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Aim. Maternal attachment towards the child starts to form already during pregnancy. It is suggested that antenatal attachment increases during pregnancy and at the end of the pregnancy it is at the highest level. However, longitudinal studies of continuity in antenatal attachment are lacking. The present study aims to investigate the continuity of maternal antenatal attachment during pregnancy, the continuity of attachment from antenatal to postnatal period and the associations of maternal prenatal and postnatal depressive symptoms to both maternal antenatal and postnatal attachment. Methods. The study is part of a larger longitudinal multidisciplinary project called PREDO Project 'Prediction and Prevention of Pre-eclampsia'. The present study sample comprised 3206 singleton mother. Maternal antenatal attachment was assessed with the Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale (MAAS) filled in at 12 and 26 weeks of gestation and postnatal attachment with the Maternal Postnatal Attachment Scale (MPAS) filled in at six months postpartum. Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed with the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale completed bi-weekly from 12 to 26 weeks of gestation and six months after the delivery. The regression analysis was used to explore the associations. We adjusted models for demographic factors and maternal depressive symptoms. In addition, the mediating effect of maternal depressive symptoms on the associations between maternal antenatal attachment at 12 and 26 gestational weeks and between antenatal and postnatal attachment were studied with Sobel test. Results and conclusions. Higher level of maternal antenatal attachment at the end of the first trimester was associated with higher level of attachment at the end of the second trimester and at six months after the delivery. The maternal depressive symptoms during and after the pregnancy were negatively associated with maternal antenatal and postnatal attachment. Maternal depressive symptoms mediated the associations between antenatal attachment and between antenatal and postnatal attachment. The results indicate that maternal antenatal attachment starts to form from early on pregnancy. Maternal depressive symptoms are a significant risk-factor for maternal attachment process. Increasing awareness of the importance of enhancing mother-fetal attachment from the beginning of the pregnancy is important because it shows high continuity to the postnatal life.

The aim of this master’s thesis is to study disorder in the everyday life of primary school. As an institution, primary school aims at order and the maintaining of order which can be perceived as compulsory education, regulated grade levels and teacher leadership. The formal side of Finnish comprehensive school and its orders have been studied widely in Finland. Instead, disorder in schools and the informal side of the school system have received less attention. Order and disorder are often viewed as a pair of counterparts, with former being desirable and latter avoidable. By looking into disorder, the aim is to understand disorder as a phenomenon that takes place in the everyday life of primary school. This master’s thesis draws its theoretical background from feminist studies, critical education, and sociology. This piece of research is a qualitative study and was conducted through an ethnographic method. The data collected consists of field notes that were produced at a primary school in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The field work lasted from the beginning of August until the end of October 2020. The observation took place in the physical setting of the school. The observational focus was first on calling attention to and naming disorder. In addition, attention was drawn to the power relations of various agents of the school. Also, the relationship between power and disorder was observed. In the examination of the collected data, the events where order and disorder appeared as counterparts were pointed out. Also, the events where order was named were also the situations which indicated disorder. As a result of this research, three main themes were found. First, disorder can be seen to be tangled in the everyday life of primary school and its spaces and time. Second, in the everyday life of primary school disorder and order are constantly being redefined. Third, by the repetitions of different actions, power was accumulated to certain agents of the school. These agents held the power to name disorder. In the everyday life of primary school, disorder can be viewed in multiple ways. This research identifies some of them.

The purpose of this study is to increase scientific understanding of children's conceptual change in computational thinking during a summer school intervention. With a mixed method approach of self-report questionnaire and interview, the investigation highlights modern children's knowledge, beliefs and understanding of as well as attitudes, emotions and motivations towards computers, programming and artificial intelligence. Think-aloud –tasks are also used to investigate children's computational thought processes. The SRQ data with an intervention group (n = 28) and a comparison group (n = 21) was analysed with repeated measures and independent samples t-tests, MANOVA and ANCOVA, with the pretest condition as covariate. The data revealed a change in the intervention group's conceptions about embedded cyber-physical systems and the application of computers in different industrial and artistic fields. A slight shift towards a strong AI –mindset was discovered in the intervention group through the SRQ. The interviews for the intervention group (n = 6) and two comparison groups (n = 4, material comparison n = 4) reinforced this conclusion and showed a strong enhancement of computational thinking attitudes and perspectives in the intervention group in contrast to the comparison groups. The computational skills were found to be tightly knit to level of mathematical understanding, and didn't change notably during the summer school intervention.

