This is a study of the storskifte reform (the Swedish equivalent of the Europe-wide enclosure movement), one of the major events in the history of the Finnish countryside from the mid-18th century onwards. In this work I analyse the storskifte from the local-community point of view. How did the peasantry react to the storskifte and how did the rural community actually change? The study area comprises four parishes, Ingå, Karis, Sjundeå and Tenala, situated in the province of Western Nyland at the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland. At the time Western Nyland was one of the most industrialised regions in Finland with a flourishing sawmill and iron industry.

In this study I demonstrate that enclosure was not implemented against the will of the peasant population, as has been previously assumed. Firstly, peasants actively applied for the privatisation of the commons: about 60% of all applicants were peasant farmers. The most active initiators were the so-called rusthållare (the ‘holders of the farm’, obliged to furnish a cavalryman). Every second rusthållare applied for enclosure. Secondly, there are no signs of peasant resistance, even though some farmers were afraid of the high costs. Even the landless population seems to have accepted the partition without opposition. Furthermore, the enclosure proceedings began immediately after the first enclosure statute of 1757. The very first enclosure was carried out at the village of Breds in the parish of Ingå in 1757, and the majority of the commons had been privatised by 1775. The heyday of privatisation came in the 1760s, when cereal prices were high. The storskifte reform started early in the Helsinki region and around the town of Lovisa too, whereas in the inland parishes of the province of Nyland storskifte proceedings were carried out much later. Thus, the proximity of large consumer centres, such as towns and other industrial centres, can be seen as by far the most important explanation for the diffusion of enclosure.

This positive attitude was largely due to the fact that landowners could decide the timing of the partition by themselves. The storskifte was not an enforced reform. The situation was different in the provinces of Ostrobotnia (then including Lapland), Savolax and Karelia, and later in the province of Viborg, where all common land was privatised at the same time as the implementation of fiscal reforms. According to the special enclosure statute for the southern provinces of Finland, enacted in 1766, county governors were entitled to initiate enclosure proceedings without consulting land-owners, and governors also exercised their powers in Western Nyland. Around 10–40% of all proceedings were carried out publicly. However, the enclosure process had begun long before these general regulations, therefore the vast majority of enclosures were eventually carried out privately.

In addition, the peasants were ready to abandon the common field system because it was prone to conflict. Some neighbours widened their narrow strips of land illegally, or logged more wood than others. The policing of property rights was difficult, especially in those villages where the commons were used for heavy land clearances and commercial purposes. Thus, as a consequence, privatising the commons was an attractive opportunity for a land-owner, as it was then much easier to determine what was mine and what was thine. Furthermore, privatisation facilitated the clearance of unproductive wastelands such as marshes and fens. As far as new settlements are concerned, the partition of commons failed to achieve its intended influence, as Western Nyland was already densely populated before the storskifte reform.

The results of the teacher survey showed that teachers considered the training valuable for their daily teaching practice. The laboratory course was regarded to be most valuable. The course dealing with theoretical principles of the perceptional approach was less advantageous. Approximately 20% of the teachers had changed their beliefs in the use of experiments after the ideas represented in the training program. There were no significant differences between the experimental and control groups in the views regarding the reasons for using experiments in teaching physics. The most important objective for practical work was to enhance students’ learning of concepts. According to teacher interviews, some teachers were influenced by the program and the way experiments could be used in supporting the creation of meanings for concepts. However, some teachers strongly held to their previous beliefs.

The effect of the training program on teachers’ beliefs about the concept of interaction as an organizing principle in teaching mechanics was examined using teacher interviews. The results showed no remarkable effects. However, the explicit use of interaction as a guiding principle in teaching Newtonian mechanics enhanced students’ conceptual understanding of force as measured with the Force Concept Inventory, which was translated into Finnish.

The two main parts of the work discuss the normative justifications and rationales for differentiated rights within liberalism (Part I) and the more practical problems of applying these rights in practice (Part II).

The first three chapters (Part I) analyse the so-called autonomy-, toleration- and equality-based approaches to cultural diversity as presented by Will Kymlicka, Chandran Kukathas and Brian Barry. This part argues that the autonomy-, toleration- and equality-based approaches provide frameworks within which the liberal responses to cultural diversity should reside, but fail to give any definitive guidance into how the liberal state should react to cultural diversity in particular circumstances. These approaches leave a substantive scope of variation to the cultural policies of the liberal state, including the possibility, albeit not a requirement, to grant differentiated rights.

