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In this study, I aim to investigate the significance of the curriculum as a guiding document for the work of early childhood education teachers, how teachers define their autonomy in relation to the implementation of the experimental curriculum, and how play, defined as a central form of activity in preschool education, is perceived by teachers participating in the experiment. The curriculum obliges the work of early childhood education teachers and serves as a directive basis for the formulation of local curricula (OPH, 2014, p. 1). In August 2021, the Ministry of Education and Culture initiated an experiment on two-year preschool education as part of the Right to Learn (Oikeus oppia) development program. The Finnish National Agency for Education created new curriculum guidelines for the participating preschool units, in which the significance of play in a child's growth, development, well-being, and learning is acknowledged more prominently (OPH, 2021, p. 13). Despite the emphasis on play and its importance in guiding docu-ments, as well as its appreciation by early childhood education professionals, research suggests that it has not yet established the practices that would enable its central role in preschool education. One explanation may lie in the conflicting relationship between policy and autonomy framed by the work of early childhood education teachers: while the constantly evolving and broad curriculum guides the work of teachers obligatorily, it also leaves all concrete activities related to implementation, development, and evalua-tion entirely up to the teachers' interpretation (Wood & Hedges, 2016, pp. 400–401). The study was conducted as a qualitative research employing thematic interviews as the data collection method. Ten early childhood education teachers who participated in the two-year preschool education experiment from five different locations took part in the interviews. The data were analyzed using content analysis, searching for similarities, resemblances, and examining differences within the material. Based on the research findings, it appears that the teachers' relationship with the experimental curriculum was distant. Half of the interviewees found the experimental curriculum too extensive and lacking in concreteness. Only one out of ten teachers actively used the experimental curriculum as support for their work and as a basis for planning. Eight teachers reported that the experimental curriculum was not present in their daily routines or guiding the activities of the two-year preschool education. Teachers perceived their autonomy regarding the adoption of the experimental curriculum as unreasonably limited: They felt left without support or orientation regarding the experiment and were not given time for planning. The extensive responsibility caused feelings of burden and even failure for several teachers. In interviews, talk about play was conspicuously by its absent. Only one out of ten teachers spontaneously mentioned play, stating that its role had increased within the group due to the experiment. The interviewed teachers described play as important for the child but as something happening outside of other preschool activities. The role of adults in play remained distant in nine out of ten interviews, and in eight out of ten cases, adults strongly controlled the play.

During the last few decades, efforts have been made to advance the principle of inclusion in education. The Basic Education Act on support for learning and school attendance support entered into force in 2011. Before education was organized separately as general or special education. With the reform of the law, schools began to implement inclusion with the help of three-tiered support, and the forms of support were divided into general, enhanced and special support. With the three-tiered support, classroom teachers teach more and more diverse groups of students, and teachers must carry out teaching and support taking into account the individual needs of students. The aim of this thesis is to find out what kinds of experiences and views teachers have about inclusion and three-tiered support. This study was executed using qualitative methods. The research material was collected through semi-structured interviews. Seven class teachers were interviewed. The data was analyzed with material-oriented content analysis. The classroom teachers thought the principle of inclusion is good, but challenges were seen in its practical implementation. According to the interviewees, transferring a student from one level of support to the next is quite clear, but due to teachers’ autonomy, there are individual differences in the implementation of support. Diverse groups of pupils, lack of human resources, large class sizes and insufficient classroom teacher training were seen as challenges in teaching pupils in need of support. Smaller class sizes and increasing resources were seen as practical solutions to the challenges of inclusion and three -tiered support. Additionally, more resources for school attendance counsellors and special teachers would be needed in general education classes, so that the individual need of support of pupils could be taken into account. Finally, classroom teacher training should include more studies introducing special pedagogy, and working classroom teachers would need further training related to the needs of pupils’ support.

This master's thesis examines teachers’ perspectives on worldview education and worldviews in school culture. Aim of the research is to explore 1) the perceptions of basic education teachers regarding worldview subjects, 2) the perceptions of basic education teachers regarding worldviews in school culture, and 3) how the perceptions of teachers teaching different worldview subjects differ regarding worldview education and worldviews. The research data is part of the Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) data collection, which gathered information about the situation of worldview education in basic education schools. The data collection was conducted among teachers through an electronic survey on Webropol in the spring of 2023. A total of 2753 teachers responded to the survey questionnaire. The research was conducted as a quantitative study, and the data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 28 software. The research results indicate that teachers consider worldview education to be an important and meaningful part of basic education. The majority of teachers supported a common worldview subject. Teachers generally had positive views on the visibility of worldviews in school culture. Many teachers believed that the school should promote dialogue between different worldviews. However, teachers also perceived that worldviews pose challenging situations in school. They felt that they lacked the necessary competence to deal with worldview diversity. The perspectives of minority religion teachers differed significantly from Lutheran religion and Ethics teachers. Based on the research results, it can be concluded that the majority of teachers would be willing to change the current model of worldview education to meet the educational needs of contemporary society. Teachers require vocational further education and training concerning teaching of different worldviews and dealing them in school culture.

