Browsing by Subject "family"

This thesis answers to a question “Why adolescent girls drop out of school in Northern Uganda?” In Uganda, approximately 70% of the children drop out of public school before 7th grade, the final year of primary school. In northern Uganda, girls drop out of school in more significant numbers than boys, and it happens around the age when girls reach puberty. Northern Uganda is also a particular location because it is recovering from long conflict, affecting strongly the whole population living in the area. The thesis is based on two-month ethnographic fieldwork in northern Uganda during the spring of 2015. To answer the main research question this study seeks to analyse it through taking a look how the school, the community and the girls themselves experience and talk about dropping out, education and growing up in the current post-conflict state of the social life. The thesis argues that the dropout rate is linked to the adolescence as life-stage of becoming an adult that is making the girls to make decisions about the future. The analysis is done through three different perspectives – the educational, societal and personal narratives of the youth. The first perspective is the education and schooling in northern Uganda. It explores the concept of ’educated person’ by Levinson and Holland through sexual education and gender in education. The study shows that Ugandan public primary and secondary education is deriving its ideas and understanding of educated person from the national curriculum, which often conflict with the local concepts of the educated person in the Acholi community, influencing the blamed and real reasons for dropping out. The second perspective looks into the community and the societal pressures the girls are facing when growing up. It will describe family, kinship, marriage and gender in post-conflict context and show how in these areas of life, the past conflict, “loss of culture”, generational conflicts and subsequent disobedience are presented as reasons behind the challenges to stay in school. The third perspective tells the stories of the girls met and talked to during the ethnographic fieldwork in Northern Uganda. It answers the question “What is happening in the life of a girl when she drops out of school?”. It is argued that the girls take actions of a gendered agency to further their lives and become adults. Thus, dropping out of school cannot just be explained as a simple event just suddenly happening without their own will. It will further answer the question “What makes some girls stay in school?” to show how those girls still in school manage the crosscurrents of growing up in Acholiland. The thesis argues that the girls in northern Uganda are active appropriators and social agents who through their own actions contest, struggle and penetrate the structures in their society while also at the same time reproduce them. In Northern Uganda, both the community and the state together with different international agencies will have plans and expectations for the girls’ future. The study shows how the girls navigate the school, community and peer expectations and sociocultural and economic structures to stay or finally drop out of school. These structures are state organised and aid-infused formal schooling and society in amidst of post-conflict recovery which creates a framework where the girls are acting. The school presents the modern and globally orientated educated person, and in contrast to it, the community is looking for to restore ‘traditional’ way of life. It is argued that these two sides are often in conflict and in the middle of this conflict the girls act and solve their way out of it, looking for adulthood and gaining respectable status in the society. The schools, the community and even sometimes the development actors see the girls as passively following the things they will encounter. The thesis will show that they are not. The girls either stay in school or drop out of it, but more often as a consequence of their own decisions and actions than passively because the school or the community could not support them. It is demonstrated that dropping out of school looks more of line a tactic for the future as a respectable grown-up than mere problem to be solved.

