Browsing by Author "Radi, Heini"

The aim of this study is to examine parents' thoughts about their children's hobbies. Intention is to investigate factors that parents think are essential in hobbies. I reflect parents' upbringing perspective with social climate that highlights individuality, efficiency and competitiveness in the spirit of neo-liberal policy. My interest is directed to the potential benefits that parents believe hobbies produce. The capitalistic values of neo-liberal politic seems to have background influence in school and in leisure and I seek to examine indication of these values in parents speech. Previous studies suggest that hobbies serve as one form of cultural and social capital when choosing educational paths. Skills obtained at school alone don’t seem to suffice for the aptitude tests to selective classes, but with suitable hobbies one can acquire necessary capital to pass the tests. The ideal of healthy citizen and wholesome activity has also been sought through hobbies. With proper hobbies there is also the parental desire that their child finds suitable friends. Organized activity has even been considered as a vaccine for social exclusion and behavioural problems, especially during puberty. The study material consists of four interviews. The interviewees were parents of preschoolers in a day care center in the capital regionof Finland. Interviews were conducted as theme interviews and they were transcribed and analysed according to the principles of content analysis. Based on this research, hobbies were thought to bring content and interests into children's lives which would help them find their ”own thing”. Hobby-specific know-how, sport skills and better self-esteem were mentioned as benefits of hobbies too. The most significant advantages were thought to be the health benefits, the development of communication skills and the prevention of social exclusion. Health education was underlined by several interviewees and these parents believed that organized physical activity and sports lifestyle passes into adulthood. There was not significant evidence of neo-liberal policies in parents' speech.