The three latter chapters (Part II) develop a more individuated, yet culturally sensitive, approach to cultural diversity by concentrating on the further issues of allocating differentiated rights. The first chapter (Ch. 4) highlights the difficulties of defining one’s membership in a cultural group and argues that, in order to track their targets, the individually exercised differentiated rights should be allocated in accordance with need or self-identification. Chapter 5 develops the individual-centred approach further by concentrating on the issues of the right of exit, and the liberal state’s responses to those who have decided to leave the contours of their group without rejecting their identity as a member. The final chapter (Ch. 6) focuses on the legal-theoretical debate on allowing cultural defence in criminal courts and gives an application of the individuated approach in the criminal justice system.

The main claims of the work are that the liberal multiculturalists have been successful in clarifying the grounds upon which the liberal responses to cultural diversity should reside and in showing that the culturally differentiated rights (variously construed) are not necessarily incompatible with liberalism. The liberal multicultural theories do not, however, give any definitive guidance on how the liberal state should respond to cultural diversity, nor do they always take sufficiently into account the variations within (and without) cultural groups. The work rejects the common assumption of differentiated rights as specifically group-differentiated rights, and argues for a more individuated approach that, nevertheless, takes people’s cultural commitments and their group identities seriously.

The objective of this dissertation was to answer the following question: What was the impact of a particular merger process on the elements of customer orientation and the ability of employees to act in a customer-oriented way in certain parishes in the Helsinki city centre? The dissertation focused on the viewpoint of middle management, and the main data were derived from interviews with middle- management personnel.

During the planning phase of the merger of several Helsinki city centre parishes, some parish employees exhausted themselves in thinking about and commenting on the merger. It is likely that this negatively affected customer orientation in these parishes. Further, during and immediately after the merger and accompanying administrative change, many employees were mainly focused on the internal matters of the organisation. This reduced their ability to carry out their mission and to take customers’ needs into account.

The merger process of the Helsinki city centre parishes reached a stabilisation phase only after the administrative change, and the new merged parish gradually united also at the level of operational attitudes and procedures. The coordination and integration of activities as well as cooperation, which are enablers of optimal customer orientation, were also improved during this stabilisation phase.

The merger increased the diversity of employees in the new parish. It enabled the more diverse personnel to specialise in catering to the needs of specific groups, i.e. to act in a more customer-oriented manner. The merger improved workforce mobility, with the parish`s greater means allowing for a more flexible and focused deployment of resources. These changes improved the ability of employees to serve the different groups and more effectively respond to their needs.

Over time, larger numbers of employees came to realise the necessity of the merger and accepted the objective of becoming a single parish that could function in unison. Still, the change in the parishes, target groups as well as some of the new methods for achieving goals caused both positive and negative reactions among employees, although increasing numbers of them eventually agreed with the new working methods. The employees’ awareness of the methods used in the parish work carried out in the city centre also rose following the merger. The comprehensiveness of planning the actual work was improved remarkably in the stabilisation phase. These developments positively affected customer orientation.

The increased resources resulting from the merger also enabled the united parish to more systematically gather information about the needs and expectations of people. Specialisation also increased the expertise of employees regarding the different target groups. Employees developed new ideas and viewpoints, and their provision of services became more diversified. The merger also increased the willingness of the leadership to take more risks.

However, issues concerning communication arose during the planning and implementation phases, and some in middle management felt that the merger process was having a permanent adverse effect on the flow of information, as previously in the smaller parishes the employees were more closely involved with each other in their daily work. The research results show that as a result of the merger the number of meetings increased but that decision-making was more distant than was previously the case. Within this context, though, a positive result of the merger was that it allowed for greater focus on communication.

The Helsinki city centre parishes did not cooperate to any large extent before the merger. In the light of the interviews, one of the key enablers of customer-oriented thinking – internal cooperation – appears to have increased during the merger process. The facilitating factors of internal cooperation within an organisation – employees’ attitudes towards cooperation and their general awareness of each others’ work – also had a greater influence over time during the merging process. Further, the wider resources of the merged parish made it possible to better coordinate voluntary work.

The aims of the thesis were to characterize cognitive functioning in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder and to examine whether clinical characteristics are related to cognitive impairment in these disorders. An additional aim was to investigate whether previously identified risk factors for schizophrenia (low and high birth weight, male sex, originating from an internal isolate) are associated with cognitive impairment in families with schizophrenia, and whether the illness or the degree of genetic loading for the illness modifies this relationship.

