Browsing by Subject "nuoret"

The aim of this study was to examine what is relevant to education regarding adolescents' experiences in relation to mental health protective and risk factors, and how their speech reflects their future plans. This study examined factors that are related to well-being and mental health, which were adolescents' strengths, successes in school, experiences and atmosphere in upper comprehensive school, friendships, teacher-student relationships, and future plans. This study was conducted in collaboration with This life of mine -project. The study is qualitative and its data was collected from two schools in the Uusimaa region through free-form questionnaires (n=16) and thematic interviews (n=4) in 2019. Adolescents' in this study consisted of 8th and 9th grade students who have earlier participated in the This life of mine -workshops. Thematic design was used as the method of data analysis. The results indicated that there were many protective and risk factors of mental health in adolescents' experiences. Protective factors included the presence of friends at school, ability to name one's own strengths and successes, positive school experiences and the presence of an adult at school that adolescent can discuss with. Mental health risk factors included lack of friends at school, stress, negative school experiences, for example due to poor teacher-student relationship or too easy school assignments, and the inability to name one's own strengths and successes. It is a sign of wellbeing for adolescents' to plan their future, and most of the people in this study were able to name some of their future plans. Although 65 % of the adolescents' in this study had many protective factors in their lives, it should be noted that up to 20 % had multiple risk factors in their experiences, and 15 % had something in between. Also links between different themegroups emerged. For example, there was a clear connection between naming one's own strengths and experiences of success. Those who named their own strengths were also linked to positive and diverse plans for their future. Teacher-student relationships also had a connection with the positivity of the school experiences. Those adolescents' who did not have a close adult in school also had negative school experiences. As a conclusion there should be more strength-teaching in schools, and versatile feedback methods should be used in all school work. This would help adolescents' in the process of noticing and naming own strengths and successes at school, which would have a impact on the school experiences and well-being. Investing in teacher-student relationships also supports the well-being of students. In addition, the level of school assignments should be adjusted to the needs of each student so that the assignments would support the adolescents’ learning.

Goals. The aim of this study was to better understand the ways in which young people make sense of sexual and gender-based harassment. Harassment is recognized as a problem both in public discussion and at the institutional level. However, previous studies have shown that harassment can be difficult to recognize as it intertwines with other phenomena in everyday life, such as humour. In this study harassment was viewed from a feminist post-structural perspective as a phenomenon which is understood through different discourses and categories, and is linked to social differences. This study focuses on how young people make sense of sexual and gender-based harassment in their everyday lives and how the categories of gender, age, and ethnicity, which are connected to perpetrators and targets of sexual harassment, affect the sense making. Methods. The data consisted of theme interviews with 15 ninth graders and a 5-day observation period in a secondary school located in the southern Finland. Discourse analysis was used in analysing the data, and analytical tools from membership categorization analysis were also used. Findings. Harassment and its meanings were constantly negotiated and normalized. Harassment was understood through different discourses that gave it different meanings: on the one hand harassment was interpreted as distressing and on the other hand as ordinary phenomena. Many situations, such as name-calling in schools were often interpret not as harassment, but as common humour. One’s own experience was considered important when defining harassment, but also situations that were not necessarily seen as fun, could be normalized as humour. Harassment was also actively located away from one’s own everyday life. Categories of gender, age, and ethnicity were used to describe and explain both the perpetrators and the targets of harassment. The categories were first and foremost used to make sense of sexual harassment done by strangers. The categories were also used to highlight differences between the perpetrator and the target and some of the used categories strengthened stereotypes. The assumption of humour was constructed mainly on the friend-category. The findings show that the different meanings of harassment are constructed in local interactions which are embedded in broader social culture. The findings can be utilized in the preventive work done by schools, as the study increases our understanding of the ways in which harassment is entangled with school culture and everyday life.

