Teachers’ professional space for decision-making when planning: The cases of Finland,Norway,and the United States

Abstract

This article explores how teachers in Finland, Norway, and the United States reflect on their professional space for decision-making when planning. Various planning activities are at the core of teaching practice, and contextual factors are also at play. Teachers’ reflections on decision-making when planning might therefore be expected to vary. Hence, this study explores in what ways the opportunities to make decisions for planning may vary across the three country contexts. Using “professional space” as an analytical lens, the analysis shows, firstly, that teachers’ opportunities to make decisions about planning take place in a multidimensional space between professional autonomy and external control. Secondly, teachers’ opportunities to make decisions about planning are contextually situated in time and space.

Introduction

In this article, we explore how teachers in Finland, Norway, and the United States reflect on their professional space for decision-making when planning. Hence, we do not explore planning practices per se, but rather how teachers reflect on their opportunities to make decisions in the space between professional autonomy and (external) control, or in the juxtaposition between didactics and policies. There is a general agreement in educational research (and practice) that planning is a crucial component of teachers’ professional competences (cf. Bremholm and Skott, 2019), and that it is at the core of professional practice (Munthe and Conway, 2017). Planning is an important activity that must be undertaken by the teacher before teaching; however, it is also understood as encompassing the inter-active and post-active phases of teaching, and involves a complex combination of knowledge, skills, understanding, values, attitudes, and desires (Munthe and Conway, 2017). Through careful planning, the teaching and learning process will be more organized (Emiliasari, 2019). Remillard and Heck (2014) view teachers’ (lesson) planning process, for example, as a phase in the curriculum enactment process, focusing on whom they engage with and the resources they draw on. Common factors identified as influencing teachers’ planning are various types of knowledge (disciplinary, pedagogical, and didactic), curricular requirements, materials and resources available, and teachers’ conceptions and beliefs (González et al., 2020). Bremholm and Skott (2019) argue further for four main factors found in empirical research that influence teachers’ planning: the amount of teaching experience, the organizational framework such as the school timetable and the time allotted to different subjects, various instructional materials, and teachers’ attention to students’ interests. However, the introduction of learning outcomes and/or standards globally during the last two decades has increased interest in teachers’ planning due to inherent expectations of “effective teaching,” and the shift of focus toward learning outcomes requires quite drastic changes in planning practice (Bremholm and Skott, 2019). Hence, we firstly take as a point of departure the fact that teachers’ opportunities to make planning decisions are happening in a multidimensional space between professional autonomy and external control. Secondly, teachers’ opportunities to make planning decisions are contextually situated. Consequently, this study explores in what ways the opportunities to make decisions for planning may vary across the three country contexts. We approach teachers’ planning through the notion of “professional space,” which paves the way for exploring teachers’ ideas about planning as an activity, negotiated by the teacher, constituted by elements and actors that are both near (classroom, school, and pupils) and distant (e.g., national and/or global factors such as tests, standards, and monitoring), and factors that have influenced the teacher across time. The empirical material analyzed in this article comprises interviews with teachers in Finland, the United States, and Norway. A cross-national comparative study will enable us to illuminate and discuss contextual factors influencing teachers’ overall planning in a profound way.

The main research questions guiding our analysis are:

What aspects do teachers in Finland, Norway, and the US regard as influential for their opportunities to make decisions when planning teaching and learning activities? How can teachers’ professional space for decision-making when planning be understood across the three cases?

To this end, this article aims to contribute to the existing body of literature by empirically exploring teachers’ opportunities to make decisions when planning across national and political contexts, as well as by discussing how teachers’ professional space for decision-making when planning can be understood across the three cases.

Earlier research on teachers’ planning

There are a vast number of research studies addressing teachers’ planning per se. However, most relevant for this study is research addressing contextual factors influencing teachers’ abilities to make decisions when planning. Below, we distinguish between studies taking policies and curricula as the overall reference, and studies that take planning models as the overall reference.

Beginning with studies taking policy as a point of departure when making decisions about planning. Bremholm and Skott (2019) explore teacher planning in mathematics and L1 Danish, focusing particular on the role of learning outcomes (LOs) in planning at both teacher and school levels. Their argument for connecting LO and planning is that “teachers are expected to translate general, abstract learning outcomes in policy documents into meaningful content and concrete, measurable outputs, and to decide on materials, activities, and instructional approaches” (Bremholm and Scott, 2019: 2), meeting the interests and needs of a diverse student body. Their study indicates that the particularities of the teachers’ practices and the barriers they constitute in regard to a learning outcome when planning might be understood as a consequence of a complex interplay between various factors, such as the teachers’ trust in instructional materials, their faith in professional experience, teachers’ working conditions, their use of national standards, and their prioritization of general pedagogical values.

McDuffie et al. (2018) have examined specific ways that US teachers interact with different types of current curriculum programs (described as a resource for planning teaching and learning, including curriculum materials as well as focal pedagogical approaches), and with the CCSSM (common core state standards for mathematics, outlining what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade). Findings indicated that the designated curriculum and curriculum programs contributed to differing interpretations of the CCSSM and served as a lens for how teachers construct an intended curriculum and then enact it. A third example is Bieda et al. (2020), who studied how social and institutional contexts influence the nature of teachers’ lesson planning practice in the case of early career mathematics teachers in four different school districts in the United States. They found that differences in the curriculum corresponded with differences in how the teachers utilized curricular objectives and instructional materials, as well as how they engaged with colleagues. More particularly, the ways the districts mandated around the curriculum, the teachers’ access to support in the form of interactions with colleagues and grade-level planning meetings, the use of assessment data, and the source of instructional materials were all found to be key factors for and in teachers’ planning.

Summing up taking policies as a point of departure, the studies clearly show that policies do not function alone in teachers’ planning practice. Personal, pedagogical, social, and institutional factors are all intertwined with the influence of policies. However, where the emphasis lies might be influenced by the educational contexts or the teachers’ professional space.

