Critiquing curriculum policy reform in Finland and Australia

Abstract

This paper draws upon key national curriculum policy documents as evidence of reform in Finland and Australia to analyze whether and how they appear to provide the opportunity for a genuinely educational experience for students, oriented towards the good for all, or whether they reflect more restrictive, ‘predetermined’ influences and foci. Specifically, we focus upon the aims, content and methods advocated within the principal curriculum policy documents in each context, and analyze the extent to which they seem to allow for teacher and school autonomy, and a more praxis-oriented approach, or whether they reflect more directive, and performative policy foci. To analyze the extent to which such autonomy is evident, we draw upon the German educationalist Dietrich Benner’s notion of ‘non-affirmative’ education as an analytical concept, and to analyze whether a more praxis-oriented approach is evident, we draw upon neo-Aristotelian notions of practice as praxis. Through a comparative analysis of the Finnish and Australian curriculum policy circumstances, we argue how more neoliberal influences have influenced both countries, but also how the Finnish context seems to provide the opportunity for a more open, ‘non-affirmative’ approach to the aims, content and methods of curriculum reform, while the Australian context is potentially more restrictive in this regard, even as there is evidence of some support for such approaches. The article reveals the power of a comparative approach, and how the broader conditions within which curriculum policy development unfolds, including assessment practices, influence the nature of the content of curriculum policy, with potentially significant effects for curriculum reform enactment.