Justifying the position and implementation of English language education in Finland: ‘Circling around hot porridge’?

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses ‘distractions’ in the way English language education is discussed and practiced in one of the most debated systems of education in the world today: Finnish primary education. Distractions are considered as ‘makers of disturbance’ in educational ideologies by the authors. Examining the 2014 National Core Curriculum and positionings in relation to languages available in schools through an inductive textual as well as a dialogical discourse analysis, this paper shows that English dominates Finnish primary education under the influence of different economic-political and global reasons. Contradictions around the values of, e.g. equality, justice and access to knowledge are identified. Focusing on ideologies (‘orders’, ‘agendas’ and ‘windscreens’), the polysemy and ‘fuzziness’ of many of these ‘unquestionable’ values and expected outcomes associated with both education and English are found to also represent major distractions in Finland. By urging pupils to focus on themselves, their ‘community’ and culture, the media and (marginally) the market, important problems posed by the omnipresence of English are ignored such as neo-colonialism and a lack of epistemic diversity. English also seems to be presented as ‘problem-free’, a-political, a mere tool for communication, thus reinforcing the status quo.

KEYWORDS:

• Distractions
• core curriculum
• education policy
• English language education
• Finland

Introduction

In his What does not work in education: The politics of distractions, Hattie (2015) reviews issues that dominate debates about improving schools globally (see also Giroux, 2013). He demonstrates that many of the interventions to counter them have ‘some kind of positive effects, but those effects are relatively low’ (Hattie, 2015, p. 33). Observing 1100 meta-analyses, representing over a quarter of a billion students, he lists some of the effect-sizes of the following ‘fixes’ – which he refers to as ‘distractors’ – with effects greater than zero. These include (amongst others): inquiry-based methods; individualized instruction; class size; co-teaching; problem-based learning; teacher education; whole language; diversity of students; and welfare policies.

This paper deals with ‘distractors’ related to English language education in Finnish official documents and positions towards the inclusion and use of the language in schooling. A few research articles were identified in educational research where the idea of distraction has been discussed. For example, Barnes and Moses (2021) examine the strategies and tactics used by anti-affirmative action groups in the USA to distract and divert attention from ‘mitigating structural inequality’ in education. Childs and Lofton (2021) analyse how education policies distract from the important issue of chronic absenteeism. Although many such studies have appeared in recent years, a working definition and problematization of what ‘distraction’ means is nearly systematically lacking in these publications.

The very word distraction found its way into the English language around the mid-fifteenth century based on Latin for ‘a pulling apart, separating’ and ‘drawing in differing directions’ (dis- for away and trahere for to draw). In English today, the word refers to confusions, diversions, and even entertainments. In the Finnish language, the word translates as häiriötekijä where häiriö stands for disturbance and tekijä maker(s). For us, distractions have to do with ideologies in education, which will be considered as ‘makers of disturbance.’ Ideologies will be considered as ‘orders,’ ‘(hidden) agendas,’ and ‘windscreens’ (Roucek, 1944). A Finnish idiom related to distractions inspired the title and focus of this paper: kiertää kuin kissa kuumaa puuroa (word-for-word translation: circle like a cat around hot porridge, itself a calque of a Swedish idiom). It translates as beating around the bush, i.e. delaying or avoiding talking about something difficult or unpleasant.

We note at the outset that this paper is not about condemning the position of English language in Finland (if English was not today's diverse world language, another language would dominate instead). Following Saarinen and Ennser-Kananen (2020), we do not wish to enter into the divisive discussion around English as an opportunity or threat (see metaphors such as Cooke’s (1988) ‘Trojan Horse’ or Skutnabb-Kangas’s (2003) ‘killer language’) but to look into specific contextualized discourses around its inclusion and promotion in a small country like Finland (5.5 million inhabitants). Since Finland's system of education is admired worldwide for its ‘miracle’ and its former excellent scores at PISA studies (Niemi et al., 2016), looking into the ways official documents such as the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (2016; Finnish National Board of Education, FNBE, 2016) and positions of the largest Finnish cities towards language choice in primary education can help us dig deeper into the country's relation to (global) issues of power and (in-)equality – which often relate to the use of English worldwide. In other words, what do discourses around English language education, its provision and the objectives set around it, tell us and silence about these issues within the Finnish context and the wider global context? For Saarinen and Ennser-Kananen (2020, p. 116), ‘(the) localization of English is (…) always tied to institutionally localized interests and ideologies.’ These elements, which have to do with politics and socioeconomics, can help us unearth distractors beyond the mere language itself. For instance, Saarinen and Ennser-Kananen (2020, p. 118) note how, in Finnish higher education since the early 2010s, English has ‘taken the role of a language political catalyst, not just affecting the dynamic of local languages, but making visible political developments and tensions between different languages, domestic and international, as their positions are negotiated and contested.’ Finland is officially a bilingual country (Finnish/Swedish) which should offer education of and in these two languages to all citizens. However, national debates around the usefulness and necessity to learn Swedish (a language spoken by approx. 5% of the population) have been disrupted by the omnipresence of English. By pushing Swedish to the position of a third rather than a second national language in Finnish higher education, Saarinen and Ennser-Kananen (2020, p. 123) argue that English thus links to ‘debates on the role of the nation state in globalization’ in the Nordic country. What is more, recent negative voices about the position of English in Finland have had to do with protecting the Finnish language rather than promoting national bilingualism (Saarinen & Ennser-Kananen, 2020, p. 124).

Language education is never neutral. The choice of the range of languages to be taught, how and for which purposes in a given system of education can tell a lot about what a specific country and institution wish to project in terms of values and expectations for the present and the future (Aktuna, 1995). Such choices cannot but be economic-politically justified, which necessitates resorting to ideologies, understood here as ‘orders’, ‘agendas’ but also ‘windscreens’ passed onto institutions and the general public by both local and supranational decision-makers (e.g. the EU in the case of Finland). We wish to complement these discussions here by examining a specific policy document (the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education of 2014, NCCBE) and the positions of different cities on the provision of English (versus other languages). The NCCBE was published in 2014 (the English version in 2016), its use started in 2016 and it is still the valid guiding document in Finland although some modifications and additions have been incorporated over the years. School-level curricula are drafted on the basis of the core curricula in order to support and align the provision of teaching and to promote the equal implementation of basic education. Finland has enjoyed a privileged position as an education superpower in the world, with a system of education that has been scrutinized and visited by countless delegates from around the world in spite of its decline in the PISA studies since 2006 (Ahonen, 2021).

Our research questions include:

• How does such a small EU country like Finland, with a reputation of focusing on equality/equity, social justice and well-being, deal with current local and world issues through its English language education? How does it justify the need and predominance for English, which many consider as a main contributor to global inequality?

• How does Finland take into account, e.g. critical perspectives on the spread and use of English in the Nordic country and around the world? What distractors from such issues can be identified in ‘official’ positions?

Problematizing distractions for English language education

Education policy documents appear to be rational and objective (Edelman, 1988). They are often well intentioned and yet they can easily distract from multi-layered phenomena, causes and consequences (Childs & Lofton, 2021), focusing on just one ‘root cause.’ In other words, policy documents can easily distract rather than try to assist.

Edelman’s (1988) Constructing the Political Spectacle has often been used to problematize distractions in education policy, looking into how the media name and portray decisions and discourses of and around policies. How language and discourse mould and structure problems and solutions tackled by such policies in hidden and/or implicit ways tend to be the focus. For example, using this framework to look into an anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) against Harvard University in the USA, Barnes and Moses (2021, p. 335) note:

The co-opting of the word ‘fair’ into SFFA's cause serves as a significant example of distraction. It leads audiences to forget that fairness is not a-historic; it cannot be defined in just one moment in time, divorced from historical context.

