Teachers’ perceptions of autonomy in the tensions between a subject focus and a cross-curricular school profile: A case study of a Finnish upper secondary school

Abstract

Recent research has indicated global trends of decreasing teacher autonomy and increasing teacher accountability. Standardised national tests have been identified as one of many factors constraining teacher autonomy. Another trend influencing teachers’ scope of action is the profiling and branding of schools that compete for students. This qualitative case study concerns the general upper secondary level in Finland, the only level of education in the country with a high-stakes final examination—the matriculation exam. The upper secondary level is generally regarded as Finland’s most subject-focused level of education. In contrast to this subject-focused tradition, the case school for this research has developed a cross-curricular profile emphasising creativity, boundary crossing and an outward orientated approach. The study explores the teachers’ perceptions of how their autonomy is constrained in this context characterised by tensions between the cross-curricular school profile on one hand, and the subject-focused tradition and student evaluations on the other. Although one might expect these tensions to constrain teacher autonomy, the results show that the teachers, in fact, experience the cross-curricular school profile as increasing their individual autonomy. The study demonstrates that upper secondary teachers can experience extensive autonomy despite global trends of increasing teacher accountability and diminishing teacher autonomy.

Comparing teacher autonomy in different models of educational governance

“…Regarding the connections between teacher collaboration and collegial autonomy, contrived collegiality means an instrumental form of collaboration mandated by the school leadership with the aim of implementing agendas determined by others (Hargreaves, 1994;Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990), while extended collegial autonomy can be professional collaboration emanating from the subjective needs of the teachers who themselves set the agenda and participate in decision-making (Elo & Nygren-Landgärds, 2020;Frostenson, 2015;Kelchtermans, 2006).…”

“…Therefore, the relation between collegial and individual teacher autonomy is an interesting avenue of research, as the exercise of collegial teacher autonomy can either extend or work against individual teacher autonomy (Elo & Nygren-Landgärds, 2020;Frostenson, 2015;Kelchtermans, 2006). The exercise of collegial teacher autonomy can also be teacherdriven or mandated by the school leadership, which relates to the concept of contrived collegiality.…”

“…Despite its outstanding PISA results, Finland is included in this second group. Finnish teachers are held accountable for final examinations at the upper secondary level and have a great sense of responsibility related to their professional belonging (Elo & Nygren-Landgärds, 2020;Erss, 2018;Wermke & Höstfält, 2014). This article also includes Japan (Bjork, 2009) and Turkey (Hammersley-Fletcher et al, 2020) in this group since these countries have fewer forms of evaluation by external parties in comparison with high-stakes accountability countries; in addition, these countries offer no incentives or sanctions resulting from this evaluation.…”

The Relationship between 21st Century Skills of the Teachers and Teacher Autonomy

“…Autonomy is a significant concept in education as well as in business life. It is seen that the concept, which can be handled from different perspectives such as student autonomy, professional autonomy, individual autonomy and organizational autonomy in the education dimension, is also the subject of research in the dimension of teacher autonomy (Akçay & Sevinç, 2021;Canbolat, 2020;Çolak, 2016;Elo & Nygren Landgärds, 2021;Karatay, Günbey & Taş, 2020;Kavgacı & Çalık, 2017;Kılınç, Bozkurt & İlhan, 2018;Nguyen, Pietsch & Gümüş, 2021;Üzüm, 2014). Taking Hackman and Oldham's (1976) definition into consideration, teacher autonomy can be thought of as the area of free movement that teachers have while performing their duties.…”

Lectio praecursoria

“…Något som däremot är ovanligt i ett finländskt perspektiv är att läroplanen anger exakta arbetssätt för lärarna, såsom att de bör arbeta med mångvetenskapliga lärområden varje läsår. Forskning har visat att många finländska lärare ställer sig positiva till det mångvetenskapliga arbetssättet och uppskattar möjligheten att samarbeta med sina kolleger inom lärområdena (Braskén, Hemmi & Kurtén, 2020;Elo & Nygren-Landgärds, 2020;Haapaniemi m.fl., 2021). Det finns dock även lärare som ser mångvetenskaplig undervisning som något utöver den normala undervisningsverksamheten.…”