Aim of the study was to research teacher’s views on using digital devices in teaching, through rhetoric discourse analysis. Digitalization has become strongly imbedded in school world and has, especially recently, risen in importance. From basic education’s curriculum (POPS 2014) can be found several goals relating to usage of digital devices. Usage of digital devices has awoken a lot of discussion and divides opinions. Teachers are the ones who through teaching execute curriculum’s goals and as such their opinions on using digital devices matter. Earlier studies have shown for example, that usage of digital devices might have incurred different kinds of feelings of uncertainty. Additionally technical struggles and recourse problems might have felt taxing. On the other hand, digital devices were also seen as useful tools with which teaching could be carried out in more diverse ways and easier. The research material consisted of 16 opinion pieces from Helsingin Sanomat digital magazine, that had been written by teachers. Analysis was carried out using discourse analysis. The aim was to find the discourses apparent in the texts and then interpret the rhetorical devices used. Four discourses were found from the texts: displacing discourse, inevitability discourse, drawback discourse and benefit discourse. Displacing discourse showed critical opinions towards digital devices and they were seen as displacing traditional teaching methods. Inevitability discourse highlighted the opinion that using digital devices taught useful skills for the future. Drawback discourse expressed drawbacks usage of digital devices caused on three sections; teacher’s work, learning results and monetary recourses. Benefit discourse in turn expressed benefits of using digital devices in two sections; benefits relating to teacher’s work and benefits relating to teaching contents and -technics. In support of these discourses rhetoric devices were used, especially hyperboles, categorizations and pre-empting counter arguments. Results give suggestion on teachers’ views about using digital devices in teaching and possible strengths and weaknesses relating to them. Central points are good media literacy for both children and adults alike, reflecting on ones thoughts about using digital devices, co-operation with colleagues, extra trainings regarding using digital devises and better resources.

The purpose of this qualitative research is to find out whether experiences in school bullying has effects on the bullied persons in adulthood, more in detail concerning relationships, health, studying and working life. This research was conducted by using a narrative approach where the people participating in the study told in their own words about their experiences. The people that participated in the study were all women that had experienced school bullying in their childhood and/or in their teens and have been in working life at least few years. The objective of this study was to answer following research questions that were based on the relevant theories: In what way the school bullying has impacted in the relationships in adulthood? How the experiences in school bullying effect on the victim’s health? How the experiences in school bullying effect on studying and working life? The research material was collected by using narrative interviews. The structure for the interview was based on the research questions and were categorized into relationships, health, studying and working life. The interview structure worked as a frame for gathering the research material, but the most important outcomes of the interview were the stories that the interviewees told in their own words about their experiences. The material was analyzed by using theory guided content analysis where the material was categorized from the original expression to the main category. The results of the study show that school bullying has effect on the victim’s life as an adult. The study shows that school bullying has effect on the relationships, health, studying and working life in adulthood. The relevant findings concerning relationships are that everyone suffered from a lack of trust and a negative perception of themselves and that created chal-lenges in relationships. Concerning health, issues such as mental health problems and self-punishing due to low self-esteem and self-hate were discovered as consequences. The re-sults show that everyone participating in the study were goal-oriented and aimed into pro-fessions that are linked with their own survival of the bullying experiences and where they also get the chance to help others suffering from the same challenges that they have experi-enced.