In his work on trans-individuals, Spade (2011, p. 64) also notes how the ‘distraction’ of non-discrimination might ignore and blind in front of systemic exploitation and economic marginalization leading to ‘racialized and gendered wealth gap’.

For these authors, as well as other scholars, such discourses distract from meaningful change that could be operated by policymakers while obscuring important issues of justice.

One way of dealing with distractions in education policies has also been to look into ‘wicked problems’ and how policies try to deal with them. Reviewing the meanings and characteristics of such problems, Barnes and Moses (2021) explain that ‘Poverty, obesity, unequal access to health care, inequality, and climate change are just a few societal issues that have been labelled as wicked problems because they are complex, ill-defined, have an indeterminate scope and scale, and can be interpreted in different ways depending on one's point of view.’ As a consequence of this complex ‘unstructuredness’ of wicked problems, solutions, causes, and effects are difficult to both identify and problematize, leading to ‘isolate critical components that can serve as guides for significant and sustainable program or policy responses’ (Childs & Lofton, 2021, p. 223). The authors also note that different worldviews, political agendas, and traditions will lead to different answers and strategies to try to deal with such problems.

In ‘Perpetuating Inequalities: The Role of Political Distraction in Education Policy’, Farley et al. (2021, pp. 168–169) propose the following criteria for determining what policy distraction might be:

• - A reliance on narrow policy frames to find solutions for educational problems of practice

• - Labelling of phenomena in such a way that people's understanding is affected

• - Inequalities and structural conditions are largely ignored, privileging more ‘personal’ elements

• - The status quo is reinforced

• - The normal and the deviant are reified.

The politics of distraction in education policy thus narrows down the focus on problems and potential solutions and leads to policy solutions that ‘create[s] a distraction from other, more critical, more effective ways for education systems to become world-class’ (Hattie, 2015, p. 7). How ‘things’ are ‘named, discussed, and acted upon’ (Giroux, 2017, p. 46) in education policies can reveal but also obscure understandings of systemic and structural forces as well as specific histories and contexts. By analysing such distractions, which determine what problems are emphasized and for what reasons, issues of access, rights, opportunities, and justice can be identified while revealing structural forces of power and privilege.

Ideologies as indicators of distractions

As hinted at in the introduction to this article, discourses around English in education can tell us more about ‘various societal, political, economic, historical, etc. factors rather than the language itself’ (Saarinen & Ennser-Kananen, 2020, p. 124). In language policy research, Woolard’s (1998) definition of language ideology has often dominated. For the scholar, this has to do with ‘systems of ideas,’ ‘perceptions and beliefs,’ ‘a way of seeing the world in a group, a society or individual at a given time or time period.’ One example of such ideology is the now ‘classic’ one language–one nation equation (Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994). Another influential take on language ideology is found in Ruíz's (1984) analytical framework which proposes three orientations: language as problem (e.g. language diversity as a social problem), language as right (language inequities addressed through the law), language as resource (e.g. societal multilingualism viewed as a resource). These analytical frameworks have been criticized for being somehow ‘a-political’, focusing mostly on the individual (e.g. Hult & Hornberger, 2016).

In this paper, we make use of Roucek’s (1943, 1944) perspectives on the concept of ideology to open up discussions of English language education in Finnish policies. In his foundational work on ideology, which has inspired ideology thinkers such as Althusser (e.g. 2020), Eagleton (2020) or Wodak (see Sardoc & Wodak, 2023), Roucek reminds us that the word ideology is polysemic and yet, most of the definitions seem to have in common the idea that ‘a system of ideas generated by a few thinkers and subscribed to by large numbers’ (Roucek, 1943, p. 39). This argument is still valid today (see Eagleton, 2020). Decisions made by any individual about their lives and thoughts are systematically based on (changing) convictions, which are grounded in such ideologies. This is why for Roucek's (1944) ideology represents a very specific form of human thought.

In ‘The war of ideologies’ (1943) Roucek positions ideologies as follows (see Althusser, 2000):

• - The specific conceptual and discursive apparatus of an ideology constitutes the backbone ‘in the architecture of our life’

• - Ideologies present things as they ‘ought to be’ (‘wishful thinking’) rather than ‘as they are’, convincing us that ‘they tell the only and absolute ‘truth’, justifying and proving them right and unquestionable

• - They are both systems of thought and hidden forces, passed onto us through e.g. propaganda, education or coercion which might confuse assumptions with conclusions

• - They evaluate and explain our experience rationally as well as ‘the future state of affairs for the improvement of society’.

To summarize these points, one might simply say with Roucek (1943, p. 42) that ideologies ‘may be used as a means of [disguised] social control,’ disregarding and preventing people from questioning them (Ideologies position other ‘ideologies’ as ‘false’). One final and important element found in Roucek's discussion of ideology (1944, p. 483) is his argument that all discourses (including theories) ‘designed for social action, [are themselves] an ideology par excellence.’ Considering the fact that choices and strategies made concerning English language education always have to do with ‘change’ and ‘action,’ any statement made about it in, e.g. a National Core Curriculum will have to do with ideology and should be examined as such. A curriculum or official positions towards any aspect of it will have to do with economic-political decisions even in their attempt to pass as objective.

Before we move to the introduction and our analysis of the Finnish context, let us say a few words about a major ideological contributor of today: neoliberalism. In a review of the concept, Vallier (2021) presents neoliberalism as an ideology holding that ‘a society's political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state.’ As a member of the European Union, influenced by policy recommendations made by e.g. the OECD, and embedded in today's advanced globalization, Finland cannot escape from this strong and dominating ideology, although the country's approach to neoliberalism might differ from other countries (Teng et al., 2020). For Vallier (2021), criticisms of this super-ideology include: the general commodification of everything and everyone, serving what is best for commerce and economic production; together with economic growth, neoliberalism increases economic inequality; the undermining of democracy; and colonialist tendencies.

These elements are well problematized in ‘The English Language in Finland. Tool of Modernity or Tool of Coloniality?’ by Elizabeth Peterson (2022) where she starts by reminding us that Finns, alongside other Nordic country residents, are considered the ‘best’ non-native speakers of English globally and that the language has dominated Finnish education for some 70 years. This success is often explained by what Peterson (2022, p. 274) names ‘a measured strategy to ensure its [Finland's] competitiveness and viability on the world stage.’ In the chapter, the author tries to answer this important question: ‘Does English perpetuate Nordic values of equality, or colonial values of whiteness and elitism?’ She shows for example that English language ideologies widely found in Finnish (higher) education tend to come from Britain and the United States although there have been calls to include different forms of Englishes in education. She also notes: potential class issues; regional and district inequalities (urban/rural divide, migrants’/locals’ areas); age gaps in proficiency. The preference for and positive evaluation of for example British English in considering famous Finns’ English in international contexts is also described by Peterson (2022), in contrast to, e.g. rallienglanti ‘rally English’ in reference to famous rally drivers from Finland using ‘broken’ English in media interviews. The author concludes (2022: 284):

The dominant conclusions of the investigation are that processes of coloniality relating to English, such as adherence to white, upper-class norms, are highly regarded and perpetuated in the Finnish context, in some ways creating divisions between highly proficient speakers of English and those who do not have native-like skills.