When it comes to studies which approach planning as a pedagogical construct, several curriculum models for planning have been introduced over the years (Rusznyak and Walton, 2011). A more recent example is the quantitative study by González et al. (2020) on Colombian mathematics teachers, where a curriculum model is used as an analytical tool, sharing processes and ideas with most other models and schemes proposed for (lesson) planning (González et al., 2020: 263). With a point of departure in Lattuca and Stark (2009) and others, they argue for four dimensions of planning: conceptual, cognitive, formative, and social—factors linked to the content to be taught, the way students learn, teaching methodologies, and the way teachers plan to evaluate students (González et al., 2020: 262). They found that the teachers studied showed no systematic, global, or consistent vision of lesson planning that would afford a coordinated approach. Most teachers focus their attention on a few of those variables that they consider dominant. The authors suggest that the reason for this might be a lack of systematic knowledge and skills developed in teacher education, which again leads to the predominance of personal beliefs about teaching and learning when planning.

Another example is Salminen and Annevirta (2016), who conducted a conceptual discussion, based on an interview study with Finnish teachers, on whether the curriculum should be viewed as the overall frame for teachers’ pedagogical thinking (preparation, decision-making, and theories and beliefs affecting their actions) when planning and acting, or whether the teachers’ pedagogical thinking should be proposed as the frame for their planning and actions. This thinking process also guides teachers’ decisions in planning and curriculum implementation. The results of this study show that some of the pedagogical purposes of curriculum changes did not occur in any of the teachers’ planning for teaching. The authors suggest that the wider purposes that influence the background of the curriculum are not present in the teachers’ discussions, and that the issues that teachers are aware of when planning for teaching are the ones most likely to happen in planning and teaching situations. Therefore, they suggest that teachers’ pedagogical thinking should be proposed as the frame for teachers’ planning and actions when educating future teachers.

As this literature review shows, there is a vast body of research on various aspects of planning practices. A prevailing characteristic across the studies approaching planning as a contextual construct is that the productive enactment and adoption of policies and curricula are responsive to the local (national) context, but that teachers’ preparation, decision-making, theories, and beliefs also affect their actions to a great extent. Hence, this study focuses on planning as a contextual phenomenon and neither approaches planning as a top-down framed activity nor as an individual or purely professional inward-out process. It likewise addresses the apparent lack of cross-national comparative studies specifying contextual factors that influence teachers’ overall planning.

Teachers’ planning and professional space

In order to comprehend the contextual factors influencing teachers’ planning practices, we will analyze our data and discuss the findings through the theoretical notion of “professional space.” We propose “professional space” as an alternative concept, or at least as an expansion of studies using professional autonomy (Maaranen and Afdal, 2022). Hence, by embracing the concept of professional space, we enable teachers to actively position themselves as decision-makers in the planning process, rather than being mainly influenced by external and contextual factors. This approach allows us to examine teachers as individuals who reflect on their role and agency within their professional space during the planning phase, and to explore the specific professional space within which they operate. Therefore, the use of “professional space” as an analytical tool provides a more nuanced perspective, going beyond viewing teacher planning practices as merely autonomous actions (Oolbekkink-Marchand et al., 2017; Priestley et al., 2015).

It is important to note that teachers also contribute to the creation of space through their professional activities, including planning. This space is not subjective but rather collective, arising from their practices. Consequently, practices are interconnected across physical spaces. Schatzki refers to this interconnection as nexuses of practices (Hui et al., 2017). According to Schatzki (2010), who introduced the concept of timespace, time and space are intertwined aspects of social reality in a broad sense and practices in a narrower sense. Time and space are entangled within social practices through aims and drivers that possess affective characteristics. For instance, a teacher might incorporate experiences from earlier in their career, theoretical knowledge acquired during teacher education, as well as past and present policy elements into their planning practice. Past, present, future, and various other practices become interwoven within the planning process, not as separate stages, but as dimensions that emerge in the present moment. Therefore, time and space are both produced through practices and form the basis of planning practices. Our understanding of the professional space within which teachers engage in planning is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Teachers’ professional space.

Traditionally, the teacher’s professional space has been understood as being immediate and closely connected to the student-teacher relationship. However, we perceive space not as a localized phenomenon, but rather as a network. Consequently, the teacher's planning practice is influenced by elements and actors that exist both in close proximity, such as the physical classroom, pedagogical resources, and school leadership, as well as by elements at distant locations, including global factors like tests, standards, discourses, international actors, and various forms of monitoring.

The political and professional context of the three cases

For decades, the educational principle in Finland has been a non-regulatory, non-controlling, and non-testing tradition (Maaranen and Afdal, 2022; Sahlberg, 2021). Standardized testing is practically non-existent on a yearly or national basis (e.g., Lavonen, 2018; Simola, 2015), and the only high-stakes test, the matriculation exam at the end of high school, is taken by only about half of the age cohort (Maaranen and Stenberg, 2021). Schools can design their work independently, and teachers do not have to worry about someone auditing their skills or their ability to teach, since there is a culture of trust (Niemi, 2016; Paradis et al., 2019; Toom and Husu, 2016). The national core curriculum provides a foundation for local curricula, and contains the contents and aims for learning, but leaves the choice of methods and materials to the schools and teachers. The purpose of the curriculum is to enable a reform of school culture and school pedagogy, which will improve the quality of the learning process and enhance learning outcomes (Finnish National Agency for Education, n.d.-a). In general, in upper secondary school (i.e., high school), the guiding document is the general upper secondary syllabus, which builds on the basic education syllabus and contains the contents and aims for study. Students complete the general upper secondary syllabus by obtaining the required number of credits, and passing the matriculation examination is a prerequisite for applying to university (Finnish National Agency for Education, n.d.-b).

