Finländska gymnasieelevers reflektioner över historiska gottgörelser : Vilka implikationer ger det för historieundervisningen i Finland

The article discusses a study of what Finnish high school students think of the idea of reparing historical injustices. The philosophical and political aspects of historical reparations have been analyzed widely but there is a lack of research on how people actually ponder on such reparations. The topic is relevant for history teaching because people's reflections on historical reparations also tell about their historical consciousness more generally, e.g. regarding what they see as plausible explanations in history. The study is based on fourteen focus group interviews, made in 2008- 2009; the number of interviewed students was fifty-three. The article analyses the students’s reflections from the perspective of what the students think of the possibility of historical continuity in the context of transgenerational moral obligations and responsibilities. The article relates the findings to earlier studies of Finnish adolescents' historical consciousness and societal thinking, and it also ponders on the consequences of the analysis to the development of history teaching and history curricula in Finland.Peer reviewe

Mot interkulturella färdigheter? : De utomeuropeiska samhällenas historia i finländska gymnasiets läroplansgrunder, läroböcker och studentexamen

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A Yhteiskuntaoppi: Social studies in Finland. A country report

Purpose: This country report aims to provide a view of the current state and recent developments of the school subject social studies in Finland. Approach: This report draws from research in social studies education that has been done in Finland in the last 20 years, and it also presents selected highlights from the national core curricula and the matriculation exam. Findings: Social studies has recently got the status of independent school subject and it has got more teaching resources which suggests decision-makers consider it important. It does not have a clear epistemological homebase, as school subjects like history or physics, for example, which poses challenges when defining what kind of academic studies are the most pertinent to a social studies teacher, for exampl

Historical apologies as acts of symbolic inclusion – and exclusion? : Reflections on institutional apologies as politics of cultural citizenship

Institutional apologies for historical injustices can be conceived as acts of symbolic inclusion directed to people whose collective experiences and memories of the past have not been recognized in the hegemonic narratives of the past. However, in this article it is argued that such apologies also have exclusionary potential as vehicles of symbolic politics of citizenship in that they may designate the apologizing community, so that it effectively excludes cultural ‘aliens’, like migrants, from the community of ‘remedial’ citizens. The article suggests a crucial point is the rhetoric shifts when one is appealing to both cultural and political solidarity, as when apologizing in the name of the state but simultaneously invoking ‘our’ nation and ‘our’ history. Thus, the increasing number of institutional historical apologies is not necessarily incompatible with the trend of reinforcing the symbolic boundaries around ‘our’ historical–cultural communities that has been visible recently, e.g. in the demands for cultural canons and citizenship tests in many Western societies.Peer reviewe

Analysing adolescents’ reasoning about historical responsibility in dialogue between history education and social psychology

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Making sense of the financial crisis in economic education : An analysis of the upper secondary school social studies teaching in Finland in the 2010’s

The current financial-economic crisis has actualized important issues regarding the dynamics of the economic system, the relations between economy and politics, and the notions of good society. Thus the question of how economic education in school can support students’ understanding of the crisis is relevant to pose. This article asks what are the strengths and weaknesses, and also the promises and challenges, in the Finnish upper secondary school economic education, concerning teaching about the crisis? The article analyses the core curriculum for upper secondary school economic education in Finland, the available upper secondary school economy textbooks, and a selection of students’ social studies exam papers in the matriculation examination in spring 2010. The focus of the analysis is on how the current financial-economic crisis is presented in the textbooks and in the exam papers, what the competences are that the core curriculum delineates economic education should develope in students, and what capacity Finnish social studies teachers have for teaching about economy. The article proposes that the presence of historical perspectives and political analyses in economic education are important, in particular when teaching about topics like the current financial-economic crises.Peer reviewe