Peterson (2022, p. 284) even goes as far as claiming that the Finnish population ‘innocently and unknowingly – perpetuates the injustices of a colonial past that they do not share.’ In other words, embracing English without considering its global drawbacks could make users of the language complacent with its (negative) neoliberal tendencies. For Peterson (2022, p. 285), this could be in contradiction with the values of equality and social justice that prevail in the Nordic country by learning English in such ways that perpetuate (colonial) inequalities and exclusions.

How much these crucial ideologies and critiques are taken into account and distracted from in the justifications and objectives of English language education in Finland is the main focus of what follows.

Data description and analysis

The analysis leading up to the identification of distractions is divided into three sections.

First, we contextualize distractions by describing the foreign language education environment in Finnish primary education. To do so, we make reference to the valid 2014 National Core Curriculum and a national report of an investigation about the state of the Finnish language reserve and developmental needs subscribed by the Ministry of Education and Culture in 2017 (Pyykkö, 2017).

Second, and to adopt a more contextualized perspective, the focus is on how the largest cities in Finland justify the need and teaching of specific foreign languages (with English dominating). This set of data is from the seven largest cities in Finland (Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere, Vantaa, Oulu, Turku, and Jyväskylä). We have collected data from several sources (Table 1) including personal contact with city officials when needing information not available in official documents or on websites.

Table 1. Data collection sources for information about the provision of foreign language teaching in the seven largest cities in Finland. Websites accessed 12 December 2023 unless otherwise noted.

City	Websites	Documents/statistics	Other sources
Helsinki	Opetussuunnitelma, oppiaineet ja arviointi. Oppiaineet: Kielten opiskelu suomenkielisissä kouluissamme [Curriculum subjects and assessment. Subjects: Language learning in Finnish language schools] Available at: https://www.hel.fi/fi/kasvatus-ja-koulutus/perusopetus/opiskelu-peruskoulussa/opetussuunnitelma-oppiaineet-ja-arviointi	City of Helsinki (2021). Helsingin kaupungin peruskoulujen kielivalinnat [Language choices in basic education in the City of Helsinki]. Available at: https://hri.fi/data/fi/dataset/helsingin-kaupungin-peruskoulujen-kielivalinnat	Personal contact with the city's pedagogical expert
Espoo	Opetussuunnitelma, oppiaineet ja arviointi: Kielten opiskelu [Curriculum, subjects and assessment: Language learning] https://www.espoo.fi/fi/opetussuunnitelma-oppiaineet-ja-arviointi#kielten-opiskelu-6705	City of Espoo (2021). Espoon suomenkielisen perusopetuksen kieliohjelma [Language programme in Finnish language basic education in Espoo] https://static.espoo.fi/cdn/ff/SXhy9QV4yLgR2_46S9Q_zOgqSzE6IdjUebbcDFl1two/1630491563/public/2021-09/ESPOON-SUOMENKIELISEN-PERUSOPETUKSEN-KIELIOHJELMA-_1.8.2021-alkaen_−2.pdf	Personal contact with a principal of a local school
Tampere	1.–2. vuosiluokat: Kielten opiskelu [Grades 1–2: Language learning]. https://www.tampere.fi/koulutus/perusopetus/opiskelu-perusopetuksessa/1-2-vuosiluokat Varhennettu kielikasvatus ja kielivalinnat esiopetuksessa [Early language learning and language selections in preschool education]. https://www.tampere.fi/varhaiskasvatus-ja-esiopetus/esiopetus/varhennettu-kielikasvatus-ja-kielivalinnat-esiopetuksessa#:~:text = Valinta%20ensimm%C3%A4isen%20vieraan%20kielen%20aloittamisesta,m%C3%A4%C3%A4r%C3%A4ytyv%C3%A4t%20kunkin%20koulun%20kielipolun%20mukaan	Sivistys- ja kulttuurilautakunta, kokous 8.11.2022, § 173 Perusopetuksen kielitarjottimen päivittäminen [Board of education and culture, meeting 8.11.2022, § 173 Updating the language options for basic education]. Available at (accessed 2 March 2023): https://tampere.cloudnc.fi/fi-FI/Toimielimet/Sivistys_ja_kulttuurilautakunta/Kokous_8112022/Perusopetuksen_kielitarjottimen_paivitta(293344)
Vantaa	Kielten opiskelu perusopetuksessa [Language learning in basic education]. https://www.vantaa.fi/fi/kasvatus-ja-koulutus/perusopetus/kielten-opiskelu-perusopetuksessa#:~:text = Vantaalla%20A1%2Dkielen%C3%A4%20opiskellaan%20englannin%20kielt%C3%A4.&text = Vapaaehtoinen%20A2%2Dkieli-,4.,%2C%20ruotsia%2C%20saksaa%20tai%20ven%C3%A4j%C3%A4%C3%A4	City of Vantaa (2022). A2- JA B2-kielten opiskelijoiden määrä Vantaalla kouluittain, luokka-asteittain ja kielen mukaan [Number of pupils studying A2 and B2 languages in Vantaa according to schools, grades and languages]. Available at: https://hri.fi/data/fi/dataset/a2-ja-b2-kielten-opiskelijoiden-maara-vantaalla-kouluittain-luokka-asteittain-ja-kielen-mukaan/resource/79ea5877-44da-44cb-8150-ebd12644294a Vantaan suomenkieliset opetuksen tuntijaot [Lesson division tables in Finnish language education in Vantaa]. Available: https://eperusteet.opintopolku.fi/#/fi/opetussuunnitelma/12272143/perusopetus/tekstikappale/26766428	Personal contact with a head of school development in the city. News article in Helsingin Sanomat (2019): Vantaalla päätettiin ylimääräisen rahan käytöstä: Lisää ruotsin kieltä yläkouluun, harvinaisiin kieliin helpommin ryhmiä [Vantaa decided on the use of extra money: More Swedish to lower secondary, more groups to rarer languages]. Available: https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/art-2000006266906.html
Oulu	Vieraiden kielten opiskelu [Learning of foreign languages]. https://www.ouka.fi/opiskelu-perusopetuksessa/vieraiden-kielten-opiskeln	Opetussuunnitelma: Oulun perusopetuksen tuntijako syksyllä 2019 koulunsa alottaneilla ja sitä nuoremmilla [Curriculum: Lesson division table in Oulu for pupils who started school in fall 2019 and younger]. Available at: https://www.ouka.fi/opiskelu-perusopetuksessa/opetussuunnitelma
Turku	Kielten opiskelu [Language learning]. https://www.turku.fi/paivahoito-ja-koulutus/perusopetus/opiskelu-ja-oppiaineet/kielten-opiskelu#:~:text = Oppilaan%20on%20mahdollista%20valita%204,annetaan%20osassa%20kouluja%20my%C3%B6s%20et%C3%A4opetuksena		Personal contact with a principal at a school that offers a language other than English as A1 language
Jyväskylä	Vieraiden kielten opiskelu [Foreign language learning]. https://www.jyvaskyla.fi/opetus/perusopetus-jyvaskylassa/vieraiden-kielten-opiskelu#:~:text = A1%2Dkieleksi%20voi%20valita%20englannin,kielen%C3%A4%20englantia%2C%20ranskaa%20ja%20saksaa	A2-kielivalintojen vahvistaminen 1.8.2022 alkaen. [Confirmation of A2 language choices starting on 1.8.2022.] Alkavat A2-kieliryhmät lukuvuonna 2022–2023. Liite toimialajohtajan päätökseen 13/2022 [Starting A2 language groups in school year 2022–2023. Appendix to the decision by the chief of the department 13/2022.]	Personal contact with the city's head of services
All of Finland		Vipunen. (2022). Perusopetuksen vuosiluokkien 1–6 kaikki ainevalinnat [All subject selections in grades 1–6 in basic education]. Education Statistics Finland. Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education. https://vipunen.fi/fi-fi/_layouts/15/xlviewer.aspx?id=/fi-fi/Raportit/Perusopetus%20-%20ainevalinnat%20-%20alakoulu.xlsb

Finally, we analyse the values, ‘wicked problems’ and discourses related to English language education put forward in the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (NCCBE) (FNBE, 2016). We focus on two aspects of the curriculum in relation to potential distractors:

1. paratexts from the curriculum, i.e. some of the sections of the curriculum such as introductions by ministers that inform us of the broader ideological positionings of its authors;

2. the way English language education is positioned and justified.