The need for consumer education has been highlighted throughout the ages. In Finland, the need for consumer education was identified as early as the 19th century, when home economic education began to teach thrift and the careful use of raw materials. In fact, home economic education has been found to play a key role in consumer education in comprehensive school. Although consumer education has been on the agenda for a long time, consumer education has not been researched much. Instead, the need for empirical research on consumer education has been identified. The purpose of the study is to respond to the perceived knowledge gap and the need to study the teaching methods used in consumer education and to find out how consumer education is implemented. The study examines how home economic teachers teach skills related to the economy and consumerism in a home economic subject. The concept of consumer education is used in the study of teaching related to consumerism and financial skills. The research has been carried out as qualitative research. Three separate datasets are used to map the views of home economics teachers on the teaching of consumer education. The first material consists of a survey aimed at home economics teachers which had an open question about teaching consumer skills (n=92). The second material is interviews with home economics teachers (n=5), in which the themes received from the survey were specified. The third dataset was collected as an online survey, in which more detailed open-ended questions to home economic teachers (n=8). The material has been analysed using qualitative content analysis. The results of this study are crystallized in teachers' views on the content of teaching used in consumer education, as well as teaching methods. Teachers saw as an important starting point for the goal of a sustainable consumer who can make solutions that promote both their own well-being and that of the environment. In addition, teachers considered it important that the contents of consumer education should be close to the everyday lives of young people. The most common teaching content used by teachers were tasks related to financial management, budgeting, and price comparison. A variety of teaching methods were used in consumer education. As useful and functional methods, the teachers described the visits, the game elements, digital materials and tools, and the subject collaboration. The results can be interpreted as meaning that consumer education in a home economic education is carried out using diverse teaching methods. The contents of the teaching are in line with the objectives of the curriculum, but some aspects of consumer education also need to be developed. This study focused on the content and teaching methods used in consumer education, so the results do not give an idea of how much consumer education is taught in home economics education.

Mathematical problem-solving skills have become increasingly important in our technology-driven, rapidly evolving modern society. The OECD (2017) has identified mathematical problem-solving skills as a key skill for the future. Mathematical problem-solving skills are considered a key competency in everyday life as well as in educational and academic progress. In everyday and work life the mathematical questions are mostly described in verbal format. Therefore, teaching to solve mathematical word problem-solving (WPS) tasks is one of the most relevant ways to train higher-order-thinking skills in elementary school mathematics. The connection of word problem-solving tasks to everyday life has led to their prominent place in mathematics and science curriculums (Jaffe & Bolger, 2023; Seel, 2017). Research findings consistently demonstrate the effectiveness of problem-based teaching approaches (Hoffmann, ym., 2006; Pineda, 2019; Salmivirta, 2020). However, gaps in students' mathematical problem-solving skills have been identified in Finland (Kupari 1983; Kyllönen & Nissinen 2014) and internationally (Dewolf et al., 2014; PISA 2003; PISA 2015). Especially for students with mathematical learning difficulties, mathematical word problem-solving is challenging (Arsenault & Powell, 2022). This thesis aimed to develop a digital word problem solving assessment tool using quantitative analysis. The thesis was carried out as part of the Future Problem Solvers! project in cooperation with the University of Helsinki, Åbo Akademii University, the Aalto University, and the Turku Research Institute for Learning Analytics. The research material was collected during the autumn of 2023 on the digital ViLLE learning platform from 3-6 grade pupils in primary schools with 104 word problem-solving tasks. The tasks used to collect the data were created at the beginning of 2022, and the data consisted of 70 886 responses. The data was analyzed using Excel 2022 (version 18) spreadsheet software and IBM SPSS Statistics 28 statistical software during the academic year 2023-2024. In the process of finding suitable tasks for the assessment tool word problem solving the schemas (Marshall, 1995) of the task instruction were used. The main result is 30 items suitable for a digital assessment tool to map arithmetic word problem-solving skills. The suitable tasks have been divided according to their level of difficulty for grades 3-4 and 5-6, as the difficulty of the tasks changed with the grade level. The study found that when developing a verbal problem-solving assessment tool, it is important to consider whether a wide range of mathematical content areas is practical to assess, as the verbal problem-solving task is relatively time-consuming. The development of assessment tools is important for the development of an evidence-based approach to teaching and learning support. This thesis is a first step forward in the development of digital assessment and further teaching of arithmetic word problem-solving.