In contrast to Finland, Norway has moved toward accountability policies, frameworks, and guidelines since the turn of the millennium. Yet the accountability policies can be described as “softer” than in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom (Mausethagen, 2013), even though the teaching profession is more controlled than in Finland. The curriculum design in Norway is outcome-based, national testing of basic skills was introduced in 2004, and school inspection is part of the Norwegian education system (e.g., Hall, 2017). The national curriculum from 2006 had a strong emphasis on learning outcomes and national tests, which changed the teachers’ autonomy considerably (Lennert da Silva and Mølstad, 2020). In the most recent curriculum reform, Curriculum Renewal 2020, the number of learning outcomes has been reduced slightly, and there is a tendency for teachers to be given more independence in their daily work.

The state of California was chosen to be the example case in the United States. Although each state in the United States has different structures and frameworks for the teaching profession and school systems, a common, well-known characteristic is that the education system is strongly framed by accountability policies (Mehta, 2014). The federal law mandates that state standards need to be developed for states to receive federal assistance, and hence each state has developed content standards for each school subject based on the national Common Core. Each state is divided into school districts with a relatively high level of authority when it comes to benchmarking, testing, and selection of teaching material and educational programs. Benchmark assessment is uniform in time and content across classrooms, and schools are usually administrated at the school and school district level. Accountability testing, lack of power, the sense of being scrutinized, student misbehavior, and a heavy workload all have a negative effect on teachers' work (Kaynak, 2020).

In the United States, lesson planning differs depending on whether the local authority (the district) has a strict, prescribed curriculum which the teachers need to follow closely, or whether some freedom is provided when choosing the scope or sequence of the contents (see Bieda et al., 2020: 795). The support the teachers receive from the district or school also differs (Bieda et al., 2020: 796), but a common denominator is that the planning is driven by test-based student performance and learning outcomes (Bieda et al., 2020: 770).

Thus, the three cases have been carefully selected due to their differences, ranging on a scale from little or no control to heavily formal and external control over schools and teachers. Norway holds an intermediate position on the scale, while Finland is particularly interesting on account of its high ranking of student test results.

Data and participants

The data consist of a total of 47 semi-structured interviews (teacher 1–47) with teachers, which were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Table 1 provides an overview of the interviewees. We wanted to include teachers from both primary schools and high schools in each case.

Table 1.

Overview of the interviewees.

	Primary schools (P)	High schools (H)	Total number	Male	Female
Finnish teachers (FI)	9	8	17	4	13
Norwegian teachers (NO)	7	8	15	4	11
US teachers (US)	7	8	15	3	12

Additional selection criteria were that the group of high school teachers in each case should represent subject teachers within the natural sciences, language, and arts. We wanted to include both primary and high school teachers because primary school teachers in all three contexts are teaching multiple school subjects while high school teachers are more specialized and teach one to three school subjects. We also wanted to include a variety of subject teachers to make sure that we were covering a variety of planning practices. We used snowball sampling in our selection of teachers. The length of their experience as teachers varied between four and 30 years. The number of male/female interviewees represents the general trend of gender distribution in the profession.

Each interview lasted between 60 and 90 min. Interviewees were asked to reflect on their way of planning (from annual planning down to single lesson planning), opportunity to engage in decision-making, how they approached assessment and documentation, collaborations with colleagues, development of teaching over time, and how they experienced restrictions and freedom in their professional work in general. Additionally, we asked the teachers to draw two curves showing how they experienced “given space” (professional space provided by the professional environment in various ways) and “utilized space” (to what extent the teachers themselves had utilized this space alone or collectively in their professional work) over time (Maaranen and Afdal, 2022).

Comparing and contextualizing

This study explores and compares temporal, spatial, and managerial aspects of teachers’ professional space when engaging in planning in three different contexts. Besides the more obvious reasons for conducting comparative research, such as identifying similarities and differences between cases, the benefits of comparing in this case are to deepen understanding of the relationship between various aspects of education and its societal, cultural, and professional context. The comparisons highlighted in this study aim to contribute to empirical, theoretical, practical, and political discussions on how teachers in the three cases have to negotiate their professional space when carrying out their planning (Afdal, 2019). The number of teachers interviewed does not provide for generalization to national or state contexts, but we contend that our analysis does provide the basis for a discussion on how teachers experience their professional space when planning in three educational contexts.

As elaborated above, we selected the teachers carefully in terms of country/state, number, educational level, as well as major subject. Further, the three municipalities where we conducted our research may be categorized as upper middle-class communities where student results are above average. Finally, the interview guide was developed with the three countries and languages in mind, aiming to cover themes and concepts that would be relevant and relatable in all three contexts (Goitom, 2020). Both authors have spent an extended period of time in the US context, as a student or as a researcher (1.5 and 4 years), and between us we have accumulated profound knowledge of the educational context in the three countries. Our theory-inspired, abductively developed analysis (see next section) further streamlined the comparison with regard to temporal, spatial, and managerial aspects of teachers’ professional space when planning. In addition, we conducted a coarse-grained comparison between primary school and high school teachers. To meet the contextual, linguistic, and organizational challenges when conducting comparative research, we discussed the design of the study and the interview guide and preliminary analysis with teachers and researchers in the three country contexts. Furthermore, we studied and discussed educational structures and policies with native educators, school leaders, and researchers. Finally, we strove for thick contextual description and rich use of interview excerpts to demonstrate transparency in the analysis.

Analytical strategy

We began by reading the transcripts, identifying spatial and temporal aspects of planning practice mentioned by the teachers. In the subsequent round of coding, we added sub-codes, as depicted in Table 2. Initially, the sub-codes on temporal and spatial aspects were developed based on our theoretical take on professional space. However, in the process of our analysis, we adjusted and refined the sub-codes according to the content of the data.

Table 2.

Coding scheme 1.

