Curriculum change in teachers’ experience: the social innovation perspective

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This article analyses teachers’ experience in the period of educational change in Estonia from 1989 to 2010. We review the introduction of the new national curricula and national exams. We show how, in the teachers’ experience, the period of change can be divided into two distinct periods. Firstly, the period of freedom and chaos in the early 1990s and, secondly, the period of tightening regulations and decreasing autonomy after the introduction of the national exams in 1997. Based on life history interviews with 24 teachers, we identify seven different responses to educational innovation. We assume that for a new educational policy to be successful, or to create social innovation, it has to be accepted by teachers not only on the regulative level but also on the normative level of values and social roles. We look at which of these responses can be classified as social innovation and assess the usefulness of the theory of social innovation in education studies.