Objectives. The new curriculum of crafts teaching that will be brought into use of autumn 2016, introduces a new concept of crafts which is called multimaterialism. Multimaterialism will consist of the materials, equipment and techniques of both textile work and technical work. At the same time, teaching lessons of crafts will be reduced in secondary schools. Previously, in crafts the finished product and used skills have been seen as great importance for teachers' competence and student's learning. Former studies that have been completed have seen craft as a process which occurs inside of textile or technical work. Based on some studies, the way of teaching crafts seems to be changing to multimaterialism. In these studies crafts has been seen as a part of the technical development and design. This study examines the teacher's competence through professional and pedagogical views. In addition, the features of crafts teacher's specific competence were examined through meaning of skills, product and process-related meanings, complete craft and pedagogical way of thinking which is connected to crafts teacher's work. Research question is that, how the new curriculum of crafts teaching will challenge the educational community and teachers who are planning and working with teaching. Second question is how the new curriculum will challenge the teacher's competence. Methods. The study was conducted as a multimethods case study, which utilized qualitative data. Multimethods was chosen because it helped to get more diverse information. The research materials in this study were video material from two events and the supplementary material related to these events. The first video material was derived from a panel about multimaterialism, from the discussion of five crafts curriculum experts. In addition, there was also Flinga-comments, enabling the public to participate in the debate on the big screen. There were approx. 80 participants at the event, but due to the on-line broadcast the amount was approx. 160. The second video data was collected at a meeting of the textile teachers union's member association's teachers, who discussed about the new curriculum. From this meeting written material about crafts elective lessons was received. At the event there were 30 textile teachers. The data was analyzed in accordance of the research questions and themes from the data, using the ATLAS.ti program. From these themes four main themes were found that were corresponding to the research questions. Results and conclusions. The challenges facing the teachers competence and the educational community were in some ways overlapped. The findings were looked upon in the light of multimaterialism. Based on the research the challenges of crafts education that arose were 1) Taking new curriculum into use as well as the dialogue of the teacher's values and the curriculum, 2) understanding and implementing multimaterialism, 3) The guarantee of the crafts teachers employment and high-quality crafts teaching. 4) Challenges to the teacher's competence and the challenges the school community were partly overlap. Teacher's competence challenged the changes in the job description and co-operation, understanding skills, understanding of the craft process and product, as well as understanding craft's pedagogy. Dialogue of the theory and the data can be said to be the key role of the teacher when the local crafts curriculum is drawn up. Crafts teachers must be able to find their own crafts values and practical skills in common with the new curriculum. But In same way must also adopt new approaches to crafts teaching so that she/he is able to justify the place of crafts teaching to the educational community. In addition the educational community must allow for the training of teachers and implementation of education so that the objectives of the curriculum can be carried out.

Aims. The purpose of this study was to show in what ways a school task is carried out in interaction. The task in question was giving a presentation in an upper secondary school Finnish lesson on an elective topic. The theoretical framework used was learning as changes in participation. Previous research has tracked various changes in participation longitudinally, i.e. across several conversations. In such studies, learning is indicated by changes in repair type, in use of learning objects, and in epistemic stance and topicalization of epistemic stance. Although these by themselves cannot be considered evidence of learning, they show what kind of contingent practices of understanding are used to accomplish the task. This is known as doing learning. Previous research has often focused on second language learning, but rarely on first language learning. Neither has the accomplishment of one task across several days been much researched. For these reasons, the accomplishment of one school task longitudinally in the context of first language learning was chosen as the focus of the current study. The research question is: How is a school task accomplished in interaction? Methods. The data were a set of videos originally recorded for the Språkmöten project. One sixth-form student is followed by a video camera for three days during both classes and recess. From the videos, I chose the parts in which the presentation for the Finnish lesson is discussed. I analyzed them using conversation analysis. Results and conclusions. I demonstrated empirically how the different phases of the presentation task fit together. I showed that doing the task involves a lot of intertwined telling and negotiation. "Doing learning" could be seen in the explicit, longitudinal orientation towards change: in this way, the presentation task was taken forward and accomplished. The data showed how the understanding of the presentation task developed. They also showed how the requirements of the school on the one hand, and the students' own ideas on the other, were integrated into the process. The showing of affect (i.e. emotions) was demonstrated to be part of "doing learning". The results help us to understand learning outside the classroom and school enjoyment. In further studies, the same methods may be applied to explore tasks in interaction in other contexts, e.g. universities and workplaces.

