The curriculum is a crucial tool in guiding the development of mathematics teaching

and learning at a large scale. Normally changes to curricula take place gradually, but

in the long run even large paradigmatic shifts are possible. The recent development of

methods related to computer-based quantitative content analysis (CQCA) has led to

promising new opportunities in analysing the ideology that the core curriculum

explicitly stands for or more or less implicitly represents. In this study we have

applied the methods of CQCA in analysing the national Finnish framework curricula

for both comprehensive schools and for upper secondary schools. In particular we

have examined the extent to which each of these curricula emphasise the basic

components of the mathematical thinking that Zimmermann (2002) presented in his

octagon construct known as the ‘Zoctagon’.