Main codes	Sub-codes	Empirical sensitivities
Temporal	From past to present	Describe changes over time in frames for planning practices
	Present	Planning practice here and now, overlap with “spatial near” and “spatial personal”
	Future	Describe expectations for the future
Spatial	Nea	“Hands-on” descriptions of present space for planning practices, teamwork, collaboration, etc.
	Personal	Space for personal commitment and values
	Distant	National/state influences, parental influence, frequently double-coded with “managerial, above” and “external”

Early on in the analysis process, we found that managerial aspects influencing the teachers’ opportunities to make decisions on planning, such as school management, school districts, and national/state-wide management, were prominent special aspects of teachers’ planning practice, especially in the United States and Norwegian cases. Based on these early findings in our analysis and similar findings in an earlier study (Maaranen and Afdal, 2022), we emphasized managerial aspects, meaning how various layers of educational leadership appear to be influential for teachers’ perceptions of professional space for planning. Hence, we decided to explicate the managerial aspect with a separate coding scheme. The sub-codes on managerial aspects were mainly developed inductively.

We coded one US interview jointly while simultaneously refining the codes and the empirical sensitivities, before dividing the rest of the interviews between us. The author domiciled in each country conducted the first round of interview coding with the Finnish and Norwegian teachers separately, as well as the rest of the US interviews. After conducting the first round of coding on the entire dataset, we discussed and refined the coding scheme further based on the characteristics of the data material. Lastly, we conducted a second round of coding based on the final coding scheme (Tables 2 and 3), dividing the interviews between us in the same manner as in the first round. To prevent the coding scheme from leading to a static outline of planning practices, transcript passages are quite frequently given several codes. In such cases, we have paid special attention to possible contradictions or dynamics influencing the teachers’ planning practices.

Table 3.

Coding scheme 2.

Main codes	Sub-codes	Empirical sensitivities
Managerial	External	Influence by corporate initiatives brought in by the authorities
	Above	National/state influences
		Parental influence
	Local authorities	District-/school-level influence

Results

In this section, we will begin by presenting the commonalities between the three cases, before comparing the cases and the two grade levels. Finally, we will present an in-depth analysis of each of the three cases.

Developed, managed, and decided upon from within

To begin with, our analysis shows that both long- and short-term planning is predominantly considered a practice developed, managed, and decided upon from within the profession, either individually and/or in teams locally in all three country contexts (managerial within, spatial near, and personal). The specified restrictions are very rarely prioritized when the teachers are planning for teaching and learning activities, especially when planning day-to-day activities in the classroom.

In the Finnish case, the teachers reported having broad pedagogical freedom to plan and realize their teaching as they wished. They are trusted professionals and there is a lack of outside or managerial control or evaluation. The primary school teachers in particular emphasized their autonomy in choosing the content, methods, materials, scheduling, grouping of students, and formation of co-teaching pairs if preferred.

Freedom to plan all kinds of things, and to experiment. Freedom to experiment, that’s it. And freedom to fail, that too. I create situations so that I can say, for example, “Now you kids can see that this didn’t work, so next time we’ll do it better.” So I show them that you can fail, and that it’s okay to fail. (19FI-P)

The teachers have the freedom to collaborate with each other if they wish, and they do not have to use any particular published material series. They emphasized the national core curriculum providing guidelines for the contents and aims.

Freedom. Well, pedagogical freedom, as I said at the beginning [of the interview]. I think it’s nice that you can plan independently. You can use your strengths, and if you have a co-teacher or a partner, then you can use their strengths. But of course, the [national core] curriculum sets the limits on what needs to be covered. (18FI-P)

In the Norwegian case, the teachers emphasized extensive autonomy when it comes to selecting teaching methods when planning. Hence, how to organize teaching and learning within the classroom setting:

I have very … extensive …, that is … I have extensive freedom in terms of how I set up my teaching. The frames for my teaching. What I do inside the classroom. The methods … Selection of texts … I feel that I have … a lot of freedom to plan my teaching the way I want. (42NO-H)

However, long-term and weekly planning in teams has been the norm among primary school teachers for the last 10–15 years in Norway. It has also gradually increased at the secondary level over the same period of time. The teachers saw this as positive with regard to quality assurance, variation in the selection of teaching methods and content, equal opportunities for students across classrooms, and as time-saving. They also described it as a stimulus for developing their own planning process:

I think my teaching is improving because I get new ideas when planning with others. You can get a bit stuck in your ways because the days are so hectic, and you end up doing the same thing every year. But then you get spurred on by others, and that's very important. (38NO-P)

In the US case as well, planning is widely regarded as managed from within the profession, individually or in teams within the school context.

So we’re given a lot of freedom in our district. Usually they give us, you know, the basics like a reading curriculum, math, science and social studies, and then we can use those as a kind of baseline, and we’re actually more encouraged to use them as a jumping-off point, especially at our school. So then we can expand on it and provide our students with that experience, like hands-on, and dive deeper when we see something that sparks their interest, allowing them the freedom to deepen their knowledge and then demonstrate what they’ve learned, either by way of a presentation or an experiment or some kind of activity. (10US-P)

Both subject-specific vertical teams and grade-level teams were identified by the US teachers. However, teamwork seemed to be less prevalent and more voluntarily or loosely coupled in the US case and did not necessarily deal with the day-to-day planning. One illustrative example was described by the following teacher:

Yeah, because we’re organized, we really have three kinds of professional development cohorts that we are involved in. There’s kind of your grade level, where we meet once or twice a month. That’s where we work on the nuts and bolts of the curriculum that we’re teaching. Since I’m ESL, I just do it by myself, but everybody else has colleagues to do that with. Then once a month, we meet as a department, and that’s where we deal with more big picture stuff. (1US-H)

The three cases and the two grade levels

Table 4 summarizes the main similarities and differences that emerged when analyzing the three cases, shedding light on the variations between high school teachers’ and primary school teachers’ views on decision-making when planning. Features common to all three cases and across teaching levels included the amount of teaching experience influencing both the selection of content, methods, and amount of time used for planning.

