**2. Curriculum integration and the Finnish national core curriculum for basic education**

CI played a strong role in the first Finnish core curriculum, written for comprehensive schools in 1970. The curriculum even included a plan of comprehensive school based completely on an integrated curriculum [4]. This plan was not realized, and CI was of less importance in the curricula that followed, which were published about once a decade, although the debate on CI was significant during the reforms [5]. The new *National Core Curriculum for Basic Education* is again strengthening the role of CI. Today, the implementation of CI is explicitly compulsory for all Finnish schools. Every school year has to include at least one multidisciplinary learning module lasting approximately 1 week. Additionally, the curriculum includes a list of seven cross-curricular transversal competences, such as multi-literacy and ICT competence, which are to be taught in connection with every subject [1].

Even though CI has been a feature of the Finnish comprehensive schools for almost half a century and is recognized as valuable by teachers, research shows that its implementation has not met the curriculum objectives [6, 7]. These results call for new studies of CI to develop teachers' work to meet the current demands. However, it has to be pointed out that this is not only a pedagogical issue, but also a social one. Lopes and Macedo [8] describe a subjectbased curriculum as a form of control that sustains prevailing labor relations, knowledge processes, and the creation of identities and therefore resists change. Subject teachers form interest groups promoting particular subjects [9]. CI, however, does not have this kind of interest group behind it. Additionally, challenges connected to curriculum reform in general have an effect on implementation of CI, such as teachers' extensive workload, lack of curriculum knowledge, experience of top-down leadership of the reform, and insufficient resources for planning [10].

School curricula are usually organized around school subjects with notable similarities from country to country. This is sometimes taken for granted, yet the organization is a result of a long social process involving struggles with curriculum content [9]. CI can be seen as an alternative way of organizing schoolwork. Sometimes a school subject has a scientific discipline as a background, such as biology, although the science of biology is divided into many subcategories. A school subject can also be a cluster of many fields of knowledge. An example is environmental studies, which in Finnish primary school is a combination of biology, geography, physics, chemistry, and health education.

by connecting a number of subjects. This chapter acknowledges the current challenge for Finnish teachers and provides some suggestions for schoolwork and teacher education for how teachers can better meet the demands of CI. The aim is to provide concrete answers to the following research questions: (1) what kind of knowledge does CI require of teachers, and (2)

This chapter offers a theoretical contribution to pinpointing the challenges of implementing CI in schoolwork from the subject teachers' perspective. Lee Shulman's theory of teacher's knowledge [2, 3] is used to identify the challenges of CI for teachers in the context of the new Finnish core curriculum. Shulman's theory is useful here, because it describes categories of teachers' knowledge required for successful teaching. In this chapter, the most relevant Shulman's categories are briefly described, followed by a discussion of how these categories change in integrated contexts. Finally, some concrete suggestions are provided to include CI

how should teacher education be developed to give teachers better readiness for CI?

**2. Curriculum integration and the Finnish national core curriculum** 

CI played a strong role in the first Finnish core curriculum, written for comprehensive schools in 1970. The curriculum even included a plan of comprehensive school based completely on an integrated curriculum [4]. This plan was not realized, and CI was of less importance in the curricula that followed, which were published about once a decade, although the debate on CI was significant during the reforms [5]. The new *National Core Curriculum for Basic Education* is again strengthening the role of CI. Today, the implementation of CI is explicitly compulsory for all Finnish schools. Every school year has to include at least one multidisciplinary learning module lasting approximately 1 week. Additionally, the curriculum includes a list of seven cross-curricular transversal competences, such as multi-literacy and ICT competence, which

Even though CI has been a feature of the Finnish comprehensive schools for almost half a century and is recognized as valuable by teachers, research shows that its implementation has not met the curriculum objectives [6, 7]. These results call for new studies of CI to develop teachers' work to meet the current demands. However, it has to be pointed out that this is not only a pedagogical issue, but also a social one. Lopes and Macedo [8] describe a subjectbased curriculum as a form of control that sustains prevailing labor relations, knowledge processes, and the creation of identities and therefore resists change. Subject teachers form interest groups promoting particular subjects [9]. CI, however, does not have this kind of interest group behind it. Additionally, challenges connected to curriculum reform in general have an effect on implementation of CI, such as teachers' extensive workload, lack of curriculum knowledge, experience of top-down leadership of the reform, and insufficient resources

School curricula are usually organized around school subjects with notable similarities from country to country. This is sometimes taken for granted, yet the organization is a result of

in teacher education programs.

120 Contemporary Pedagogies in Teacher Education and Development

are to be taught in connection with every subject [1].

**for basic education**

for planning [10].

For example, in the Finnish system, students in grades one to six are given environmental lessons; by grades seven to nine—lower secondary school—environmental studies change to more specific science subjects. The older the students become, the more subject-based the schooling becomes [1]. This is significant both from the students' and from the teachers' points of view. In Finnish primary schools, teachers are usually giving instruction in the majority of the subjects, but in secondary schools, only one or a few subjects. In this chapter, the main emphasis is on secondary level education and the challenges CI presents for subject teachers at this level.

