. In addition, the teachers’ role as being tolerant towards all other worldviews was mentioned as crucial. Whatever teachers considered personally about the issue itself, they needed to follow the given instructions and not to refuse doing something:

‘I do not think teachers should be allowed to refuse. This is our job. And if teachers refuse based on their personal worldview, what kind of example does it give to pupils?’ (003)

Curriculum implementing was one of the main official duties teachers emphasised and they reflected on these duties in the light of their own worldviews, the teacher’s profession, curriculum content and educational values. As (Tirri and Kuusisto 2019) and (Wermke and Höstfält 2014) note, teachers need to follow the curriculum and legislation also when considering their personal worldviews (This viewpoint on teacher autonomy is close to Wermke and Höstfält’s (2014) ‘extended institutional autonomy’, when individual decisions must follow certain guidelines, but are still made by individuals. In this case teachers need to be fully aware of the curriculum values and goals, and the aims of institution worldview. In addition, in teachers’ moral reflection teachers need to be aware of the ethics of rules and principles, and standards of action guides (Husu and Tirri 2001). As an example, one informant told about a colleague who has told to pupils that she stole from a grocery store when she was young. The informant argued that these kinds of stories should not be told to pupils, because stealing is not following the curriculum’s values, and teachers have a powerful influence and ethical responsibilities to follow these values. In this case it is notable, that instead of focusing on discussion of how wrongs can be recognised, the teacher has an ideal about a teacher as a moral actor who does not err.

Discussion

This study shows that teachers reflect on their personal worldview using different approaches, which all contain different aspects of teacher’s professional autonomy and ethics. The educational context includes different values when it comes to culture, religions and other worldviews in a public sphere, and to the curriculum and its values. These power positions were also visible in this study, and limited teachers’ personal worldview expressions. It can be said that teacher’s personal worldview, especially its lived dimension, is moderated based on majority’s tradition. This becomes visible for instance as taking part in attending Christmas church regardless of teacher’s personal worldview. Teacher autonomy as a layered phenomenon was emphasised because teachers operate simultaneously at different levels (Salokangas, Wermke, and Harvey 2020). This research shows that teachers need to pursue simultaneously pupil’s personal growth, their right to have a worldview, and their duty to implement institutional goals and values, and they are in many cases uncertain about how these things should be done. When comparing approaches, achieving all these goals seems difficult or even impossible to handle, especially in the cases where a teacher’s personal worldview is different from that of a pupil or an institution.

Teachers were obliged to be informed about and understand curricular values, and to follow them, even if they did not agree with them. This leads to the situation where a teacher needs to be conscious about how the curriculum defines and takes a stand on worldview-related questions. The Finnish National Core Curriculum, however, defines basic values, it does not define what kinds of worldviews are accepted, and only states that diversity is a richness and pupils’ personal worldview development needs to be supported (NCCBE (National Core Curriculum for Basic Education) 2014). Teachers themselves evaluate what those accepted worldviews are, and which of them are too radical. This, of course, raises the question where the limits of accepted visibility of worldviews are and who has a right to define them.

Based on our research, teachers recognised pupils’ worldviews as a malleability concept. Professional ethics in pupils’ worldview questions was in many reflections more emphasised than autonomy, because pupils’ were seen as being vulnerable to teachers’ views. However, it is critical to ask if all questions are left to the pupils themselves to decide on, how can pupils’ skills in thinking and evaluating information develop? In addition, based on Salokangas, Wermke, and Harvey’s (2020) model of teacher autonomy, teacher autonomy affects teachers’ relation to pupils and to teaching content. This problem has also been noted in another study that investigated religious education teachers’ language in worldview-related questions (Kimanen and Poulter 2018). However, in the Teacher’s personal worldview approach the same teachers argued that teachers imposed their views and values as Sabbagh (2009) described, unconsciously and neutrality is impossible to achieve.

We suggest that it is necessary to link personal worldview consciousness to the teachers’ profession alongside of professional autonomy and ethics. Different kinds of teachers’ ‘worldview consciousness’ have also been referred to in another context (Flanagan 2020, 3). Overall, teachers need skills, such as religious literacy, to face and manage questions about religions and worldviews in schools (Ubani 2021). Teachers need to be conscious of their personal worldviews when studying to become teachers. Professional autonomy and ethics in worldview-related questions includes skills in evaluating and managing institutional power positions, pupil’s personal worldview and its development, but also the ability to notice one’s own personal views and values, and situations where they become visible. There is also a need for wider discussion about institutional, educational worldviews, which needs to be wider than just RE and religions in schools.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation;Suomen Kulttuurirahasto

Notes on contributors

Tuuli Lipiäinen

Tuuli Lipiäinen (M.Ed.) is a Doctoral Student at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. Her research interests include worldviews in educational context, religious and worldview education, and integrated worldview education. Recently she has been working in a project related to future skills, and teacher education development.

Saila Poulter

Saila Poulter (Ph.D., Adjunct professor) works as a University Lecturer in Religious Education at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. Her research interest concerns religious and worldview education, secularism, intercultural and citizenship education. Currently she is doing research on values and worldviews in early childhood education and she is PI in the project Creating Spaces for Diversity of Worldviews in Early Childhood Education (https://blogs.helsinki.fi/monikatsomukselliset-tilat-varhaiskasvatuksessa/).

Appendix 1

Claims in Attitude Research Approach

1. All individuals in our schools should be able to express issues relating to his/her own identity, such as gender or worldview, even though some could experience discrimination or inequity as a result.

2. The student’s worldview is his/her private issue, and it should not be visible at school at all. For example, worldview-related symbols and practising religions should be forbidden.

3. Religious traditions in schools are a part of the Finnish cultural heritage education and attending to them should be compulsory to all.

4. Students’ and school staff’s worldviews are not in equal positions in our school’s celebrations and calendar.

5. Christianity is a part of Finnish nationality, even though Finland is officially a neutral state.

6. Schools should not bend the curriculum’s contents for reasons related to worldviews (for instance, exceptional permits in PE classes, school celebrations, school lunch and in worldview education).

7. As a teacher, I am capable of preventing polarised attitudes and violent ideologies, and issues closely related to them, such as inequality, racism and other discrimination.

8. Teachers have a right to their own worldview and its expression in teaching. Teachers are allowed to take a stand on worldview-related questions.

9. A teacher’s worldview is his/her private issue, and it should not be visible in teaching in any way. A teacher is not allowed to tell his/her worldview to students.

10. As a teacher, my job is to raise and teach a student to collaborate in school. This collaboration is diverse in terms of culture, worldview and language.

11. A teacher should be able to refuse to teach some subject or other work tasks, such as attending religious celebrations, by appealing to his/her own worldview or conviction.

12. Worldview education should only take place in worldview education subject lessons.

Organising different worldview education subjects complicates school actions, and is not pedagogically appropriate.