The thesis examines families living in the neighborhood of Kallio in Helsinki. The research focus is on housing as a choice. The idea to investigate this group rose from the media-hyped phenomenon of Kallio becoming more popular among families with children. It attracted the researcher´s interest since until now Kallio had been primarily pictured as the notorious, former worker´s and bohemian´s neighborhood. The primary research questions are: Why do some families reside in Kallio? Is it a choice and how is this choice made? The additional questions are: What characterizes these families and how do they identify themselves with Kallio as a neighborhood? The primary material consists of interviews with local parents. The material consists of ten 1-1,5 h semi-structured interviews and six ad hoc interviews (duration 10-20 min.) Ad hoc-interviews were conducted in communal three parks: in Linjan puisto, Kirkkopuisto and Brahen puisto.The study area is limited to include the sub-districts of Linjat, Torkkelinmäki and Harju. General observation and taking photographs were conducted on this area. Different social scientists, such as Anthony Giddens, characterize the contemporary society as dispersed and fragmented in terms of lifestyles and institutions. Socio-cultural differentiation is a central phenomenon of the postmodern society. Lifestyle choice has become central to the constitution of self-identity. People choose different lifestyles; some families choose an urban lifestyle. Housing research in Finland has largely focused on the housing wishes, 'stated preferences'. Housing choices have mainly been explained from a microeconomic or environmental angle, often aiming at high level of generalization. The context where choices are made often receives less emphasis. The actual choices, 'revealed preferences', have been studied less. In this thesis I argue that choices are composed of wishes, needs and constraints. Interviews and qualitative analysis methods are suitable for this research which aims to look at the qualitative changes in housing choice. The research confirmed that the thematic interview method is a useful way to clarify housing choice as a process. Results are presented by themes: 1) social class, 2) housing situation and background, 3) conceptions of places, 4) housing wishes, 5) self-identity, 6) choice, and 7) urban lifestyle. The results indicate that the families had clearly made a lifestyle choice to live in Kallio. Urban environment was a central wish. The constraints families face were often economic, and the needs were associated with the daily routines, such as connections to public transportation, hobbies, kindergartens, schools and jobs. Families often divided their housing wishes to two groups: dreams and realistic possibilities. Both of these were often located in an urban environment. The central choice for all the families seemed to be an urban lifestyle but their self-identities varied. For all of them urban lifestyle meant enjoying life and living in an exciting environment. Their self-identities were described with three different groups: life-style urbans, suburbans and gentrifiers. The life-style urbans identified themselves to Kallio as it is now, as a socially and culturally multifaceted area. The suburbans were not sure if they identify to Kallio, and they considered moving out. The gentrifiers identified to the aesthetic features of Kallio, and hoped that Kallio would become tidier. The context of choice provides more detailed and realistic information for urban planners and policy makers on how families want to live. Context of choice is important because it is based on the everyday context, and not on unreliable dreams. Literature and the background of this study support the viewpoint that the housing wishes (stated preferences) are completely different than the housing choice (revealed preferences).

In this work I examine how imōto-moe, a recent trend in Japanese animation and manga in which incestual connotations and relationships between brothers and sisters is shown, contributes to the sexualization of girls in the Japanese society. This is done by analysing four different series from 2010s, in which incest is a major theme. The analysis is done using visual analysis.The study concludes that although the series can show sexualization of drawn underage girls, reading the works as if they would posit either real or fictional little sisters as sexual targets. Instead, the analysis suggests that following the narrative, the works should be read as fictional underage girls expressing a pure feelings and sexuality, unspoiled by adult corruption.To understand moe, it is necessary to understand the history of Japanese animation. Much of the genres, themes and styles in manga and anime are due to Tezuka Osamu, the “god of manga” and “god of animation”. From the 1950s, Tezuka was influenced by Disney and other western animators at the time. His stories and themes had intellectual and philosophical depth that the western counterparts did not have. The works also touched themes that the western animation steered away from, including sexuality, which was not compartmentalized in a similar fashion in Japan as it was in the Western world. His works not only created new genres by themselves, but the constant combination by future generations created thethematic complexity that can be seen in manga and anime today.Tezuka also had a role in underage girl sexualization: his girl characters were an inspiration for the sexuality of little girls, both real and fictional, in the 70s. The western works of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland drew attention to the cuteness of little girls. In combination, sexualized versions of Tezuka’s characters were drawn, at first as a parody. In the 80s there was a boom of drawn girls in sexually compromised situations, or loliconart. Duringthe 80s, the focus shifted away from connotations to real girl imagery and drawn rape imagery towards less violent forms.In 1989, a dubious connection was drawn between otaku, fans of popular culture, including loliconimagery, and a serial killer of small children. The moral panic that followed slowed the spread of loliconin the 90s.Meanwhilein the 90s, an idea of moebegan to form: if fictional little girls are not corrupted by adult sexuality, the girls cause feelings of affection in the viewer. The viewers are affected by moe via isolated, but recognizable tropes, such as cat ears and tail, a speech habit, or twin tails. A part of this research is to examine how well imōto-fits under the loliconcriteria, and undermoe: the characters are sexualized: they are showing having sexual thoughts and expressing sexual activity. After the examination, I conclude that, at least in the works examined, imōto-moe fits under the latter category: the male partners are passive and follow the girl’s lead, the ages are very close, and many of the series emphasize the virtual aspect: to enjoy little sisters, they have to be two-dimensional, outside the laws of reality.

