Abstract :
The status, content, and social factors influencing
craft education in Finland, a standard subject
in comprehensive schools, were examined during
interviews with craft teachers, craft teacher
preparers, and educational administrators. In this
paper, the following areas are examined: How are
crafts defined? What rationales and cultural and
social factors keep craft education robust and
what factors threaten it? What is perceived as the
future of craft education?
Definitions of crafts in schooling varied
among interviewees, with some arguing to maintain
traditional divisions between art and craft,
and between craft subjects of textiles and technical
work, and others noting distinction in these
subjects only in the materials and techniques
used. Some interviewees associated art teaching
with self-expression and craft with skill,
materials, and techniques. The context for craft
education affected by Finland’s rapid change,
after World War II, from a rural agrarian society
to an urban and highly technological one, is
understood as putting pressure on craft education
to remain meaningful. Rationales given by
interviewees for teaching craft in schools fell into
five categories: craft provides 1) cognitive development
in several dimensions, 2) learning about
living in the world, 3) Finnish traditions and culture,
4) social and individual growth, and 5) a break from
the demands of academic subjects. All interviewees
seemed to agree that teaching crafts in
Finland is changing in terms of how teachers are
prepared, who writes curriculum, the content of
the curriculum, and the configuration of craft in the
comprehensive school curriculum. Some interviewees
portended a decline in craft education in
public schooling, while others embraced change
as part of nation building.