The different analytical sections are based on an inductive analysis of textual data (Tunison, 2023) as well as a dialogical form of discourse analysis (Markova et al., 2008) that allows identifying the many and varied voices that form ideological ‘orders,’ ‘agendas,’ and ‘windscreens.’ We use data published in both Finnish and English where we identify how things are said and constructed while focusing on the types of distractions that they represent. For instance, we pay attention to the use of a passive voice (as in ‘I was told that … ’), or of a generic pronoun (they, you), which both tend to hide some of the voices used to construct specific discourses in accordance with, e.g. a specific ideology such as neoliberalism (Markova et al., 2008).

Contextualizing distractions for English: foreign language education in Finnish primary education

All pupils in Finland study one foreign language and the second national language Swedish (in Swedish-speaking schools: Finnish) as compulsory subjects (Table 2). Although there are general regulations for teaching foreign languages and the second national language, there are also many options for how they can be arranged in different schools. For example, some schools offer more optional foreign languages, sometimes in earlier grades than others, or they offer more teaching hours of foreign languages in some grades. However, although pupils would like to study a language other than English, for example as the compulsory foreign language, the language group might not be realized.

Table 2. Description and starting grade of (foreign) languages in Finnish-language primary education.

Language code	Description of language subject	Starting grade of language
A1	Compulsory foreign language	Grade 1, at the latest in the spring term of the school year
A2	Optional foreign language. Not offered by all schools	Schools/municipalities can decide, either Grade 3, 4 or 5
B1	Compulsory language, Swedish	Grade 6

The first foreign language (and the only compulsory one) starts in Grade 1 (age 7) and is referred to as A1 language (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2020; FNBE, 2016). Previously it started in Grade 3 (age 9). One of the reasons behind the earlier start for learning a foreign language was to widen the repertoire of foreign languages taught in basic education (Grades 1–9). Since 2020 all pupils in Finland have started to study a foreign language at the latest in the spring semester of Grade 1. Even before the change, some schools offered a foreign language earlier, either through their own funding or project funding from the Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education (Inha & Kähärä, 2018). The government decision on starting to teach the first foreign language earlier was supported by the national report in 2017 on multilingualism and the status and levels of language competences in Finland (Pyykkö, 2017). Pyykkö's recommendations regarding early foreign language learning were to move the starting of the first foreign language to Grade 1 and the starting of the second (optional) foreign language to Grade 3. Pyykkö (2017) recommended that the first language be something other than English while the second optional language could be English.

Finland's second official language, Swedish, starts as a compulsory subject in Grade 6 (age 13) in Finnish-speaking schools (FNBE, 2016). To most Finnish speakers, learning Swedish is in practice comparable to studying another foreign language. Only about 5% of Finns are Swedish speakers and they live mostly along the western and southern coasts of Finland. Swedish speakers, on the contrary, are more exposed to Finnish as that is the majority language in Finland. That is why most Swedish schools offer Finnish instead of a foreign language as the A1 language. In addition to compulsory languages, it is optional to choose another foreign language in primary education; it is called A2 language, and it starts either in Grade 3, 4, or 5 depending on the municipality (FNBE, 2016). The offered languages are based on the availability of languages at each school, and schools require a minimum number of pupils to choose the optional subject for the teaching to start. However, schools are not mandated to offer A2 optional languages. Therefore, not all schools even teach them. This, of course, challenges the equity and equality of foreign language education to all pupils across Finland.

The goals to increase the number of different foreign languages being studied have not been realized due to the decision in most municipalities to offer only English as the first compulsory foreign language. There has been a clear decline in foreign languages being studied in schools since the 1990s (Pyykkö, 2017). The reasons for fewer languages being studied are manifold. Before 2006, foreign language exams played a greater role in the matriculation examination that takes place at the end of general upper secondary education (age: 19). It was then that the general battery of tests was broken up into individual subjects and since then students have had more options for what exams to take. In 2020, a new certificate-based admission was introduced for applying to the universities and universities of applied sciences. The new system scores the applicants’ matriculation examination certificates and emphasizes the grade in mathematics, especially the long syllabus, no matter what field the applicant is applying to. Therefore, many students have opted to study more mathematics and less languages (Lyytinen, 2021). Many students feel that studying languages is tedious and demanding because of the heavy workload and fast pace, and other subjects take up time and energy from studying languages (Kiehelä & Veivo, 2020). However, the scoring of certificates in the certificate-based admission has received a lot of attention and criticism since its inception (Rautio, 2022). Thus the scoring was reworked, and a revised scoring will start in 2026 (Yliopistovalinnat, 2023). The decisions made at the upper secondary education level have repercussions for basic education as well. It is important to note, however, that although schools teach less and less foreign languages, immigrants have brought in competences in numerous languages other than Finnish, Swedish and English. These competences are currently not capitalized on or appreciated sufficiently.

In Finland, a class teacher (a generalist) is qualified to teach any subject offered at the primary level of education, whether or not they actually have competence or schooling in it. Many schools have appointed the teaching of the first foreign language, English, to class teachers, who are not specialized in foreign language teaching. To help with the situation, the government offered funding for in-service training courses during the pilot phase of early language teaching. Subject teachers could participate in the trainings as well as they were not used to teaching very young children. The training courses focused especially on enhancing teachers’ competences in language pedagogy, early education, as well as using and preparing materials for language teaching (Hahl et al., 2020). Knowing the language itself, however, is too often taken as self-evident although it takes years to develop one's language skills.

In terms of concrete distractions, we already note the following elements from this general contextualization:

• - Although most teachers have studied English in their own school years, it does not always translate to knowing it well enough to use it and teach it in the classroom.

• - It can also be a budget decision for schools to use class teachers instead of specialized language teachers for teaching foreign languages at the primary level.

• - Furthermore, it is easier to ask class teachers to teach English than other foreign languages since most of them have studied English for many years. It may thus be one reason behind the municipalities’ reluctance to offer languages other than English as A1 language.

• - Finally, universities make value judgements on different school subjects when they decide on the scoring of them for the certificate-based admission. Currently mathematics (along with mother tongue and literature) enjoys a superior position compared to languages. The backwash effect may ripple down to basic education and lessen the incentive to study optional languages.

National and local language choice: justifying the (privileged?) position of English

In this section, we first look at the situation of foreign language learning in general in Finland and then in the largest cities according to the data that we have produced from subsets of already existing (official) data.

The majority of pupils in Finland, 90.1% (49,104), studied English as their A1 language in Grade 1 in the school year 2021–⁠2022. Most pupils in Finland study in fact only English as their foreign language. Of the other languages offered as A1 language in Grade 1, each received only about 1% or even less of the total number of pupils of 53,982. In the order of popularity, French had 621 pupils (1.2%), German 603 (1.1%), Swedish 549 (1%) and Spanish 285 (0.5%). The last three languages were much less popular: Russian with 132 pupils, Chinese 39, and Estonian with 15 pupils (Vipunen, 2022). Table 3 displays information from the seven largest cities regarding their offering of different languages as A1 and A2 languages, the minimum required group sizes for languages other than English, lesson hours, and the starting grade for A2 languages.