Early studies have shown that parents in modern society are living their everyday life in the middle of the cultural expectations. Studies also show that children enjoy being in day care, if they have friends there, as well as the opportunity to play and to do something meaningful. Purpose of this study was to bring children's voices heard and to describe the child's everyday experiences. The study was to find out pre-school children's everyday life experiences at home, in family and in day care center. Children live their everyday life at home and in day care centers. This study describes the child's well-being and everyday in the basis of Bronfenbrenner eco-logical theory of education. The data were collected by questionnaire in Hämeenlinna day care centre personnel and its customers in the spring of 2011. For the individual interviews participated 478 children. The data were analyzed by using content analysis and content analysis methods. The study was a qualitative and approach by phenomenographic. The results showed that children want to play both at home and in day care centers. 39 % of the children wanted to spend time with their parents at home and in day care center only 13 % of children wanted to be with adults. Importance of friends in day-care center was emphasized, because 37% of the children mentioned in their responses friends. The study also asked if children are listened by the adults and 63% of the children felt that adults listen them carefully.

Migrants may find themselves in a vulnerable position after migration due to the new social structure (e.g., labor market opportunities, language problems, migration legislation, or networks in the new country). Since they lose their power in the society at large, this change may also affect power relations in their families. As a result, gender roles at home may also change. While existing studies on migration focus on migrants' socio-economic integration into host societies, their family formation and gender roles at home are not well explored. Rather than attributing these roles solely to 'cultural' reasons, I attempt to find answers through an exploration of the immigration experiences. This study has the potential to fill a gap in the literature on migration and gender studies and to contribute to this field in Finland. In this qualitative study, I attempt to explore how Turkish married migrants experience their gender roles and power relations at home after migration. Through thematic analysis of six interviews with three male and three female Turkish migrants, I identified four themes: "status loss after migration," "status loss and willingness to move back," "loneliness after migration," and "rejection of traditional gender roles." One of the most important findings of the study is that those who moved to Finland through family reunification experience a strong sense of status loss, which lead to marital dissatisfaction or a desire to leave the country. Furthermore, labor market opportunities push Turkish women to more traditional roles, while language barriers and a lack of networks hinder their integration into the country. It is important to note that most of the participants reject traditional gender roles as an ideology. However, there are other factors that contribute to their adherence to these roles.

Perinteisen ydinperheen rinnalle on noussut yhteiskunnan ja kulttuurin muuttuessa erilaisia perhetyyppejä. Aiemman tutkimustiedon mukaan nämä erilaiset perhetyypit ovat vähitellen siirtyneet myös lastenkirjallisuuteen. Lastenkirjallisuuden avulla lapset voivat oppia ja kohdata erilaisia asioita. Perheiden monimuotoisuus tavoittaa varmasti jokaisen lapsen viimeistään peruskoulussa. Lastenkirjallisuus on yksi muoto, jonka kautta lapset voivat saada tietoa perheiden monimuotoisuudesta. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on tarkastella lastenkirjallisuudessa esiintyviä perheitä ja erilaisia perhetyyppejä. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan ja vertaillaan kahden eri murroskauden aikana julkaistujen realististen lasten kuvakirjojen perheiden ja perhetyyppien eroja. Tutkimuksen avulla halutaan selvittää, miten perhetyypit eroavat 1910–1950-lukujen ja 2010-luvun lastenkirjoista. Tutkimus toteutettiin kvalitatiivisena tutkimuksena. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytettiin teoriaohjaavaa sisällönanalyysia. Tutkimukseen valittiin kirjoja kahdelta eri lastenkirjallisuudessa tapahtuneelta murroskaudelta. Analysoitaviksi kirjoiksi valittiin kuusi kirjaa, kolme molemmilta murroskausilta. Kirjoiksi valittiin Jalmari Finnen Kiljusen herrasväki, Laura Ingalls Wilderin Pieni talo suuressa metsässä, Astrid Lindgrenin Melukylän lapset, Anneli Kanton Vilma Virtanen ja uimataito, Elisa Niemisen Lotta Torvinen ja salaperäisen käärön arvoitus ja Katriina Rosavaaran Villiina ja isosiskopakkaus. Kirjoista löytyi neljää eri perhetyyppiä: ydinperhe, suurperhe, ”aviopari ilman lapsia, puolisot eri sukupuolta” ja sateenkaariperhe. Lähes kaikki kirjan perheistä voitiin tyypitellä useammaksi kuin yhdeksi perheeksi. Eniten kirjoissa oli ydinperheitä. Eri murroskausilla julkaistujen kirjojen perhetyypeissä oli jonkin verran eroja. Kirjan perhetyyppeihin ja murroskausien eroihin vaikuttavat yhteiskunnassa vallitsevat olosuhteet ja tilanteet sekä mielipiteet ja käsitykset perheistä. Tutkimuksen avulla voidaan löytää lapsille hyviä kirjoja, jotka käsittelevät erilaisia aikakausia ja perheitä. Näiden kirjojen avulla lapsi voi tarkastella omaa perhettään suhteessa muiden perheisiin. Esimerkiksi varhaiskasvatuksessa tutkimukseen valittuja kirjoja ja kirjojen perheitä voidaan tarkastella esimerkiksi keskustelun, leikin ja kuvataiteen avulla.