CI is generally seen as a process of teaching and learning that crosses the unnecessarily strict boundaries of school subjects, making connections among them. Integration can cover both content and/or process of learning [11, 12]. Content is integrated when contents of different subjects are in some way connected. How deeply the subjects are integrated can be described as a continuum, starting with studying subjects in parallel in order to view a theme simultaneously from multiple perspectives; the integration can also go as far as the complete abandonment of school subjects [13, 14]. In turn, process integration occurs, for instance, when the cognitive side of learning is entwined with the experiential. The Finnish *National Core Curriculum for Basic Education* describes the purpose and process of CI in the following way:

*The purpose of integrative instruction is to enable the pupils to see the relationships and interdependencies between the phenomena to be studied. It helps the pupils to link knowledge of and skills in various fields, and in interaction with others, to structure them as meaningful entities. Examination of wholes and exploratory work periods that link different fields of knowledge guide the pupils to apply their knowledge and produce experiences of participation in the communal building of knowledge. This allows the pupils to perceive the significance of the topics they learn at school for their own life and community, and for the society and humankind. In the learning process, pupils are supported to structure and expand their worldview ([1], p. 32).*

The core curriculum mixes CI to some extent with inquiry learning. However, each can be realized independently. Furthermore, it presents CI as a way to enhance the social function of education. The issues of the community, the society or the humankind are usually socalled wicked problems, such as city planning, poverty or climate change. The concept of wicked problems refers to complicated issues that are hard to define, do not have a single solution, and are usually studied in various scientific fields. Planning of a school curriculum is in itself one example of a wicked problem [15]. The answers to fundamental questions of our age or of individuals seeking guidance in living must be sought in multiple sources. In schools, this can be called a didactic process, if mere adoption of knowledge is coupled with the aims of *Bildung*, i.e., creating personal significance and continuously developing a worldview [16].

Put concretely, the core curriculum mentions four ways of organizing cross-curriculum learning or even abandoning subject borders [1]. First, integration can be achieved through activities such as theme days, events, campaigns, study visits, or school camps. Second, longer integrated study modules can be created around a theme by combining the perspectives of various subjects. Third, integrated cluster subjects can be formed, for example, a science cluster that includes mathematics, physics, and chemistry. The fourth and most radical way is to organize all schoolwork holistically without any designated subjects. This is a common practice at the pre-school level in Finland.

As Kansanen [18] states, Shulman's model fits research purposes well, and the tradition of didactics acts more as a normative basis for teachers in their work. Although Shulman has been criticized for a static understanding of the meaning of subject matter [16], there are many reasons why in this chapter Shulman's theory is applied to the study of the challenges of CI. First, Shulman's theory of teachers' knowledge serves as a clear model for analyzing the requirements of teachers' work. Second, Shulman is open to the idea of CI, although he does not examine it from the viewpoint of teachers' knowledge. In any case, Shulman sees CI as one possible way of constructing a curriculum. However, he claims that if CI is taken seriously, it will have profound consequences when the discussion of how a scientific discipline becomes a school subject changes to something else [21], because if a curriculum is integrated, then there are no longer subjects with parallel disciplines. Finally, his examples come mostly

Teachers' Knowledge of Curriculum Integration: A Current Challenge for Finnish Subject Teachers

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The strategy in this chapter is to examine the effects of CI on different categories of teachers' knowledge. We discuss four Shulman's categories that are most relevant from the viewpoint of CI: (1) content knowledge, (2) curriculum knowledge, (3) pedagogical content knowledge, and (4) knowledge of educational ends, purposes, and values. Shulman presented interdisciplinarity as a part of content and curriculum knowledge [22]. He has not explained all these knowledge categories at length and has used them in an inconsistent way in different texts

In this section, another category is added as the aforementioned knowledge categories are interpreted and discussed from the perspective of CI. This category can be called *integrative pedagogical knowledge*, which crosses all categories. It is not an independent knowledge category, but an approach to each category from the perspective of CI. It is an addition to Shulman's subject-centered theory. The following sections describe what kinds of integrative pedagogical knowledge teachers need in order to implement CI. In short, teachers need understanding of CI as one option for constructing a curriculum, and they need broad knowledge of the current curriculum, including the content and objectives of subjects they are not teaching themselves. For CI to be successful, its purpose has to be clearly comprehended. Furthermore, in collaborative forms of CI, teachers need good skills and conditions for coop-

*Content knowledge* refers to teachers' awareness of the facts and the structure of their subject(s). In addition, a teacher must know why these are the accepted facts in a given field, how knowledge is constructed, why some aspects of the field are more important than others, what alternative understandings of a subject exist, how the facts are related to other concepts within and outside of the discipline, and why these things are worth knowing in the first place [2, 3]. Shulman does not problematize the relation between scientific disciplines and school subjects. In this way, the fundamental question of content knowledge is left open. According to Stengel [25], Shulman assumes that disciplines precede school subjects and that the task of teachers is to modify disciplinary content knowledge into learnable form, i.e., transform it into a school

from secondary schools. This suits the level of interest in this chapter.

eration across subject borders.

**3.1. Content knowledge**

subject.

[23]. For those reasons, some of categories are seen to be partly overlapping [24].

However, to consider CI as the opposite of subject-based education would be incorrect. Integration can be seen as a normal feature in the pursuit of knowledge whenever teachers are constructing cross-disciplinary concepts in a subject-based curriculum [17]. The core curriculum offers two concrete examples of integration structured on differentiated subjects [1]. First, studies can be taught in parallel in such a way that one theme is studied simultaneously in different subjects, for example, climate change along with social studies, chemistry, and geography. Second, themes can be sequenced inside a single subject or between subjects so that a topic is learned along a continuum; an example would be studying Middle Eastern religions first in religious studies followed by the rise of the Islamic Empires and the Crusades in history.
