Finnish primary teachers amidst the power struggles of the pedagogic device

While the recontextualisation process has been studied widely in recent years from the perspectives of curriculum theory, subject education, as well as vocational education, the recontextualisation of school subjects and knowledge at the primary level has received less attention. Drawing on Bernstein's pedagogic device, this chapter explores the power struggles related to the recontextualisation process. The context for this exploration is history teaching within the Finnish educational system. The aim of this chapter is not only to revisit the original device but also to build an interpretation of it, focusing specifically on primary teachers and their work at the classroom level. The empirical data comprises classroom observations and interviews with two primary teachers, Fiona and Brian. The findings suggest that Fiona and Brian promoted mostly substantive knowledge, which is only one dimension of vertical discourse, the others being second-order concepts and procedural knowledge. The interviews revealed that the official recontextualising field (ORF) in the form of the national curriculum had a minor influence on teachers' recontextualisation process. Textbooks, on the other hand, guided much of teachers' thinking. Thus, in Finland, the pedagogic recontextualising field seems to have an upper hand over the ORF at the classroom level.