Public Defence: Tiril Smerud Finnanger

Tiril Smerud Finnanger will defend her PhD degree in humanities, cultural and educational sciences. The topic of her thesis is teacher involvement in national curriculum reform.

06 Oct

Practical information

  • Date: 6 October 2025
  • Time: 10.00 - 15.00
  • Location: Vestfold, A1-30 Larvik and Zoom
  • Download calendar file

    • Link to digital participation (Zoom)

    Programme

    10.00 - 10.45 Trial lecture: Consider the relationships between teacher participation in curriculum making (with consideration of institutional power flows and structures) and their professional agency.

    12.00 Public defence

    Assessment committee

    • First opponent: Mark Priestley, University of Stirling.
    • Second opponent: Kirsi Pyhältö, University of Helsinki.
    • Administrator: Tonje Stenseth, University of South-Eastern Norway.

    Supervisors

    • Main supervisor: Professor Tine Sophie Prøitz, University of South-Eastern Norway.
    • Co-supervisor: Professor Henrik Bøhn, University of South-Eastern Norway.

    Public defence host:  Anika Aakerøy Jordbru, University of South-Eastern Norway.

Any questions?

Tiril Smerud Finnanger is defending her dissertation for the degree philosophiae doctor (PhD) at the University of South-Eastern Norway.portrett av kvinne med mørkt hår

The doctoral work has been carried out at the Faculty of Humanities, Sports, and Educational Science.

You are invited to follow the trial lecture and the public defence.

Summary

This doctoral thesis investigates how teachers were involved in the Norwegian LK20 curriculum reform and the extent to which they were able to influence its outcomes. The findings show a clear political strategy to involve teachers at both national and local levels, but also reveal important differences in how much influence teachers could exercise across these arenas.

At the national level, teachers were included in curriculum committees and consultation processes, and political documents emphasised their central role. However, their mandate was ambiguous and it was unclear how to ensure that teachers’ input would shape the final LK20 curriculum texts. Their contributions seem to have had limited impact on the national curriculum documents.

At the school level, by contrast, teachers had greater opportunities to shape the reform through local curriculum work. They were given freedom to decide on subject matter and teaching methods, which allowed them to influence how the reform was played out in practice. At the same time, their decisions were framed by broader systemic expectations, including loyalty to the national curriculum framework and curriculum work on the municipal level.

These findings highlight that curriculum reform is not only decided in political arenas but also negotiated and enacted across multiple levels of the education system. The study underscores the significant role of the national level in determining how much influence teachers ultimately have, even when teacher involvement is a stated political aim.

The thesis contributes to international research on curriculum reform by broadening the contexts in which teacher involvement has been studied and by focusing explicitly on teachers’ influence—an aspect that has received limited attention in earlier studies.

Methodologically, it introduces a novel approach by tracing teachers’ curricular suggestions through commentary processes and into final curriculum documents. Together, these contributions provide new insights into how teachers are positioned in large-scale reforms and the opportunities and constraints they face in influencing curriculum reform trajectories.