Browsing by Subject "http://www.yso.fi/onto/yso/p25989"

Teacher burnout has negative consequences on an individual, transactional and organizational levels between teachers and pupils. Compared to other fields, the educational field experiences higher levels of burnout. Previous studies indicate that burnout is connected to turnover, withdrawal, pupils’ motivation, and problems in the working community in addition to the individual’s health. The burnout symptoms have been found to differ in gender, career phase, academic level, socio- economic level of the neighborhood and organization size. Previous research has found that burnout crossover happens from an individual to another across the teacher community. The buffering and exposing attributes concerning the crossover of teacher burnout have been studied rather little. The aim of this research is to discover which individual, transactional and organizational attributes could potentially buffer or expose to the crossover of burnout. Research data was gathered as a part of a wider, national research project called School Matters by the members of the Learning and Development in School research group (Pietarinen, Pyhältö & Soini, 2017). The participants were selected from six different areas. Altogether 1531 teachers from primary, secondary and combined schools completed the questionnaire. The teachers were divided into groups based on their gender, academic level, the level of socio-economic status (SES) of the school neighborhood, career phase and school size. Individual, transactional and organizational factors’ connection to the burnout symptoms were examined through correlations, t-test and One-way analysis of variance. Results indicate that on average the teachers are doing quite well and experience quite moderate levels of burnout. Even so, quite many of them reported higher and lower levels of the symptoms. The symptoms correlate positively with each other. Based on the research findings it can be suggested that individual attributes, including male gender and higher number of years in the profession, buffer from the crossover of burnout. In addition, the higher socio-economic status (SES) of the school neighborhood – a transactional attribute – and smaller school size – an organizational attribute – also act as buffers. On the other hand, exposing attributes include the female gender, less years in the profession, lower socio-economic status of the school neighborhood and large school size. The result may be generalized to the Finnish teaching community as a whole because the research population was large and the geographical distribution of the population was comprehensive.

This Master's thesis is part of a project on marginalisation in school. The main focus of this study is to review how eighth-graders, reflect on and challenge structures of gender, gender roles, sexuality and heteronormativity in school. Although the school as an institution should be safe, inclusive and equal, structures that are problematic exist. The thesis used a feminist poststructuralist approach and gender was an important theme. The theoretical framework of the thesis described gender, sex and sexuality through both a societal perspective and a school perspective. The material for the study was collected from 2013 to 2014. The sample in this thesis consisted of 11 individual interviews and 4 group interviews with students in the eighth grade in a school in the capital area in Finland. The method of analysis was qualitative content analysis. How students challenge gender roles, heteronormativity and sexuality is something that there is not much research about. Hence, it was central to analyse what kind of structures exist in the school. It emerged that the students have to put up with stereotypical gender roles, threats of violence, appearance requirements, offensive name-calling, and a pressure to select a suitable hobby. Boys behave violently towards girls to a greater extent than the other way around. The results also indicate that the school is a very unsafe place for students with a non-heterosexual orientation. In school there is in general very little discussion about heteronormativity and sexuality. There were students in school who challenged the norms. There was a group of girls that explicitly challenged the structures. They questioned girl- and boy colours, and that educational materials, practices and environments in the school were heteronormative and gender-divided. Although there has been a change from previous research in that students are challenging structures, results indicate that gender roles and heteronormative structures still exist in school, which is problematic. Overall the thesis demonstrates that it is very hard to be a student in the eighth grade today. Bullying and excluding structures in school are common. The schools should actively review their own practices. Students who challenge the structures give hope to that despite everything, small changes in the everyday life in school are possible.