In search of the meaning-making student

Notes on the lack of third-order concepts in the Finnish history curriculum

Sammendrag

In this article, the current Finnish history curricula for basic education and upper secondary school are analysed from the perspective of what space they give to the students’ personal meaning-making activity in teaching and learning of history. This is a pertinent question, considering that history is often mentioned as a subject where students process the issues of identity, worldview and values. The research question is: Where and how is the students’ processing of their personal relationship with history addressed in the curriculum? The material consists of the history section in the national core curricula for basic education (2014) and upper secondary school (2019) and in the criteria for final assessment in basic education (2020). The method is qualitative theory-driven content analysis. The result is that the students’ personal meaning-making activity is referred to in the general task and the learning objectives of history teaching and learning and in the assessment criteria of history learning but not in the content of history teaching. As the student as a meaning-making agent does not appear where the content of teaching is outlined in concrete terms, there may be only little inspiration for the history teachers to discuss history’s personal meaning in the classroom. This can explain why Finnish students have had difficulty to understand, for example, why questions of historical wrongs can be experienced as transgenerationally relevant and alive.