Browsing by Author "Jalomäki, Satu"

This study examines the online learning and teaching materials of the craft from the point of view of the consumer education. The Nordic Council of Ministers published a strategy for consumer education in 2010. The strategy contain proposals of the objectives and content of the consumer education and it is based on the values of sustainable development. Consumer education is a multidisciplinary entity that aims at learning consumer competences. In today’s information society, the most important consumer competence is the ability to choose, evaluate and apply information from different sources. According to the strategy for consumer education the contents of the two integrative themes (sustainable consumption and media and technological literacy) and a one field (management and participation at home) of the strategy should be part of the craft education. The study analyzes which of these contents has already been taken into account and whether some aspect has been ignored. The online learning and teaching materials of the craft have been previously studied from the standpoint of sustainable development, but not purely from the point of view of consumer education. The material of this study was the learning and teaching materials of the consumer information pages (kuluttajatieto) of the Punomo.fi-website. Some of the material was left outside of the analysis, for example, due to duplication or because of merely photos and links. The final size of the material was 60 material pages. The analysis was done with theory-based content analysis. The theory and the analysis units consisted of the contents of the integrative themes and the selected field (management and participation at home) of the strategy for consumer education. Each individual material was analyzed separately with these contents. In addition to this the material was distributed to instructions, tasks and information. The material was also divided into either soft, hard or multi-materials according to the perspective. Three themes of sustainable consumption (resources reduction, recycling, and reuse of materials) were the most prominent themes in the material. These themes were became apparent in recycled materials instructions. Textile cleaning and care was also a prominent theme. Future thinking, systemic thinking and lifecycle thinking are somewhat handled in the material mainly in information pages and tasks. The cultural awareness theme was discussed somewhat in instructions and texts related to multiculturalism and local craftsmanship. In contrast, media and technology literacy skills did not appear much in the material.