Table 4.

Aspects influencing teachers’ planning practices: Comparing high school and primary school teachers’ views.

	Primary school	High school
Finnish case	- Independent decision-making on most issues	- Independent decision-making on most issues
	- Co-teaching or team teaching and planning	- Some co-planning
	- Independent planning, no written plans required	- Very little documentation (i.e., no written plans) is required
	- Benefits of teaching the same children for a long time	- Matriculation exam (ME)
	- Amount of teaching experience	- Amount of teaching experience
US case	- Freedom comes with good scores	- Freedom comes with good scores
	- Principal	- School district
	- Parents’ support	- Common core
	- Common core/benchmarking	- State testing
	- Educational programs	- Parents’ expectations and demands
	- Composition of the student group/class	- Tradition of discipline/canon
	- Sensitive topics	- Sensitive topics
	- Amount of teaching experience	- College readiness
Norwegian case	- National curriculum goals	- Tradition of discipline/canon
	- National and local tests	- Final exams (implicit curriculum goals)
	- Material/special/financial frames	- Liberal art subjects vs. major subjects
	- Composition of the student group/class	- Material/financial frames
	- Amount of teaching experience	- Vocational subjects vs. general studies

As illustrated above, in all three cases, professional freedom and independence when planning was highlighted by the teachers. The Finnish teachers described this as independence and trust, the Norwegian teachers as methodological freedom, while the US teachers connected freedom to good results. In the Finnish case, the matriculation exams (a prerequisite for university entrance) stand out as influential, while national/state-wise policy frames and the nature of the student group were emphasized in the United States and Norway. Additionally, in the US case, parents and school principals were regarded as influential when it comes to planning decisions.

A few differences between the grade levels are well worth mentioning. Unexpectedly, final exams or “college readiness” play a significant role in high school teachers’ planning. We also found that traditions related to the discipline and/or canon in a school subject play a significant role for high school teachers. In the US case, parents were regarded as influential and viewed more as potential resources when planning in primary school, while in high school many parents were seen as adding an additional layer of demands coming from above. Parents’ feedback and reactions were described as a strong force influencing planning.

In the next section, we will focus in greater depth on the dimensions within each case that teachers regarded as having an influence on their opportunity to make planning decisions.

Further exploration of the three cases

The Finnish case

Local authorities do not play much of a role for Finnish teachers. In the Finnish case, the primary teachers emphasized the pedagogical freedom to plan teaching independently or with colleagues, if they decided to do so. For example, there are no requirements for written plans, such as lesson plans. The teachers document their planning in written form, but only for their own use. They also want to be able to justify their pedagogical decision-making to parents, if asked to do so. Money can be a factor that restricts planning somewhat, if it is not possible to fund something, but the teachers largely emphasized that they could plan and make decisions autonomously (spatial near). Examples of issues the teachers raised that have an effect on their planning include individual development goals for their students or multi-age group teaching. The principal does not control or micro-manage the teachers’ work. The entire working culture is founded on trust and, in general, Finnish teachers are not inspected, monitored, observed, or evaluated. One teacher (18FI-P) also mentioned that as her superior (principal) does not even know what is going on in the classroom, it would not be feasible for him to evaluate her work.

23FI-P: The spirit is such that you can realize [teaching] the way you want. For example, we were given the possibility to begin to co-teach.

Interviewer: Was it your idea [to co-teach]? So, you took the initiative and presented it [to the principal], and it was accepted?

23FI-P: Yes. And it was like this great moment that we were allowed to do what we wanted to do. Just producing the lesson content and such. At least for me it was revitalizing because we could realize it so creatively, and no one said that this is the way you have to do it.

Managerial above did not appear in the Finnish primary teachers’ interviews. National tests in primary school have very little effect on planning since they are practically non-existent, although the core curriculum is essential.

19FI-P: Planning? I don’t know … The national core curriculum provides the contents, but… Of course, the national core curriculum affects my planning because it lays down the guidelines…

Interviewer: Do national tests have an effect on your teaching or your planning?

19FI-P: What national tests do first-, and second-graders take? Some reading tests [administered by the special education teacher], but they’re not national. They’re tools so I can see how they’re doing in their reading at a particular point. … National tests, I don’t understand [what you mean] [laughing].

However, in the Finnish case, high school teachers’ work differs greatly in respect of the level of outside aspects influencing their work. This means that the managerial above category includes issues related to the matriculation exam (ME). The majority of the Finnish high school teachers (12) mentioned that the ME affected their planning. The matriculation exam is a final (exit) exam from Finnish high school and is extremely important for students as it determines their chances of getting into university or college. Although Finnish high school teachers also have the pedagogical freedom to conduct their planning and teaching as they wish, the ME affects the content of their teaching as well as the form of the assignments they set. They emphasized that they need to prepare students for the exam as effectively as possible. Planning became easier for the teachers over time, however, as they became more familiar with the students and mastered the content knowledge.

Teachers are somewhat restricted by financing in the sense that money might place limits on the kind of field trips they can realize. On the one hand, the high school teachers felt that they were under pressure to teach to the ME, but they also felt that they were able to take independent decisions on how they taught. However, they emphasized the use of book series, which were chosen together as a subject group. These books are designed to meet the requirements of the ME as closely as possible.

It depends on the course. If we talk about the mandatory courses, then you count on the teaching materials because they are produced according to the latest curriculum, in which case you don’t necessarily have to think about the ME but teach according to the book instead. Of course, I sometimes add something extra, and when it comes to essay writing, for example, you tend to mention [to the students] that this is what they’ll need [in the ME], or that this will be a probable essay type [in the ME]. So for the basic courses, I rely on the publishers’ capability to design materials that meet the requirements of the ME. (28FI-H)

The teachers emphasized the ME guiding the choice of task types, with a view to students practicing tasks typical of the ME. These include foreign language listening comprehension tests, particular reading comprehension tests, essay types, problem-solving tasks, and so on. To this end, the high school teachers reported on the amount of influence the ME has on their opportunity to plan independently:

32FI-H: Very much. I mean in the way that you need to think responsibly. You could do all kinds of fun things during the lessons, but then at the back of your mind there’s the thought that the students need to do as well as possible in the exam. So, it’s something that really influences your teaching.