The aim of this study was to find out the meaning family has for a pupil who studies in a special class, or how important family is for the pupil's emotional life, the development of his self-confidence, freetime activities, attitudes on school, plans for further studies and his general social development. The theoretical base of this study was formed by social scientists' theories on postmodern family, which is due to urbanization and urban life style, and theories on family pluralism, the powerful effects that changes in family life have on pupils in special education, the weak self-confidence and low sosioeconomic background among those pupils and the effects of family's sosioeconomic status on pupil's willingness to get education or the theory on the accumulation of education. Study problems were set in the direction determined by these theories and in order to study the accurateness of the theories. The method used in the study was theme interview, which is sometimes also called half-structured interview. The material for the study was collected in October 1998 in a special school in Helsinki. The material contains answers given by pupils in theme interviews and background information about pupils' families, which where collected from the pupils' parents by mail. Content analysis was used to analyze the material. The study showed that it is very important to pupils' attitudes on school and their self-confidence that their families are entire and that the families give them support. The children, whose parents are interested in school education and discuss a lot about things, seem to have positive attitudes on school and good self-confidence, too. The parental support also has an effect on how the pupils spend their free time and on their hobbies, too. Obviously the families have quite an important meaning for pupils in special class, but if the families don't support them, the consequence is problems particularly for the development of self-confidence. The theory on the low sosioeconomic background among students in special education gets support from this study, but nothing can be said about it's effect on further studies. On account of the results it can be suggested that special schools must arrange occasions where the pupils' parents are clearly informed about the important meaning of their support for the pupils' studies and the development of the pupils' self-confidence. The most important sources for the theoretical background were the books written by Jallinoja, Kivinenand Rinne, Moberg, Scanzoni and P. Takala. The most important sources for the method were the books written by Hirsjärvi and Hurme and Pietilä.

Background and aim Complementary feeding is defined as the period during which there is a progressive reduction of breastfeeding or formula while the infant is gradually introduced to solid foods at 4-6 months of age. Improper complementary feeding practices, such as introducing solid foods beyond 6 months of age or having a low dietary diversity could lead to negative infant health outcomes. Therefore, it is important to identify factors that might detrimentally affect complementary feeding, such as maternal stress. This thesis aimed to study the associations between maternal stress indicators, the age of solid food introduction, and dietary diversity during complementary feeding within a Finnish birth cohort. Methods The Health and Early Life Microbiota (HELMi) is a longitudinal birth cohort study. Participants of the HELMi cohort included 1055 healthy infants and their parents, mainly residing in the capital region of Finland. Pre-collected data from the HELMi study were used. The data collection occurred between 2016-2018. The main variables used in this thesis were collected via extensive online questionnaires. Binomial logistic regression analyses were used to study whether prenatal and postpartum stress indicators were associated with the age of solid food introduction and/or the infant’s dietary diversity during complementary feeding. Results Late introduction of solid foods (> 6 months) was less likely among infants whose mothers reported moderate or high prenatal stress (moderate prenatal stress OR=0.66, 95%CI 0.45-0.97, high prenatal stress OR 0.62, 95%CI 0.39-0.98), when compared to infants whose mothers reported low prenatal stress. Maternal stress indicators were not associated with low dietary diversity (0-3 food groups introduced) at 6 months of life. Among infants with a low dietary diversity at 9 months of age, mothers were more likely to report high levels of prenatal stress (OR=4.88, 95%CI 1.27-18.79), when compared to mothers with low levels of prenatal stress. Further, infants with a low dietary diversity at 9 months were less likely to have mothers report low to moderate levels of life satisfaction (OR=0.25, 95%CI 0.06-1.02) when compared to mothers with very high life satisfaction. They were also less likely to report moderate levels of infant health worry (OR=0.18, 95%CI 0.05-0.67) when compared to mothers with no infant health worry. Conclusions This is the first study to look at the associations between maternal stress indicators and dietary outcomes during complementary feeding. Maternal stress indicators were associated with the age of solid food introduction and the infant’s dietary diversity at 9 months, but not at 6 months. In future studies on this topic, a more socio-demographically representative sample should be recruited, and validated tools should be used to collect dietary and psychological data. Health practitioners and family clinic workers should be made aware of the possibly long-lasting effects of prenatal stress and consider its possible effects on dietary outcomes during complementary feeding.

