Conceptual change in adopting the nationwide special education strategy in Finland

Evolution in educational change: A literature review of the historical core of the Journal of Educational Change

“…Nonetheless, the examined sample of works indicated an increase of relevant articles from outside of the Anglosphere. Only 50% of the reviewed articles were from the U.S. (Wells and Feun 2013), the U.K. (Ainscow 2012), or Australia (Saunders 2013); the remaining three works were from Finland (Pyhältö et al 2012(Pyhältö et al , 2014Thuneberg et al 2014). This increase in the Finnish representation demonstrates how profoundly both PISA scores and the Finnish Way discourse (Sahlberg 2011(Sahlberg , 2015 have influenced the JEC's conversations.…”

“…While there were no special issues of the JEC during this time frame, the field of education saw 33 U.S. states receive waivers from NCLB requirements (Sass 2016) and the 2012 PISA results revealed a surge in performance for Asia but continued mediocrity for the U.S.-a continuation of trends from the previous era that also extends to the most recent 2015 PISA results. Six articles from 2012 to 2014 were reviewed, with two representing each year (Ainscow 2012;Pyhältö et al 2012;Saunders 2013;Wells and Feun 2013;Pyhältö et al 2014;Thuneberg et al 2014).…”

“…As examples, Wells and Feun (2013) conducted a comparative case study of two districts that differed in the success of establishing PLCs in their schools. Also, Thuneberg et al (2014) analyzed policy documents from Finnish municipalities to determine if and how they were aligned with the concepts proposed by the nationwide special education reform. This shift toward publishing mainly empirical studies, which will be analyzed more thoroughly in the Discussion section, stands in contrast with the history of the Journal in which more conceptual pieces stood at the forefront.…”

Principals’ views on changes in the provision of support for learning and schooling in Finland after educational reform

“…As Fullan (2016) has stated, districts-so in Finland, municipalities, usually-can develop both capacity and incapacity for change. Studies of the latest Finnish educational reform have shown that there are differences among municipalities and among schools in how they have implemented the three-tier support model (e.g., Pulkkinen & Jahnukainen, 2016;Thuneberg et al, 2014). Thuneberg et al (2014) have studied the reform process related to the three-tiered Finnish model by analyzing municipal documents.…”

“…A few studies concerning the latest reform of the Finnish special education system have been published (see Ahtiainen, 2017). Some of them (Pesonen et al, 2015;Pulkkinen & Jahnukainen, 2016;Thuneberg et al, 2014) have studied the implementation of the reform in municipalities and schools whereas others (Björn et al, 2016;Jahnukainen & Itkonen, 2016) have compared the Finnish support model with Response to Intervention (RTI) in the US. So far, however, little attention has been paid to the support arrangements or their changes at the school level after the reform and to the factors related to these arrangements or changes in them.…”