29FI-H: Well, the students really study hard for the ME, in terms of what the exam might include. But we have lots of special courses that surpass the ME contents, but then, I don’t know … you kind of have to act like everything is worth studying, so that students gain depth of knowledge. […] But really, it’s obvious that we are working at the mercy of the exam.

The more successful the students are in the matriculation exam, the greater their chances of getting into university. Getting a place in Finnish higher education is very competitive, and only 30% of applicants are offered a place directly after graduating from high school (Statistics Finland, 2020). This pressure is reflected in the teachers’ orientation toward planning and teaching.

External aspects do not appear in the Finnish case.

The Norwegian case

Despite the notion of methodological freedom and the advantage of teamwork, two overriding factors mentioned by the Norwegian teachers were the national curriculum (above) and the national competence goals in particular. They form the basis for all planning activities:

It’s varied through the years, but … yes, the curriculum goals form the basis. They’re the ones we base our planning on. We put them into an annual plan or a half-year plan, and work according to them. It’s also clear that it works sometimes, but it’s time-consuming because then you have to look for the right teaching material to reach the various curriculum goals. (33NO-P)

This was the unanimous view among the primary school teachers. Intertwined with the emphasis on curriculum goals, the high school teachers added that final exams likewise influence and steer both their long- and short-term planning. The teachers’ notion of the learning outcomes seemed ambiguous, however. Some argued that curriculum goals ensure quality and equality for students:

I think the competence goals provide quality assurance because ... if some colleagues don’t look at the plans at all, students may end up learning about the same topic three years in a row, because of a change of teacher perhaps. But if the plans are well anchored in the curriculum, then there’s nothing to wonder about. This year we focus on this, and next year that ... . (33NO-P)

Others argued that the curriculum goals may restrict the teachers’ freedom to choose, both when it comes to teaching methods and subject-specific content:

As the curriculum goals have become a little more specific over the years, it’s clear that you lose some of the opportunity to ... yes, choose yourself then. […] I’m concerned that we must be allowed to explore the various subjects … and use our professionality. And be allowed to have that freedom too. (49NO-H)

Only a couple of teachers described the national guidelines as coming from a place spatially distant and unconnected to the teaching and learning environment, with peripheral or less influence on their planning.

External aspects influencing the management of the Norwegian teachers’ planning include textbooks, teacher’s guides, and corporate-developed teaching programs brought in by local authorities. Such material may include suggestions for annual course plans, as well as individual lesson plans. However, only a small proportion of the teachers admitted to using such material as a basis for their planning, describing educational programs as one of several resources, and citing the Internet as the main resource.

Local authorities were highlighted as influential for the Norwegian teachers’ planning practice. Local authorities such as principals and vice-principals influence the teachers’ planning practice indirectly through the development of annual and weekly schedules as well as financial and organizational frameworks, but not in terms of hands-on and daily leadership. Still, our analysis also shows that there is stricter management of teachers’ time and activities in primary rather than secondary schools. Lack of financial resources as a basis for creative and innovative planning of teaching and learning also appear more challenging for teachers in primary schools. A leader who is clear, who participates and listens, was also emphasized as a basis for quality assurance when planning.

A personal aspect influencing planning entailed teachers’ concerns about planning “well enough” and not letting it affect family and leisure activities. However, the overall personal issue put forward was the effect that experience had on the teachers’ opportunity to allocate enough time for planning.

Yes, it’s so good to have years of experience. Coupled with the fact that you’re confident in yourself and know that you can “hang in there”. That’s a good feeling. And you can notice that parents, colleagues and the principal can draw on your experience. It feels really good. (37NO-P)

Almost all of the teachers argued that they used to have much more time to plan and develop their teaching before, and that the time available for planning had been drastically reduced in the last few years due to increasing administrative tasks and meetings. In primary school, the teachers connect this to more documentation requirements and meetings in connection with students’ socio-emotional welfare.

Yes, I had a lot more time before and that’s because there are a lot more meetings and paperwork, and more collaboration with other professions. That’s good in a way, but there’s much more collaboration with educational and psychological counselling services and child welfare services, for example. We have numerous big issues to deal with. (35NO-P)

In secondary school, a more common argument is the increase in teaching hours, compulsory office hours and meetings, which affect the time available for planning and hence its quality.

The work environment has tightened up a bit. There are both compulsory office hours [when not teaching] and mandatory collaboration, not to mention more teaching hours. We have actually got more teaching hours per week nowadays. All in all, it eats up the time that allows me to be creative and plan my lessons. (46NO-H)

When the teachers were talking about the future, two dimensions appeared. Firstly, the teachers’ negotiations between setting short-term goals (reaching competence goals/tests) and more long-term goals, educating participating citizens and the bildung dimension.

We really try to focus on both, but of course we probably work on the short-term goals first. That's what we talk about mostly with the children, but then we also try to focus on the long-term goals, because we always get the famous question, why should we learn it here? Basically, we try to focus on the useful values and the fact that you have to be able to read to be able to cope at secondary school and upper secondary school, in order to get a job and so on. (35NO-P)

Secondly, the teachers’ responses regarding how managerial frames would affect their opportunity to make decisions when planning ranged from “the structural frames will be tighter,” including more competence goals, more tests, office hours, and documentation, to optimism about extending their professional space, as a result of prospects provided by the new national curriculum and new school leadership.