The thesis is about the relationship between health and wealth. The goal is to show that they are connected to each other, and that improving health can lead to improve of wealth. The first part discusses the effect of health on wealth and vice versa. It shows that better wealth is connected to better health and health increase lead to the wealth increase. Then there is a theoretical model by Grossman (1972) and which was modified by Jacobson (2000). The model shows that the health is seen as a stock and that individual can invest into the health during the lifetime. The model shows also the change, when there is a family without children (partners can invest into each other’s health) and the family with a child (parents invest into child’s health). The wage and education effect is shown and developed by Grossman (1972). The increase in wage leads to increase in health, individual has more money to visit the doctors. The increase in education also leads to increase in health, but in this case individual gets more information on healthy lifestyle and follows it. The literature review shows how education, social status, early childhood, family and nutrition affect the health. Better educated have better health and higher income. An additional year of education increases the life. Lower socioeconomic status increases the probability of consuming unhealthy goods and being less educated. The subjective social status affects the childhood, the mental health and the income. Family plays a crucial role: the mother’s health, parents education, family’s socioeconomic status effect the health of a child and the future income. The low birth weight, mental health problems in childhood and bad nutrition lead to problems in health in the future and lower income. When the connection between health and wealth, and factors affecting the health are known, it is easier to implement policies to increase the total health and wealth. The healthy individual is more productive and it leads to economic growth, what is another topic and also widely discussed.

Aims. The purpose of this study is to describe how entrepreneurial women with children experience parenting. The theoretical background is based on the parenting role map (Helminen and Iso-Heiniemi, 1999), as well as the cultural aspects of motherhood (Berg, 2008). The point of view regarding entrepreneurship and parenting coordination is derived from a model (Salmi 2004c) with work and family, as the point where three fields intersect. The fields consist of working life and politics, family life and social policy, as well as the constructive processes of gender and equality politics. Experiences of parenting by self-employed women examined three broad thematic areas: parenting experience, entrepreneurship and parenting coordination, and parenting and entrepreneurship, as positioned in the careers of the interviewees. The main research questions are: 1. How is parenting experienced in the everyday life by female entrepreneurs with children? 2. What types of coping strategies and solutions have women entrepreneurs created to coordinate entrepreneurship and parenting? 3. How have parenthood and entrepreneurship positioned themselves in the life cycle of women entrepreneurs? Methods. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews involving eight 30 to 55-year-old female entrepreneurs in the Uusimaa region. In addition to the interview, the subjects produced their own life stories, where they recorded the important stages of family life and entrepreneurship. The data were analysed using content analysis. The experiences of self employed women were approached through phenomenological understanding without attempting to remove them from the general social context. Results and conclusions. The parenthood of self employed women parentage was purely gender based and expressed as maternity in their daily lives. The role of maternity appeared in their everyday care of children, household tasks, and basic needs. Closeness and presence were also strong factors. A safety net involving the grandparents was present. Also, use of time and bringing the child to the work were functions of the coordination solutions. The life stories of female entrepreneurs appeared as individual stories, with maternity as the common denominator. The use of time included exceptional creativity and resourcefulness in addressing the needs of the family. The way female entrepreneurs schedule their time in everyday life provides an interesting perspective in the discussion regarding coordination of work and family.