Table 3. Language options in the seven largest cities in Finland. Only education in Finnish language schools and mainstream language classes is considered in this table. Data for the table are collected from the cities’ websites, lesson division tables, and through personal contact with city officials.

City	Helsinki	Espoo	Tampere	Vantaa	Oulu	Turku	Jyväskylä
Population approx.	658,860	304,280	249,060	243,200	211,390	197,910	144,470
A1 languages	English, Spanish, French, Swedish, German, Russian, Chinese, Estonian, Northern Sàmi (each school offers max. 4 languages, most two, sometimes only English)	English (the only language in most schools), French (5 schools), German (2 schools), Chinese (1 school)	English, German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Chinese (each school will offer at least two other languages besides English from autumn 2023)	English	English, German, Spanish, French, Swedish, Russian (each school offers at least two)	English, Swedish (one school), Spanish (one school)	English, German, French, Russian
Minimum group size for A1	12–15	10–14	12	–	12	16	12
Lesson hours of A1 in Gr. 1 + 2	2	Gr. 1: 0.5 Gr. 2: 1.5	1	1	1	1	1
A2 languages	English, Spanish, French, Swedish, Chinese, German, Russian	English, German, Spanish, French, Swedish, Chinese, Russian	English, German, French, Spanish, Swedish, Russian (if A1 is other than English, A2 is English)	Spanish, French, German, Russian, Swedish	Spanish, French, Swedish, German, Russian (each school offers 3–5)	Spanish, French, Swedish, German, Russian, English (if A1 is other than English, A2 is English)	English, German, French, Russian, Spanish (if A1 is other than English, A2 is English)
Minimum group size for A2	12–15	10–14	16	10 (group may be formed from adjacent schools)	12 (group may be formed from adjacent schools)	14	12
Starting grade of A2	Grade 3	Grade 4	Grade 3	Grade 4	Grade 4	Grade 4	Grade 3

The decision on what languages to offer in different schools is done at the level of municipalities. Thus schools may not have a choice of what languages they offer. In some municipalities, however, schools have a choice to start a new group in a designated language with a smaller number of pupils or only when the mandatory threshold is reached (shown with a range of pupils in Table 3). For example, in the City of Espoo, schools that have only one group of pupils at each grade level can start a language group with 10 pupils, larger schools can start a group with 12 pupils but must start it only when 14 pupils have signed up (Table 3). The starting of language groups other than English is often not realized even in the largest cities, at least in many schools, despite the offering. For example, only two schools in Turku offer Spanish or Swedish as A1 languages (Table 3). However, groups in these languages have not reached the required 16 pupils so groups have not been formed (personal communication). Swedish is a compulsory language for all pupils anyway, so studying it from Grade 1 would not increase a pupil's repertoire of languages. Turku has the highest minimum group requirement of the seven largest cities with 16 pupils. The City of Vantaa is the only one of the largest cities that offers only English as the A1 language. This is, however, the reality in most schools in Finland. In the capital Helsinki, there were 19 schools (out of 97) where only English groups for A1 language were formed in 2021. There were 31 schools that started groups for French, 24 for Swedish, 17 for German, 11 for Spanish, 2 for Russian and Chinese, and 1 for Estonian (City of Helsinki, 2021). Although not all pupils are able to enjoy the offering of the different languages, A1 language groups started in each offered language in 2021. Therefore, about 25% of pupils started a language other than English as their first foreign language in Helsinki in Grade 1 (City of Helsinki, 2021).

The City of Jyväskylä offers four languages as A1 language. However, in the past three years, only one other language besides English has received enough interested pupils for groups to be formed: in 2022 French, in 2021 French, and in 2020 German (personal communication). Jyväskylä arranges hybrid teaching in A2 language starting from Grade 3 in some schools in order to make more languages available for more pupils (Tolvanen et al., 2022). The programme is currently run as a pilot, and it connects Spanish teachers with pupils in different schools. Jyväskylä arranges parent evenings online for parents and guardians of preschool children to educate them about language selection options. Jyväskylä is also one of few cities alongside Tampere that has invested in collecting a range of material for pupils and parents on the city website to help them make a choice for selecting A1 language with an instructional video about the options, and a link to samples of languages. In Jyväskylä, preschool children receive language showers from the teachers sometimes to expose them to the different languages offered. Pupils in Jyväskylä can also apply to another school besides the neighbourhood school if their language choice group is only realized in the other one. In such a case, guardians, however, would have to cover the possible expenses of commuting to school.

The City of Tampere has been the most successful in attracting pupils to choose languages more diversely. About 35% of pupils choose a language other than English as A1 language (Nurmi, 2023). There has been systematic work done in the city to expose children to different languages and educate parents about the different options. To improve the access for all children to languages other than English, the city has decided that every school will offer at least two languages on top of English starting in fall 2023. This change was based on the wishes coming from parents who requested the possibility to study especially Spanish. The minimum group size for a starting language group is 12. In smaller schools, groups may be formed in cooperation with adjacent schools. All children are exposed to language showering of different languages during early childhood education. In preschool education, pupils get early foreign language education with one weekly lesson. During the year, they receive education in four periods in four different languages that are offered in the surrounding school area. This way children get a taste of each language before they make a choice about the A1 language with their parents. Parents and guardians are also invited to participate with their children in activating language selection evenings where children and adults can experience engaging hands-on activities related to language learning (Lahti et al., 2020). Language actors in Tampere were also involved when a popular children's TV programme Pikku Kakkonen, run by Yle (Finland's national public service broadcasting company), launched a new language-themed TV programme for children in 2023. The programme is geared for children in early and preschool education in order to entice them to choose languages other than English in the school.

Although the long-term measures taken in Tampere have received nationwide attention and the language selection options and language actors’ persistent work have been awarded a prize for a ‘language deed of the year’ in 2021 by The Federation of Foreign Language Teachers in Finland SUKOL (Siltanen, 2021), not many cities have followed suit. However, some of the cities have taken other measures to emphasize the importance of learning foreign languages. Helsinki has invested in early language learning by adding extra lesson hours to both Grades 1 and 2 (Table 3). By doubling the lesson hours, Helsinki increases pupils’ exposure to the foreign language in an effort to boost their learning. It is the only one of the largest cities that has done so. Espoo has added an extra lesson to spring term of Grade 2, but they start A1 language only in the spring term of Grade 1 (Table 3). Helsinki, Tampere, and Jyväskylä are the only ones of the largest cities that have lowered the starting grade for A2 language to Grade 3. Turku may offer A2 language as remote teaching to some pupils. Vantaa lowered English to Grade 1 already in 2016, which was much earlier than the nationwide move in 2020. While offering only English as A1 language, Vantaa has invested in the lowest minimum group size requirement for A2 language with 10 pupils. Thus, with the smaller group size, schools are in a slightly better situation than many others to actually start groups in A2 language. In 2022, 31 out of 41 schools started a Spanish group in Grade 4, while the number of schools for Swedish was 8, German 6, French 1, and none for Russian (City of Vantaa, 2022). Additionally, interested pupils from some other schools may have been able to join language groups in adjacent schools.

Skinnari et al. (2020) investigated reasons why parents in Jyväskylä did not choose languages other than English in the first year when more options became available in 2019. They found out that many parents believed that English was enough as a foreign language, language learning was remembered to be tedious, and they felt they had not received sufficient information about other languages and why they would be beneficial. Some parents were also worried that learning more languages would become too challenging for their child as possible learning problems may show later (Skinnari et al., 2020). Educating and informing parents about language choices is therefore very important as they are the ones to really make the decisions when children are young. All pupils must also study Swedish from Grade 6. Many parents might feel that studying a third language on top of the two compulsory languages is simply too demanding.

