Who actually sets the objectives for teaching? The skills objectives and their assessment in social studies in the Core Curriculum and in the matriculation examination

Authors

• Inkeri Ahvenisto Helsingin yliopisto
• Marko van den Berg Helsingin yliopisto
• Jan Löfström
• Arja Virta Helsingin yliopisto

Abstract

Social studies knowledge and civic literacy have turned out to be difficult concepts to define. The social studies curricula provide one answer to the question about their content; also examinations effectively set objectives for teaching, and thereby they influence how social studies knowledge is actually conceived. This article discusses the objectives of social studies teaching in Finnish school. It focuses particularly on the role of the matriculation examination in shaping the objectives of social studies teaching in the upper secondary school. It analyses the congruence between the objectives in the core curriculum for social studies and the competences required of the students in the social studies matriculation examination. The crucial question is what is the notion of social studies knowledge the upper secondary school supports. As a written test, the matriculation examination cannot easily evaluate skills of participation in civic life, but it can evaluate thinking and analysing skills. Some of the skills required in the social studies examination, eg. constructing international comparisons, are not mentioned in the core curriculum. The backwash effect of the examination is likely to make social studies teachers pay attention to teaching those skills, too, but it is important that these skills would be explicated also in the future core curricula.