The present thesis is a part of the Genetic Epidemiology and Molecular Genetics of Schizophrenia in Finland project. Previously the project has focused on the genetic epidemiology of schizophrenia in Finland as a whole and within the genetic isolate, as well as on neuropsychological deficits in schizophrenia patients and their family members, and on the use of neuropsychological variables as endophenotypes in genetic analyses. Schizophrenia patients with a high genetic loading for schizophrenia were identified from nationwide health care registers. In the present thesis, groups of persons with schizophrenia (n = 218), persons with schizoaffective disorder (n = 62) and their unaffected first-degree relatives (n = 438) were investigated. The control group comprised 123 persons and, in the study focusing on the isolate, 112 persons. The participants were diagnosed on the basis of a diagnostic interview and case records from mental health care contacts. The participants underwent a battery of neuropsychological tests, assessing processing speed, executive functions, attention, working memory, verbal learning and memory and verbal ability.

The schizophrenia group demonstrated broad cognitive impairment compared to the control group with large effect sizes. In schizoaffective disorder, broad cognitive impairment with effect sizes ranging from medium to large were detected. Differences in clinical characteristics accounted for the differences in cognitive functioning between the diagnostic groups. Irrespective of diagnosis, patients with severe negative symptoms and a high dose of antipsychotic medication had the most severe cognitive impairment. Both low and high birth weight were associated with more severe cognitive impairment than intermediate birth weight in persons with schizophrenia and their first-degree relatives. Sex differences in cognitive functions were mostly preserved in schizophrenia families when compared to controls despite large cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, and mild cognitive impairment in first-degree relatives. In persons with schizophrenia and their first-degree relatives, persons from the internal isolate had slightly better performance in some of the cognitive measures than persons from the rest of the country. However, no such differences were noticed in the controls.

In conclusion, persons with schizoaffective disorder demonstrated broad cognitive impairment, which was milder than in schizophrenia. The results suggest that symptom severity predicts the level of cognitive impairment in these disorders more accurately than categorical diagnosis does. The results also showed that the assessed schizophrenia risk factors may have distinct associations with cognitive functioning. Low and high birth weight were associated with slightly lower cognitive performance than intermediate birth weight in persons with schizophrenia and in their first-degree relatives. Despite sex differences in illness characteristics, sex did not affect the level of cognitive impairment in persons with schizophrenia or in their first-degree relatives. Originating from an internal isolate was associated with slightly higher cognitive performance than originating from the rest of Finland both in persons with schizophrenia and in their first-degree relatives, but not in the control group. This difference may reflect differences in the genetic aetiology of schizophrenia between the isolate and the rest of Finland.

The main research questions are: What are the functions and meanings of gift-giving and gift exchange in low caste mothers’ rituals? and how do these women’s ritual activities influence their self concept and social status? The study presents two key arguments: First, it assumes that a gift offered is not a mere gift, but involves a deal. Thus, by offering gifts to deities the mothers make deals for a better life for their children and husband. The second argument challenges the idea of low caste women as truly low.

The primary source for this study is the data collected among low caste communities in the state of West Bengal during three distinct fieldwork periods between 2002 and 2008. In the research fields, the common methods of ethnographic recording, participant observation and interviews were applied. The research data consist of fieldwork notes and interviews of thirty-two mothers, all members of the three low caste neighbourhoods of the metropolitan area of Kolkata.

The study uses and develops the concept of the mothering ritual as a dominant category under which the mothers’ rituals are grouped. The mothering ritual is understood in a broad sense, covering a wide spectrum of religious practices related to motherhood. The main types of mothering rituals comprises the prenatal situation; the rituals performed to improve fertility; the birth and postnatal rites; and the various practices by which women seek protection and cures for their maturing children. A chronological definition, based on the different phases of motherhood, serves as a signpost to the analysis.

The understanding of gift-giving is inspired by the gift theory of Marcel Mauss and his successors. It is shown that the idea of reciprocity and gift exchange – especially giving promises and vows in exchange for rewards – appear as the very essence of the informants’ ritual behaviour, to the extent that their ritual conduct can be conceptualized in terms of business making.

Even though the women’s rituals conformed to the conventions of the patriarchal discourse, performing rituals was not only a social obligation, but also a personally empowering experience for most women interviewed. Women, of their own accord, sought assistance and a chance for a supernatural encounter in diverse circumstances. By performing rituals women won the respect of their community, but also articulated their unspoken feelings and experiences and gained confidence in themselves.

Keywords: low caste women, mothering ritual, reciprocity, gift exchange, Kolkata