To summarize this second analytical section based on data provided by Finnish municipalities, one might say that distractions leading to English being privileged as a first language in Finnish education include:

• - (Indirect) budgeting issues play a significant role in language choices with required minimum numbers of pupils needing to register for a course (from 10 to 16, with few cities allowing language classes to be ‘merged’ between schools)

• - Most cities seem not to be successful in sharing sufficient information about the potential benefits and aims of learning languages other than English, leading to parents preferring to focus on English as a first language

• - Pupils in different parts of Finland are in an unequal position in relation to foreign language learning as their place of residence determines what languages they have available for studying and how many lessons they are offered during primary education

• - Apart from Chinese, Northern Sami and Russian, all the languages offered represent a limited set of ‘big’ European languages. Russia's proximity, historical links and China's business importance could justify this limit (see Liu & Holmes, 2018).

Finally, in reference to the National Core Curriculum of 2014 and as a consequence of these first ‘notes’ about the Finnish general and municipal contexts, we note that a recurring comment on gender equality in language choices seems to appear somewhat of a distraction: ‘Gender equality is strengthened in language choices and language learning by providing information about language learning opportunities that appeal to different types of pupils, by encouraging pupils to make decisions based on genuine interest regardless of gender (…)’. As this section shows (amplified by the next one) choice seems to depend on a quota of potential participants in a language class rather than mere ‘interest.’

Distractors in the National Core Curriculum? Ideological positionings of English

Let us remind the readers that Finland’s policies must always be considered in relation to its affiliation with the European Union and that thus language education documents will share in-/direct ideological intertextuality with the supranational institution.

The latest version of the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (NCCBE) dates back to 2014 (FNBE, 2016). The core curriculum is generally renewed about every ten years and the current one was preceded by one from 2004. In this paper, we work from the version published in English in 2016. The curriculum starts with the basic values of Finnish education, the current curriculum being more assertive than the previous about the central position of language and language awareness, linking it to both ‘the theory of learning’ and, for example, the Constitution of Finland, the Non-discrimination Act 21/2014, and (linguistic) human rights. Basic values thus include valuing multilingualism as a resource and understanding the importance of languages. A major addition to the current curriculum is found in seven transversal competences to be integrated to the teaching of all subjects – future skills related to attitudes, values and procedures (Learning to learn; Cultural competence, interaction and self-expression; Taking care of oneself and managing daily life; Multiliteracy; Information and Communication Technology competence; Working life competence and entrepreneurship; and Participation, involvement and building a sustainable future). As we can see, language appears to be given a central role in the main official document related to Finnish education.

The first 12 chapters of the NCCBE concern: (1) the significance of local curricula and the local curriculum process; (2) basic education as the foundation of general knowledge and ability; (3) mission and general goals of basic education; (4) operating culture of comprehensive basic education; (5) organization of school work aiming to promote learning and well-being; (6) assessment; (7) support in learning and school attendance; (8) pupil welfare; (9) special questions of language and culture; (10) bilingual education; (11) basic education based on a particular philosophical or pedagogical system; (12) optional studies in basic education. In the next chapters of the NCCBE, different grade levels are described through different school subjects (e.g. Mother tongue and literature, Second national language, foreign languages, mathematics, etc.).

Underlying values and ideologies of the NCCBE: starting from a broader perspective

In what follows, we examine some of the aforementioned 12 chapters to get a broader sense of the ideological environment of the curriculum – which cannot be separated from English language education or any other school subject since they represent an ‘umbrella’ for all of them. In other words, what ‘wicked problems’ does the curriculum want to confront and how? We start with Section 2.2 Underlying values of basic education.

Maybe unsurprisingly, we note that the entire document is written in the simple present tense, which gives statements an air of (unquestionable) ‘truths’: e.g. ‘Education contributes to promoting economic, social, regional and gender equality’; ‘In basic education, people from varying cultural and linguistic backgrounds come together and get to know many different customs, communal practices and beliefs.’

The following values are highlighted in Section 2.2.: uniqueness of each pupil, right to a good education; humanity, general knowledge and ability, equality and democracy; cultural diversity as a richness; necessity of a sustainable way of living. One finds here key ideologies of today's neoliberal world (Vallier, 2021). One also notes many ambiguous formulations for which no clear definition is proposed in the section (or in the entire Curriculum). The words highlighted below are highly polysemous (good education? Decent life? From whose perspectives?) and somewhat naïve at times (see ‘genuine’ interaction below) and, if used under-defined, their meanings are plethora, which could lead to misuse/misunderstanding in education:

• - Each pupil has the right to grow into his or her full potential as a human being and a member of society.

• - Each pupil has the right to a good education and success in their studies.

• - Basic education creates preconditions for lifelong learning, which is an elemental part of building a decent life.

• - Basic education lays the foundation for global citizenship that respects human rights and encourages the pupils to act for positive change.

• - The joint reflection of school and homes on values, and cooperation underpinned by this, promote security and the pupils’ holistic well-being.

• - They are able to use information critically.

• - The pupils learn to look at issues from the perspectives of other people's life situations and circumstances. Learning together across the boundaries of languages, cultures, religions and beliefs creates a setting for genuine interaction and communality.

The polysemy, ‘openness’ and ‘good intentions’ of these terms correspond to what Farley et al. (2021) include as a clear criterium for distraction in policies.

What an analysis of this section also reveals is that there is an overemphasis on the role and responsibility of the individual (pupils) in making sure that the values that are unveiled here are successfully put into practice in ‘real life’. At the same time, ample references are made to the broad and somewhat generic ‘community’ or ‘the school community’. Interestingly but maybe not surprisingly, the voice of decision-makers and political institutions – who are behind the NCCBE discourses – is never introduced as agents of change and influence. For example, about sustainability, the curriculum says:

Sustainable development and ways of living comprise an ecological and economic dimension as well as a social and cultural dimension. The leading idea of ecosocial knowledge and ability is creating ways of living and a culture that foster the inviolability of human dignity and the diversity and ability for renewal of ecosystems while building a competence base for a circular economy underpinned by sustainable use of natural resources. Ecosocial knowledge and ability means that the pupils understand the seriousness of climate change, in particular, and strive for sustainability.

The economic is mentioned, as well as the ‘social’ and the ‘cultural’ but the political and decision-making level are pushed aside, seemingly disenfranchising them from any responsibility in either creating or contributing to ‘wicked issues’ (see Roucek, 1944). In a similar vein, the role of the ‘media’ and (ambiguous) ‘social structures’ is mentioned here and there in the document:

The significance of values education is highlighted in a world where information communicated by multiple forms of media, global information networks, social media and peer relationships shape the value systems of children and young people.

The pupils are also familiarised with social structures and solutions that impact on the development and guided in exerting influence on them.

The political through what education inculcates to pupils is totally absent in either urging the pupils to critically analyse what it says or in terms of responsibility for, e.g. climate change.

The omnipresence of the word culture also gives an indication that a culturalist ideology seems to prevail in discussions of diversity in the document, whereby culture becomes a simplistic explanation and agent of ‘everything’ (see Holliday, 2021). Agency seems to be provided to ‘cultures’ in some discussions of diversity, while individuals disappear. As such there are discussions around ‘interaction between (and within) different cultures,’ ‘promoting (pupils’) interest in other cultures,’ ‘respect for cultural diversity.’