The purpose of this study is to describe what kind of perspectives higher education teachers who teach early childhood education and care (ECEC) have about higher education, continuing education, and the development of the ECEC sector. Based on this, three research questions arose: What did higher education teachers say about ECEC studies and their teaching them at universities and universities of applied sciences? What kind of continuing education needs did the teachers teaching ECEC have at the university and university of applied sciences? What kind of themes did the teachers teaching ECEC at the university and university of applied sciences see as essential in developing the field of ECEC? Higher education teachers who teach ECEC are in a significant position when they educate ECEC professionals who are already working in the field and who are graduating to work in the field. The aim of the education is to produce the necessary expertise in the field, which can also be defined as one of of the determining factors of the quality of Finnish ECEC based on previous research (e.g., Karila 2016). Little research has been done in Finland on higher education teachers who train ECEC professionals. However, in the spring of 2024, Finnish Education Evaluation Centre published an evaluation of education in the ECEC sector. There were also higher education teachers who teach ECEC taking part of this evaluation. (Karila et al., 2024). The data for this thesis came from a research material based on the results of a questionnaire by the second term of the Forum for Developing Education and Training Provision and Programmes in ECEC, which operated under the Ministry of Education and Culture. The questionnaire was carried out by the forum's division of Professional competence in a changing operating environment. For the first time in Finland in the spring and summer of 2023, a questionnaire was organized for higher education teachers teaching ECEC in vocational education and higher education, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Board of Education. A total of 47 university of applied science teachers from 19 universities of applied sciences and 43 university teachers from seven universities answered the questionnaire. The research was conducted qualitatively using data-driven content analysis and drawing on a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach to interpretation. The data for the thesis consisted of the results of a Finnish and Swedish-language questionnaire directed at university and university of applied sciences teachers teaching ECEC. The questionnaire consisted of four sections comprising 16 questions, mostly structured. The four sections covered background information, teaching experience and educational background, continuing education needs, and open-ended questions. This thesis focuses on the fourth, open-ended section of the questionnaire. (Publications of the Ministry of Education and Culture 2024:7.) Based on the results of the thesis, it appeared that factors related to the intensification of work is a challenge for university teachers teaching ECEC. This became evident, for example, as an increased workload due to the growing number of students studying in hybrid learning. In the universities of applied sciences, the work of teachers teaching ECEC was challenged by the unclear description of the profession of the social pedagogue of ECEC. The ambiguity of this profession description was also manifested in the conflicting perceptions of the expertise of social pedagogue of ECEC among university of applied sciences teachers. Cooperation with various collaborators, such as other early childhood education programs, the working life, and various networks, which were frequently mentioned in the data, appeared diverse and variable. Collaboration was perceived to cover a wide range different aspect, which can leave objectives, methods of operation, responsibilities, durations, and other factors unclear. Based on the data, it would be necessary to clarify the concept of collaboration in the field in the future.

The purpose of this article-formatted thesis is to provide new information on the current state of co-teaching in Finnish early childhood education and pre-primary education. The study presents how early childhood teachers and special education teachers use co-teaching as a form of teacher collaboration. In addition, the study presents what kind of roles teachers play in co-teaching. In addition, the study presents the challenges and bene-fits that teacher have experienced in co-teaching. Finally, the study examines what teachers consider to be the appropriate context for co-teaching in early childhood education and pre-primary education. Previous national and international studies have been carried out in the context of schools. This study therefore aims to add to the body of research on co-teaching by teachers in the context of early childhood education and care. The quantitative data for my study consisted of data from the Ministry of Education and Culture's research project Supporting Together!, which was collected in 2018. 152 teachers from three large Finnish cities participated in the study. The survey questionnaire was pre-pared by Päivi Pihlaja and Marjatta Takala, researchers involved in the project. My research material is quantitative, so I used methods suitable for quantitative data in the analysis. I used the SPSS program (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 28) to analyse the quantitative data. I analysed the data using descriptive statistics and cross-tabulation. The results showed that teachers have relatively little experience and training in co-teaching in early childhood education and pre-primary education. Teachers working as early child-hood special education teachers were statistically significantly different from teachers work-ing as early childhood teachers or pre-primary teachers in terms of training in co-teaching, as they had more training in co-teaching. However, the results show that co-teaching is carried out least with special teachers in early childhood education. Further research is need-ed, for example on the barriers and opportunities for co-teaching between early childhood teachers and special needs teachers. The article "Co-teaching in early childhood education" is to be published in the Journal of Early Education Research.

This master’s thesis explores what kind of ideals guide music education in Finland in our time. The substantial societal changes of the past few decades have inevitably had an influence on music education. The main goal of the thesis is to define these changes and make visible the patterns of thought behind them. The data for this thesis consists of two documents that create guidelines for music education. These documents are Strategy for Cultural Policy 2025 by the Ministry of Education and Culture, and Vision 2030 for Finnish Music Education, which has been created by professionals in the field of music education. Rhetoric discourse analysis is used to discover how these documents express the neoliberal rationality that dominates thinking and decision-making in the present day, as well as how this rationality affects the goals set for music education. The analysis also examines whether these documents include goals with a different basis. Moreover, the analysis identifies tensions formed in the documents due to inner contradictions or the realities of current society. The results of the analysis show that neoliberal rationality forms three discourses: benefit, market correspondence and cost effectiveness, and individualisation. The new public management also creates responsibility relocation discourse in which nobody is assigned responsible for the changes that have to be made. The desired goals for music education are creating benefits for other areas of life, cost effectiveness, individuality, accessibility, better digitalisation readiness, increasing co-operation and wider knowledge of culture. Tensions are caused by diverging interests, the methods for developing the field and the actualisation of accessibility. In the future, it would be pertinent to find out more about the guiding effects of financial decisions in the music education field as well as how these kinds of guiding documents influence the work of teachers in everyday education.