The release of Finnish nutrition recommendations in 2014 has caused a lot of debate both in public discourse and in various medias. The debate around food and nutrition reflects into people's attitudes and is therefore relevant issue to be discussed in the field of home economics science. The purpose of nutrition education in schools is, among other things, to share knowledge from different view-points of nutrition. How adolescents experience the discourse of nutrition and the status of home economics in nutritional education are vital topics in the field of home economics. The purpose of this thesis is to examine upper secondary school students' and nutrition experts' viewpoints on the Finnish nutrition discourse. The empirical analysis of the study is based on two sets of data: 37 essays of nutrition written by students and five theme interviews conducted with nutrition experts. The purpose of the essays and the interviews was to map out the responders' experiences of and viewpoints on the Finnish discourse regarding nutritional knowledge. I also wanted to examine the experts' images over the status of home economics education in nutrition education. The data were analyzed by qualitative research content analysis. The results show that both students and nutrition experts comprehend the nutrition discourse as a highly tensed phenomenon, where both experimental and scientific based knowledge argue. This perception endorses previous research results. The students acknowledge science as the basis of nutrition knowledge but still consider that experimental expertise is needed to adapt nutrition knowledge into action. The nutrition experts call for more critical thinking into nutrition education. Culture related to food education in schools should also be more coherent. The experts consider that the teaching of home economics has a small but still visible status on contributing the healthy diet of adolescents.

The release of Finnish nutrition recommendations in 2014 has caused a lot of debate both in public discourse and in various medias. The debate around food and nutrition reflects into people's attitudes and is therefore relevant issue to be discussed in the field of home economics science. The purpose of nutrition education in schools is, among other things, to share knowledge from different view-points of nutrition. How adolescents experience the discourse of nutrition and the status of home economics in nutritional education are vital topics in the field of home economics. The purpose of this thesis is to examine upper secondary school students' and nutrition experts' viewpoints on the Finnish nutrition discourse. The empirical analysis of the study is based on two sets of data: 37 essays of nutrition written by students and five theme interviews conducted with nutrition experts. The purpose of the essays and the interviews was to map out the responders' experiences of and viewpoints on the Finnish discourse regarding nutritional knowledge. I also wanted to examine the experts' images over the status of home economics education in nutrition education. The data were analyzed by qualitative research content analysis. The results show that both students and nutrition experts comprehend the nutrition discourse as a highly tensed phenomenon, where both experimental and scientific based knowledge argue. This perception endorses previous research results. The students acknowledge science as the basis of nutrition knowledge but still consider that experimental expertise is needed to adapt nutrition knowledge into action. The nutrition experts call for more critical thinking into nutrition education. Culture related to food education in schools should also be more coherent. The experts consider that the teaching of home economics has a small but still visible status on contributing the healthy diet of adolescents.