At times, one can see potential contradictions between what the NCCBE is doing (listing the values that it supports) and statements about what is expected of pupils to do with ‘values’:

• - Discussions of values with the pupils guide the pupils to recognise values and attitudes they encounter and to also think about them critically.

• - The pupils are supported in building their personal value systems.

One could ask if the ‘proposed’ values from the document can be thought about ‘critically’ or if it is considered as acceptable not to include them in one's ‘personal value system.’ There appears to be some form of double-bind in such statements which seem to distract from the ideologization of the document (see Farley et al., 2021; Roucek, 1943).

In Section 3 entitled Mission and general goals of basic education, a ‘definition’ of transversal competences is proposed. Because of space limitation here, we cannot examine all these competences but focus on three of them.

Let us start with Cultural competence, interaction and self-expression. Cultural competence is defined in relation to ‘respect for human rights, skills in appreciative interaction and means for expressing oneself and one's views.’ Here again, the concept of culture seems to stand for ‘something else’ (see Dervin, 2016) and to distract from, e.g. structural inequalities pushed forward by the economic-political, which are neither discussed nor clearly included. Instead, ‘religions,’ ‘philosophies,’ and the media seem to ‘take the potential blame’:

[Pupils] are also supported to recognise how cultures, religions and philosophies exert influence in society and daily life and how the media shapes the culture, and also to consider what is unacceptable as a violation of human rights.

Following this critical assertion, one finds a somewhat ‘angelic’ statement about ‘pupils learn[ing] to discern cultural specificities and to act flexibly in different environments. They are educated to encounter other people respectfully and to have good manners.’ One might be left to wonder how recognizing the (potentially ‘bad’) influence of the aforementioned elements can be reconciled with ‘acting flexibly’ and ‘having good manners’ (see Dervin, 2022 on such contradictory statements).

The competence named Working life competence and entrepreneurship seems to link up directly and openly with the ideology of neoliberalism (Vallier, 2021). As such, one of the first sentences discussing the competence asserts that ‘Basic education must impart general capabilities that promote interest in and a positive attitude towards work and working life.’ During their basic education, pupils get to learn skills that will be useful in ‘their future careers’ and are ‘familiarized with the special features of businesses and industries and key sectors in their local area.’ In other words, the curriculum fully endorses the values of capitalism and neoliberalism. Nothing is said about, e.g. building up criticality towards working conditions, exploitation and e.g. overproduction (see earlier discussions of sustainability). The keywords of ‘flexibility,’ ‘open mind,’ and ‘creativity’ (words often associated with neoliberal distractors, see Fraser, 2022) are also put forward as learning principles.

Although the text accompanying the competence called Participation, involvement, and building a sustainable future does not say anything extra compared to previous discourses around the ideologies of democracy, civic activities and the need to be attentive to media discourses, one sentence seems to hint indirectly at the need to pay attention to economic-political elements and of their influences on self, one’s community and society:

The pupils develop capabilities for evaluating both their own and their community's and society's operating methods and structures and for changing them so that they contribute to a sustainable future.

The (ambiguous) words ‘society’s operating methods and structures’ could be interpreted as indicators of distractions – although they could also refer to other elements that are unrelated to politics and decision-making (see Roucek, 1944).

To conclude this first subsection, which presented some of the ‘wicked problems’ that the curriculum tries to address, one notes that

1. The curriculum seems to rely heavily on individuals, communities, ‘cultures,’ and the accountabilities of the media for preparing pupils for their future career and position in Finnish society and the global world. Economic aspects are discussed a little while politics-decision-making is never introduced directly – leaving the individual pupil having to take responsibilities for the way they speak, what they do, and for the kind of citizen they will be in the future while being guided by a set of polysemic values present in the first 12 chapters of the curriculum.

2. The curriculum embraces fully neoliberalism in the way it seems to push forward (soft) democracy and citizenship, (disguised) discourses of commerce and economic production and growth. By preparing the pupils to, e.g. look at the media ‘critically,’ to learn to appreciate ‘work’ and to treat self and others through the (ambiguous) lens of ‘culture,’ they are not getting ready for identifying and acting against potential (neoliberal) colonialist tendencies and structural as well as systemic injustices and inequalities.

Distractions in English language education

In the NCCBE the teaching of English and other languages is seen as part of holistic language education and as an introduction to language awareness. Learning foreign languages is meant first and foremost to introduce pupils to diversities of people and cultures in different linguistic areas (FNBE, 2016).

In what follows, because of space limit and of the repetitiveness of the curriculum for different grade groups (1–2; 3–6; 7–9) we focus on the position of English in relation to grades 3–6 (ages 10–13). Direct references are made in Section 14.4.3 of Chapter 14 dedicated to subjects taught in grades 3–6. The section is called foreign languages and is subdivided into language education; English as a foreign language, A syllabus in grades 3–6; Other foreign language, A syllabus in grades 3–6, Foreign language; B1, syllabus in grades 3–6; Sámi, A syllabus in grades 3–6. The section starts with general remarks about language education and lists both objectives of instruction for different syllabi (e.g. A) and for different categories of languages (English as a foreign language, other foreign language). The inclusion of the Sámi language, one of the Indigenous languages spoken by the Sámi peoples in Finland, Russia, and other Nordic countries, in the section ‘foreign languages’ in the Curriculum might come as a surprise although it is also available as a mother tongue and literature subject in the NCCBE.

We first examine the section about language education which exposes the ‘task of the subject’ in five paragraphs – this section applies to all the aforementioned languages. The first paragraph makes general statements about the purposes of language as a ‘prerequisite for learning and thinking,’ which ‘promotes the development of thinking skills,’ ‘provides material for the formation and appreciation of a plurilingual and multicultural identity.’ Language is thus said to be found in every school activity, contributing to joy, playfulness and creativity in its learning. We note that nothing is said here about the potential problems posed by language (manipulation, power relations, language as ‘violence’) or how to prepare pupils to deal with them. The approach to language appears to be ideologically individually-based, merely preparing pupils to ‘communicate.’

The second paragraph discusses how schools can support and encourage for example ‘communicat[ing] in authentic language environments’ and ‘appreciat[ing] other languages, their speakers, and different cultures’ (with no clarification as to what ‘authentic’ or ‘appreciate’ might mean). We also find here a comment about gender equality, which we have discussed earlier. The curriculum suggests that language choices are not bounded by ‘gender identity’ and yet, as we have seen, budgetary, ideological, and societal restrictions on language education availability seem to contradict this goal.

The third paragraph has to do with studying language enabling working in different types of groups and having access to different parts of the world (e.g. through ICT). The last line of this paragraph asserts that ‘The instruction also helps the pupils to develop their capacity for participation and active involvement in a global world.’ Again, nothing is said about both economic and political restrictions and lack of access to all these somewhat idealized aspects. In ‘typical’ neoliberal terms (Vallier, 2021), these statements seem to serve as distractions (the ‘global’ world) disguised under ideological statements that seem not to accept contradictions.

Finally, the fourth and fifth paragraphs deal with providing opportunities for boosting pupils’ ‘confidence in their own language learning skills and in using languages confidently’ and the importance of multiliteracy and of multilingualism is reiterated.

All in all, although language as a broad entity is declared as central, it does not seem to be presented as an important tool to reflect on the problems of today's world, to identify the ‘wicked problems’ mentioned in the curriculum and to use language as a way of resisting them – especially from a systemic and structural perspective (see De Sousa Santos, 2014). The focus is once again on the individual's responsibilities, skills and ‘goodness’ to open up to others.

