Finnish craft education in turbulence : Conflicting debates on the current National Core Curriculum
In this article, we investigated how craft curriculum enacted in 2016 is reflected in the current discussions of the craft stakeholders, that is, the teachers, the government employees, the researchers, and the student teachers. In the curriculum, textile craft and technical craft, previously perceived mainly as separate entities, were conjoined as an approach in which "multiple materials are used, and activities are based on craft expression, design, and technology" (FNBE, 2014). This caused confusion in the field about the goals of craft education. The discussions concerning the undertaking of the new craft curriculum were analysed by document analysis. The data consisted of craft teachers' professional magazines, curriculum blog, and written statements. Three emerging themes were found to be central: lesson hour distribution, multi-materiality, and technology education. The analysis revealed that there was a shared understanding about the lesson hour distribution not being enough to enable the proper fulfilment of the craft curriculum. Conflicting views were expressed about the implementation of multi-materiality and technology education. In general, the textile craft stakeholders were open to adapt a more multi-material approach to their teaching, seeing it as bringing also new opportunities. Many technical craft teachers believed that multi-materiality is an artificially-constructed concept, and they saw technology education as already being an essential part of technical craft teaching. Obviously, the curriculum reform has caused turbulence that is dividing craft stakeholders and especially the craft teachers. ; In this article, we investigated how craft curriculum enacted in 2016 was reflected in the current discussions of the stakeholders, that is, the craft teachers, the craft student teachers, the craft teacher educators, and the government employees. In the curriculum, textile craft and technical craft, previously perceived mainly as separate entities, were conjoined as an approach in which "multiple ...