Neoliberalisms influence is growing in today's society and responsibilities are moved from the state to its citizens. Individuals own capabilities are now more important than ever. Financial capabilities are especially important. Before responsibilities can be transferred to individuals, it must be ensured that citizens have sufficient capabilities. At the moment this is not so. Finnish basic education is a great place to teach necessary financial capabilities with the help of financial education. Financially capable individuals want to and can operate actively and responsibly in different financial environments. The current knowledge on the effects of financial education or the level of financial capabilities of our youths is not sufficient. In this thesis I studied the effects of ten Me & MyCity lessons on financial capabilities. Financial capabilities were narrowed to informational level. I tried to find out how financial capabilities improve and are there differences between genders. With help of some earlier tests I constructed a survey consisting of 30 objective multiple choice items to test my research questions. 207 students from 11 different school classes answered my survey. 171 students answered the survey both before and after Me & MyCity lessons and 170 answers were eligible for further analyses. All students participated in the Me & MyCity in Helsinki-Vantaa in the spring of 2016. To test the suitability of my test I did item analysis and IRT analysis. The result was that my test was sufficient in the scale of this research. The test should be improved if used in forthcoming research. Three items that were not functioning correctly were removed from the test. The test was slightly easy and therefore didn't differentiate better students as well as it could have. The development of financial capabilities was tested with paired samples T test. The differences between genders were tested with a T test. Financial capabilities improved by 15,6%. The progression was varied between sub-factors. Gender did not affect the results. Answers stating "I don't know" decreased by 52% in the second questionnaire. The increase of correct answers was significantly lower. Me & MyCity improves financial capabilities at least on informational level. The progression was low level, although this may be partly caused by the incorrect calibration of the research instrument. Education is transforming from teaching singular skills and subjects towards teaching holistic capabilities. Effective methods are required both for this transformation and to supervise its results. Me & MyCity is in part specialized to financial education and is therefore a good place to start improving financial education and the measurement of financial capability.

Social withdrawal is a comprehensive phenomenon previously studied mainly in Japan as 'hikikomori'. It has been connected to social as well as psychological and societal factors. The aim of this study was to examine the appearance of social withdrawal in Finland. Social withdrawal was investigated from the social exclusion perspective. The study aspired to describe the ordinary life of socially withdrawn young and to seek answers to the question of what kind of people they are. The study also endeavored to detect the factors that might be associated with the onset and continuation of the process of social withdrawal. The methods of the study included structural interview and the analysis of a message board used by socially withdrawn people. The interviewees were two men who were withdrawn, and the interviews were implemented via e-mail. The message board data, including 32 conversations, was collected from Hikikomero, a section of internet forum site Ylilauta. The analysis of the data was carried out by using content analysis. The results of the study implement that social withdrawal is a self-feeding phenomenon largely affecting lives of the people who are withdrawn. The study supports the assessment of social withdrawal as a male-dominating phenomenon. From the factors appearing in relation to the onset of the withdrawal, experiences of inability to fulfill the cultural expectations imposed for men and social disappointments were detected. From the background of social withdrawal it was possible to detect experiences of peer victimization and mental illnesses. From the factors appearing in relation to the continuation of social withdrawal the most salient ones were social phobia, depression and the inability to create and maintain relationships. The reaching of the withdrawn trough a message board creates hope to tackle the solitude developing adversely.

Objectives. Communication is cultural when the patterns of symbolic action and meaning are deeply felt, commonly intelligible and widely accessible. The cultural features, beliefs and values of the speech community can be examined through an important cultural term. The practices that reflect and build the social reality are described in the tradition of Ethnography of communication. In this master's thesis research the speech of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a construction company was examined. The aim was to find cultural meanings that the speech reveals by analyzing the linguistic features of the community. The purpose was to examine what the linguistic features tell about the common beliefs and values and the meanings of CSR. The idea was to examine a cultural term that has not been examined earlier in the tradition of Ethnography of communication. Methods. The research material included 9 semi-structured thematic interviews that were collected from a Finnish construction company. There were 12 interviewees taking part in in the research. Three of the interviews were couple and six were single interviews. The interviews lasted 20–60 minutes. The material reached included some texts from the company's Internet page as well. The research material was analyzed with the Cultural discourse analysis. The cultural features were examined with five discursive hubs that were used as analytical tools. These hubs were dwelling, relations, feelings, action and identity. The analysis consisted of five phases: theoretical, descriptive, interpretive, comparative and critical. Results and conclusions. Two cultural discourses were found in the speech community: open discourse and caring. The interviewees experienced that the meaning of CSR was sharing the good and the bad with the stakeholders. The participants felt that discourse of caring meant acting responsible. Caring and open discourse were important actions in the community. The perceptions about CSR reflected the factors of social responsibility according to CSR research. Based on the cultural premises of the cultural discourses of this study the participants evaluated each other as flexible, open and honest. They were expected to take care of the objectives of their work and the wellbeing of their colleagues. The daily interaction between the participants was experienced to strenghten the features of openness and honesty.