We finish this section by looking into both the objectives of instruction and the assessment of English as a foreign language. Before presenting the objectives, the curriculum somehow recognizes the omnipresence and dominance of the language in Finland and in the world, while hinting at the fact that its access is not generalized for those residing in Finland (see ‘many pupils’, Peterson, 2022):

Many pupils increasingly use English in their free time. This competence acquired by pupils through informal learning is taken into account in the planning of instruction and when selecting contents.

What informal learning refers to here in relation to English is not defined and teachers are thus left to decide for themselves how to take this ‘competence acquired by pupils’ into account in their teaching, risking excluding many of the pupils who don’t share the knowledge acquired by them.

In a table presenting the objectives of instruction for English (as A language) in grades 3–6, 11 objectives are introduced, intersected with the transversal competences presented in the curriculum. The objectives are divided into five sections: Growing into cultural diversity and language awareness; language learning skills; evolving language proficiency, interaction skills; evolving language proficiency, text interpretation skills; evolving language proficiency, text production skills. Let us explore some of these objectives. First, we note that the following verbs are used to express the objectives:

• - To guide to notice (‘the linguistic and cultural richness of his or her surroundings and the world, and the status of English as a language of global communication’)

• - to motivate to value (‘his or her own linguistic and cultural background and the linguistic and cultural diversity of the world’)

• - to motivate to encounter (people without prejudices)

• - to guide to understand (‘that there is plenty of material available in English and to select material with suitable content and level of difficulty that promotes his or her learning’)

• - to support (‘the cultural appropriateness of the pupil's communication by offering possibilities for practising diverse social situations’).

Two sets of verbs accompany each other indicating both the role of the teacher (motivate, guide, support) and of the pupil (understand, encounter, value, notice). The verb to notice has to do with ‘the status of English as a language of global communication’, with no indication of critical engagement and discussions while observing how the language impacts e.g. world politics, economic inequality, people's daily life, etc. Tellingly, the (broad) assessment criteria for the objectives make a reference to (mere) quantification of the ‘distribution of English’: ‘The pupil is able to describe in general terms the languages spoken in his or her surroundings, list the most widely spoken languages in the world, and quantify the distribution of English.’ The verb to motivate is accompanied by the verb to encounter and the somewhat and (today) classical idealistic objective of meeting others ‘without prejudices’ – as if pupils could withhold and censor the biases and stereotypes passed onto them and co-developed through the (social) media, economic-political discourses, etc. (see Dervin, 2023). In the key content areas related to the objective of ‘supporting the cultural appropriateness of the pupil's communication by offering possibilities for practising diverse social situations,’ one can read that pupils are encouraged to ‘practise respectful language use in interactive situations.’ This statement seems to disregard the fact that ‘respectful’ can be interpreted in many different ways in different parts of the world when using English as a Lingua Franca. It is thus not a question of practising but reflecting on and together with others. In a similar vein, the objective of guiding to understand ‘that there is plenty of material available in English and to select material with suitable content and level of difficulty that promotes his or her learning’ does not seem to promote critical thinking and reflexivity in considering how ideological positionings such as neoliberalism affects the pupils, their families and friends as citizens of Finland and the world in the type of (sometimes limited) information that they might have access to. The focus here is on ‘suitability’ and ‘level of difficulty’ rather than a thirst for epistemic diversity (see Gobbo & Russo, 2020). Finally, when one reads through the key subjects to be covered, one notices distractions: ‘myself, my family, my friends, school, hobbies, and leisure time as well as living and acting in an English language environment.’ These easy (but are they?) subjects seem to contribute to provide an image of English language education that is ‘happy,’ ‘individualistic,’ away from ‘wicked problems’ such as injustice in the bigger world.

Discussion and conclusion

This paper has looked into distractions in the way English language education is discussed and practiced in one of the most debated system of education in the world today. Talking about English in this context requires considering the provision (or not) of other languages since English is always (in-/directly) in competition with other languages in education (Peterson, 2022). Our analysis shows that (without much surprise) English does dominate Finnish primary education and that different economic-political but also global reasons prevail. As such, the discourse in the largest cities advertises language options to pupils (promoting at the same time the ideologies of e.g. equality, justice, access to knowledge, …) but they are often not genuine opportunities to study languages other than English. Not all schools offer languages beyond English and group number requirements are often too high for groups to be realized. The advertisement of more languages works as distraction from reality … like the cat circling around hot porridge from the title of our paper (i.e. beating around the bush).

Focusing on ideologies (Roucek, 1943; Eagleton, 2020), ‘orders,’ ‘agendas,’ and ‘windscreens,’ as indicators of distractions, we have combined both observations and analyses of the broader societal context of Finland and of general takes on ‘values’ to be promoted and of objectives for English language education. All in all, the NCCBE appears to be very much ideological (could it be otherwise as a political document?) in the decisions made about what matters today and tomorrow and in the way it seems to distract from the influences of politics and decision-making on pupils’ lives.

The polysemy and fuzziness of many of the unquestionable values (e.g. equality, a ‘good’ education, ‘joy’) and expected outcomes found in the NCCBE represent a major distraction for English language education (and all other subjects) (Farley et al., 2021). They become even more problematic when one considers learning objectives urging pupils to ‘develop’ their own ‘values’ – beyond and/or in complement to the imposed values? Reading through the curriculum one also keeps wondering how and when young people get prepared to both analyse and (potentially) counter what the political and decision-making voices ‘order’ them to do.

By urging them to focus on themselves, their ‘community’ and culture, the media and (marginally) the market, one important aspect of the problems posed by the omnipresence of English is ignored (neo-colonialism, lack of epistemic diversity, etc. R’boul, 2023). In general, although English is somewhat ‘toned down’ in the curriculum by being positioned within broader conceptions of ‘language’ and ‘language education,’ it seems to be presented as ‘problem-free,’ a mere tool for communication, ignoring ‘the perpetuation of English as a tool of inequality and exclusion’ (Peterson, 2022) and reinforcing the status quo (Farley et al., 2021).

Like all other countries, Finland has its specificities while, by being embedded in more global contexts (EU membership, influence of, e.g. the OECD), the small Nordic country shares similarities with other geopolitical spheres. Reflecting on discourses of English language education in Finland allows us to consider broader elements – distractions away from the societal, political, economic, amongst others – rather than merely the English language (see Saarinen & Ennser-Kananen, 2020). What the NCCBE seems to miss is the opportunity to make use of a contested and contestable global language to engage future citizens more actively and critically about some of the wicked problems on which the values promoted and spelt out (often in a fuzzy way) in the curriculum are based. Learning to identify and react to distractions in relation to what pupils learn, why they should learn it and how what they learn is positioned ideologically should be an essential part of the learning objectives of English but also of all school subjects.

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fred Dervin

Fred Dervin is Professor of Multicultural Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He specializes in intercultural communication education, the sociology of multiculturalism and student and academic mobility. He has published widely in different languages on identity, the ‘intercultural’ and mobility/migration (over 170 articles and 70 books). Some of his published books include ‘Interculturality in Fragments: A reflexive Perspective’ (Springer, 2022), Supercriticality and Intercultural Dialogue (Springer, 2022), ‘Intercultural Communication Education’ (Springer, 2022), and ‘Interculturality, Criticality and Reflexivity in Teacher Education’ (Cambridge University Press, 2023). He has made extensive contributions to revising the politics of interculturality within and beyond the ‘canon’ of intercultural communication education research.

Kaisa Hahl

Kaisa Hahl, PhD, Adjunct Professor, is a senior university lecturer and teacher educator at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research focuses on teaching, learning and assessing foreign language education, intercultural education, and teacher development. More about Hahl's research.