The US case

Although planning one’s teaching was also widely regarded among the US teachers as being managed from within, the state’s adoption of the common core and standards (above), improvement programs (external), management of school districts, standards and benchmarking, and principals (local authorities) were described as playing a significant role in the provision of space for decision-making on planning. This has been described as a “trickle-down” effect and connected to funding. The states are held accountable through the federal common core, and the school district and the principals by the states through benchmarking. However, most of the US teachers described themselves as relaxed concerning the common core.

I think it’s more of an end game, kind of the end goal. I sort of cover all of the units by the end. But when it comes to my English classes, if they said, well, what standard are you teaching today, I could tell them … You know … I don’t subscribe to the idea, I mean some teachers do, where they tell the student we’re learning the XYZ standard of, you know, … Reading literature. I don’t do that. I don’t know whether knowing that they’re reading a standard is going to help them connect to the curriculum. I’d rather they had an emotional and, like, a feeling type of connection to their curriculum as opposed to just feeling like, oh, we’re checking something off to do. (7US-H)

Based on former experiences, both primary and secondary school teachers underlined that due to the fact that their school district was a high-performing district in terms of student test scores, the pressure on the schools and the teachers was lower than in low-performing school districts.

I think when you’re a lower-performing district, you have more sets of eyes on you, so you have got to have more documentation. Because the county office of education is going “Oh you’re deficient”, or the state or the feds, so when you’re working at schools that are deficient based on standardized test scores, then things tend to become regimented because you’re filling out reports and then it just becomes crazy. You just become a box checker. We’re having a fight right now with the district about these silly kinds of interim standardized test assessments, which we think aren’t very well designed and aren’t giving us very much information. (1US-H)

In addition, the teachers questioned who the collection and use of data from standardized tests benefited. This raises the question of whether it is possible to collect test results which both benefit policy development and steering strategies, as well as form the basis for feedback and formative assessment for students.

External aspects influencing the space for decision-making for US teachers are often corporate-developed teaching programs offered by the state. The complexity of the standards, the larger population of students, and the requirement for collecting test results (being accountable) all lead to the increasing use of more preplanned teaching programs (curriculum).

The way my planning works is to have certain standards now, and the district offers you a certain curriculum. There’s a new language arts curriculum that just came out this last year called Wonders. Terrible! There’s a math program, there’s a social studies program. But really, you’re accountable for these standards that the state of California gives you. I’d love to just have dynamic lessons for everything. But the way I do it is that I use the new language arts program. We just do it, and see what's good, and then you kind of pull out different things and you kind of put in your own assignments. (8US-H)

As the programs are developed at a distance from classrooms and local school cultures, many of the teachers questioned their quality, in addition to the feeling of not being trusted in planning and facilitating an adequate teaching and learning environment. Additionally, the more top-down decision-making, the whole structure of capitalism with the ultimate goal of making money, and the general educational climate in the world were aspects that some of the US teachers saw as distant but as nonetheless influential in terms of their planning (and teaching in general).

Personal aspects that exerted an influence varied a great deal among the US teachers. Among the aspects mentioned were their attitude toward documentation, teamwork, teaching experience, student care, and the amount of time and effort they were willing to expend. However, a common characteristic among many of the US teachers involved stories about how they had found their own way and identity through the complexity of demands and requirements when planning. Below is an extract from such a story.

I think one of the biggest things that I’ve done over the course of my 22 years is to allow myself to step back and not have to feel like I’m in control of what they’re learning to a timeline. It takes a while to understand that everybody learns differently, and everybody learns at a different pace. For a while it was, like, I have until this date, you need to get it done and it needs to be done right! It was tied to a curriculum and that was tied to a manual, which was tied to a workbook and that was tied to homework, and it was … very … Binding. And then once I started letting things go a little bit, like homework, it was a little scary at first, but it was very freeing, and I could see like a growth in my students. They understand, like, I can’t finish it at school today, but I have time to finish it at home and I’ll bring it back tomorrow. So that level of stress, not finishing your classwork and then having more homework, is eliminated. So those two things, stepping back a little bit and letting go of homework, were pretty mind-blowing for me. To break away from that tradition. (8US-H)

The increase in top-down decision-making in the educational sector also came up when the teachers talked about changes over time in their planning. Developing teaching quality through building on former experiences when planning, in a trial and error manner, as well as based on evaluation and assessment of former teaching sessions, changed their planning over time.

So as a new teacher, I walked into the classroom and had nothing, like I didn’t know what they had read, what they hadn’t read or what the options were. So, I had a mentor teacher who helped me find books, but when it came to planning, I was basically just a page ahead of the kids, you know planning for the next day, because I was kind of like hired on Friday, start on Monday, so that first year was a little hellacious. But after that, I started planning with other people and around my third year, I started teaching a class with another teacher and we were partners. We taught all the students that particular honors freshman English class, and we planned together every day. (14US-P)

Changes in perspective through the life course in general were also mentioned as having an influence on perspectives on subjects, pupils, teaching, and therefore also on planning. The emergence of technology has also reframed teachers’ decision-making in this respect. One final aspect regarding changes over time is the reduced space for teachers when teaching subjects involving discussion, such as politics, religion and/or evolution. A few teachers mentioned rather strong restrictions with regard to planning and performing “neutral” teaching over time. In terms of planning, this means that they have to consider very carefully what kind of words to use and what kind of discussions to include and avoid in the classroom. This became more and more challenging as the diversity among the students increased.

Like, you’re not supposed to share your political views, and you’re not supposed to share your religious views, or at least you can’t promote them in any way. It’s complicated. Like, I used to teach a novel called The Promise, which is about an Orthodox Jew and his Hasidic Jewish friend, so it’s very hard to talk about the culture they’re living in when maybe the context is very foreign to our kids, right? It’s New York, it’s a Hasidic community, it’s an Orthodox Jewish community, so when trying to contextualize that for them, I got into trouble when a parent actually accused me of trying to indoctrinate their Mormon child into Judaism, and I was, like, well, I’m not Jewish so… (14US-P)

In terms of the future, two main issues arose. Firstly, the belief in more restrictions on planning, and less autonomy and space to practice as a professional. However, the more experienced teachers also underlined that they took more liberties in pushing the boundaries the older they got, and the more experience they gained.

