Differences in state- and district-level stakeholders’ perceptions of curriculum coherence and school impact in national curriculum reform
| Published date | 13 May 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-08-2018-0153 |
| Pages | 210-226 |
| Date | 13 May 2019 |
| Author | Jenni Sullanmaa,Kirsi Pyhältö,Janne Pietarinen,Tiina Soini |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Differences in state- and
district-level stakeholders’
perceptions of curriculum
coherence and school impact
in national curriculum reform
Jenni Sullanmaa
Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Kirsi Pyhältö
Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland and
Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Janne Pietarinen
School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education,
University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland, and
Tiina Soini
Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –Shared understandings of curriculum reform within and between the levels of the educational
system are suggested to be crucial for the reform to take root. The purpose of this paper is to explore variation
in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact among state- and district-level stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach –The participants (n¼666) included state- and district-level stakeholders
involved in a national curriculum reform inFinland. Latent profile analysis was employed to identify profiles based
on participants’perceptions of the core curriculum’s coherence and the reform’s impact on school development.
Findings –Two profiles were identified: high coherence and impact, and lower consistency of the intended
direction and impact. State-level stakeholders had higher odds of belonging to the high coherence and impact
profile than their district-level counterparts.
Practical implications –The results imply that more attention needs to be paid in developing a shared and
coherent understanding particularly of the intended direction of the core curriculum as well as the reform’s
effects on school-level development among state- and district-level stakeholders.
Originality/value –The study contributes to the literature on curriculum reform by shedding light on the
variation in perceived curriculum coherence and school impact of those responsible for a large-scale national
curriculum reform process at different levels of the educational system.
Keywords Curriculum reform, Latent profile analysis, Curriculum coherence, School impact
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
It has been proposed that in order to promote curriculum reform implementation and
educational practitioners’ownership over the reform, the curriculum developers and
stakeholders need to build a sufficiently shared understanding of the functions of the
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 57 No. 3, 2019
pp. 210-226
Emerald Publishing Limited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-08-2018-0153
Received 4 September 2018
Revised 5 December 2018
14 February 2019
1 March 2019
Accepted 5 March 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
© Jenni Sullanmaa, Kirsi Pyhältö, Janne Pietarinen and Tiina Soini. Published by Emerald Publishing
Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone
may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial
& non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full
terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture under Grant No. 6600567; and
the Academy of Finland under Grant No. 295022.
210
JEA
57,3
curriculum and its meaning for the schools’mission (see Fullan, 2007; Ornstein and
Hunkins, 2004; Pietarinen et al., 2017). At the same time, there is evidence of educational
administrators, stakeholders, principals and teachers often differing in their understanding
and response to educational change and curriculum reforms (Desimone, 2006; Louis and
Robinson, 2012; Ng, 2009; Spillane, 1998; Timperley and Parr, 2005; Yuen et al., 2012).
Perceiving the curriculum as a coherent whole is particularly important for those in charge
of developing and implementing the curriculum because it provides grounding for sustained
goal setting and reform implementation. While coherence in terms of alignment and
continuity within and between the elements of the curriculum (e.g. Newmann et al., 2001;
Schmidt et al., 2005; Smith et al., 1998) and in terms of providing a coherent basis for
constructing shared understandings of the curriculum’s aim and shared principles and
values for teaching and learning (e.g. Bryk, 2010; Hallinger and Heck, 2002; Newmann et al.,
2001) is suggested to be crucial to support pupil learning and school development, research
on how curriculum coherence is perceived by different stakeholders is scarce. A few studies
have implied that teachers’perceptions of school-level coherence are related to pupil
achievement (e.g. Newmann et al., 2001) and that perceptions of coherence between policies,
goals and activities within and between schools and the educational system are important
for reform to take root (e.g. Allen and Penuel, 2015; Louis and Robinson, 2012; Russell and
Bray, 2013). Our earlier studies suggested that state- and district-level stakeholders’
perceptions of core curriculum coherence are related to the expected school-level impact of a
curriculum reform (Pietarinen et al., 2017; Sullanmaa et al., submitted). This implies that
perceived curriculum coherence is an important determinant of facilitating change in
schools. State- and district-level stakeholders do not, however, comprise a single entity, and
differences are likely to occur both within and between the groups.
The present study aims to contribute to filling this gap in the literature by exploring how
state- and district-level stakeholders involved in Finnish national core curriculum reform
have perceived curriculum coherence and the reform’s impact on school-level development.
Variation in the stakeholders’perceptions is examined by discerning latent profiles, that is,
detecting subgroups of educational stakeholders based on their individual patterns of
perceived curriculum coherence and expectations of the reform’s school-level impact.
Examining similarities and differences in perceived curriculum coherence among the
stakeholders at different levels provides a systemic understanding of how such coherence is
achieved in a large-scale curriculum reform process. Accordingly, the study contributes to
the literature on curriculum development by providing a novel understanding of the
variation in the perceptions of stakeholders in charge of the development work.
Curriculum coherence
A coherent curriculum entails unity and connectedness among the aims, content,
instructional practices, learning experiences and assessments (Beane, 1995; Kelly, 2009;
Smith et al., 1998). It entails a holistic and integrative approach to curriculum development,
focusing on the learners and their purposeful learning experiences (Beane, 1995; Ornstein
and Hunkins, 2004). Curriculum coherence also includes a structural approach focusing on
the alignment and the coherent organization of subject matter (e.g. Schmidt et al., 2005;
Squires, 2009). This study explores how different educational stakeholders have perceived
the coherence of the core curriculum that aims to guide the district-level curricula and
further governs the development of the national basic education system.
Curriculum coherence is suggested to be comprised of three interrelated components:
consistency of the intended direction, referring to the clarity of the goals and roles of the
teachers and schools, as well as the ability to support the teaching of the essential
material; an integrative approach to teaching and learning, entailing the encouraging of
teachers to use activating teaching methods along with assessment that supports
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State- and
district-level
stakeholders
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