Well, due to many factors, and what’s going on in today’s world with education, I see freedom being restricted. I’m not given the respect as an educator to utilize my professional space. However, I think as long as I don’t have an enormous problem with a student or family or make a major mistake, something like that …. If the principal stays on… I think it will just continue like that … We’ve had a lot of changes at our school, but I haven’t felt any changes in the space. I mean, things change, and some things may happen, but I don’t think that it will change that much. (12US-P)

As our comparative analysis shows, the teachers’ opportunities to make decisions when planning were influenced by a complex combination of knowledge, skills, understanding, values, attitudes, and desires (cf. Munthe and Conway, 2017), as well as by top-down and inward-out decisions, and close and distant aspects across the three cases.

Concluding discussion

The analysis in this article shows that, at first glance, the teachers in the three cases regarded the space for making decisions as open and extensive. Hence, one could draw the conclusion that the teachers are positioned as active decision-makers when it comes to planning teaching and learning activities, and that we find more similarities than differences across the three country contexts. This somewhat contradicts the findings of González et al. (2020) that there is no systematic, global, or consistent vision for lesson planning. Based on the analysis, we can also add that the space for making planning decisions is clearly influenced by the amount of teaching experience in all three cases. However, the main contribution of this study is that it delves deeper into the teachers’ stories and illuminates in what ways the teachers’ opportunities to make planning decisions may vary across the three country contexts, influenced by factors near and distant as well as aspects from the past, present and future. Hence, our study expands on Bremholm and Skott's (2019) argument that teachers do in fact “translate” external and internal professional requirements, taking into account personal and local knowledge, values, and beliefs, as well as the diversity of the local context and student body. Figure 2 summarizes the commonalities and differences between the three cases according to our findings.

Figure 2.

Overview of the findings.

Finland is the case that stands out in our comparison in terms of professional trust, freedom, and independence permeating temporal, spatial, and managerial factors influencing teachers’ opportunities to make decisions when planning. This indicates that planning is regarded as a pedagogical construct to a large extent (cf. Salminen and Annevirta, 2016). In Norway and the United States, freedom and independence are more restricted to choosing teaching methods (near and present), while national guidelines/standards and parents (above, near, and distant) and school-level authorities are influential. We expected the differences between the US and Norwegian teachers to be larger due to differences in national/state accountability policies. Our findings may indicate that, for example, local authorities’ management strategies play a significant role in how teachers perceive their ability to make decisions for planning in addition to their personal and professional beliefs. This shows that planning is extensively influenced by policies, but also regarded as a complex interplay between various factors such as general pedagogical knowledge and values (cf. Bremholm and Skott, 2019). In the case of the United States, freedom and independence are present as long as test results are good (above) and district- and school-level guidelines are followed. The way that school districts mandate around the curriculum and curriculum material appears decisive in how the teachers negotiate the use of curricular objectives and instructional materials (Bieda et al., 2020). Pedagogical programs developed outside the school context are very much present in the US case (distant and external) and seem to provide directions for teacher planning rather extensively (cf. McDuffie et al., 2018). Finally, in the Norwegian and US cases, the analysis shows that the teachers have less time for planning than earlier.

Overall, the findings of our study are twofold. Firstly, that teachers’ opportunities to make planning decisions take place in a multidimensional space between professional autonomy and external control. Secondly, teachers’ opportunities to make these decisions are contextually situated in time and space.

As argued above, using professional space as an analytical tool not only allows us to explore how teachers are maneuvering in and influencing their professional space but also to explore the professional space itself. When addressing the question of how the teachers’ professional space for decision-making when planning can be understood across the three cases, it was evident that the teachers in all three country contexts are active decision-makers producing and shaping their professional space for making decisions about planning. They draw on, and are restricted by, resources and people close and distant. The point in time and amount of experience also influences the construction of professional space. The analysis also shows that time and space are entangled (timespace), and hence the teachers bring in a network of aspects across both dimensions in their planning practices (cf. Schatzki, 2010). On a daily basis, the space was experienced as open and fluid. However, in all three cases, the professional space was to various degrees shaped by contextual factors.

In Finland, very few contextual aspects across time and space serve to shape the professional space for decision-making, allowing teachers full rein in making decisions and shaping their planning practice. The professional space narrows, however, as the students’ progress toward their final exams (12^th grade). Arguing that Norway takes the middle ground when it comes to accountability policies, we had expected larger differences between the US and the Norwegian cases. However, in both cases, the analysis showed that the space is strongly influenced by both distant and near managerial aspects, as well as changes over time, narrowing down the professional space for planning. Corporate aspects were present in both the United States and Norway, but to a much greater extent in the United States, bringing in aspects from practices distant to the teachers’ daily professional praxis. A final aspect shaping the teachers’ space for planning was the use of teamwork in their planning practice. In Norway, in most cases, planning is institutionalized in the schools as a team effort, while in the other two countries, it appears to be more optional. Most of the Norwegian teachers argued that this served to open up their professional space both in terms of the time available for and the quality of their planning.

The limitations of this study must also be taken into consideration. The sample was limited, since it was both selective and convenient. Moreover, the samples were drawn from socio-economically average or above average regions in each of the countries. Thus, the results of this study must be interpreted with caution when it comes to being indicative of these phenomena. As the study is wholly qualitative, it must also be stated that its purpose is not to generalize, but rather to interpret and understand the data as broadly as possible. However, we recognize that future research on this topic should take into account the diversity of socio-economic regions. Furthermore, larger samples representing more diverse respondents would provide a broader picture of the phenomena in question.