Youth violence has been a topic in public debate for many centuries and violent entertainment has been a main focus in search for reasoning youth violent behaviour and the acceptance of violence. The aim of this study is to survey the aspects of major consumers of entertaining history culture on the legitimacy of violence. The hypothesis was, that the major consumers of entertaining history culture do not justify the use of violence as problem solving measure. The entertaining history culture is limited to include historical movies and tv-series together with computer and console games. This study was executed as qualitative research with phenomenography as the methodological philosophy. The focus was to find out the thoughts about justified violence of ninth grade students who consume a lot of entertaining history culture. The research material was collected from inquiry from one hundred participating ninth graders. The inquiry was held to find out major consumers of entertaining history culture that would be suitable for semi structured interviews. Seven people were chosen for interviews. The study revealed that the major consumers of entertaining history culture react negatively to the legitimacy of violence both in historical context and in real life. The youth say that movies and games aren't a direct cause of violent behaviour, but can be harmful if a person has another mental difficulties already. The youth told that they can easily separate movies and games from real life and think them as entertainment that you can also learn from. The youth also had a positive image about the future, although they saw the media stirring up some threats. This study should stand by earlier research which say that violent entertainment don't increase either youth violence or the legitimacy of it.

Personal goals offer an important aspect of personality and motivation. Personal goals are conscious and subjectively motivated objectives by which a person directs his or her life over time. Personal goals are related to adolescents' subjective well-being. The aim of the present research was to find out, what kinds of groups of adolescents can be formed by the content of personal goals and how these groups differ in goal appraisals, meaningful life events and subjective well-being. The second aim of the study was to detect gender differences and differences between vocational and high school students in goal appraisals, meaningful life events and subjective well-being. Adolescents in upper secondary education (N=1144) were grouped together by the content of their personal goals using a person oriented approach and a cluster analysis. Clusters found in the analysis were named by the centre goal as (1) a property group, (2) a vocation group, (3) a future education and personal relationships group and (4) a self-focused group. Adolescents in the property group put a little effort into their career goal, they were not exhausted in school work and their subjective well-being was average. Adolescents in the vocation group felt progress in their career goal and put effort into it. They had goals related to life-style. They did not feel exhausted and their subjective well-being was average. The future education and personal relationships group put effort into their career goal and considered progressing in it. Personal relationships were important in their lives. They were exhausted in their school work but they did not feel cynicism. Their own health was one of their goals and they felt satisfaction in their life. Adolescents in the self-focused group did not put effort into their career goal nor considered progressing in it. They were exhausted and especially cynical in their school work. They suffered from almost clinically significant depression. They had low life-satisfaction and low self-esteem. The following gender and educational differences were found. Compared with boys, girls felt their career goal was more important and stressful, and girls also put more effort into it. Girls were more exhausted, depressed and they had lower self-esteem than boys. High school students felt more stress with their career goal than vocational school students. High school students were more exhausted, but still they felt more satisfaction with their lives. In practice, to cover adolescents' personal goals is a possibility to find distressed individuals who might be in need for extra support.

The aim of this study is to find out how adolescents think handicrafts as a leisure activity affects their own well-being. Adolescents’ crafting has been researched mainly from the perspective of teaching and the relationship between handicrafts and well-being has been re-searched mainly from the perspective of adults and elderly. This study aims to make visible the perspective of adolescent leisure activity on this topic. The research was conducted by interviewing six 13-14-years old adolescents and one 20-years old by using theme interviews. All the participants did their handicrafts emphasizing textile techniques ergo knitted, crocheted, or sewed. The interviews were arranged either remotely via Teams-application as individual interviews or at the adolescents’’ school as pair interviews. The material gathered was transcribed after which using thematizing and content analysis it was constructed into an analysis frame that was partly guided by previous studies. Pöllänen’s (2015b) research has especially guided this study by acting as a foundation for theoretical framework, interview frame and analysis frame. The study found out the most important benefits for well-being from doing crafts could come from feelings of achievement, the joy of learning something new, the freedom to do as one wishes and the calming effect of handicrafts. The amount of well-being handicrafts can induce could be affected by how much experience the adolescent has and how often they partake in making crafts. Those who did crafts rarely or were beginners didn’t think handicrafts were that impactful in their lives and thought of it more as a temporary activity. Those who did handicrafts a lot and thought of it as an important leisure activity were more likely to give more meaning to the aspects of making crafts and felt it was more impactful to their everyday lives.

Aims. The aim of this study was to examine what kinds of achievement goal orientation profiles can be identified among general upper secondary school students and how adolescents with different motivational strivings perceive their mothers’ parenting style. Achievement goal orientations refer to relatively stable tendencies to favor certain goals and outcomes in learning and achievement related situations, which are formed through individuals’ own experiences. It is important to study the connection between these phenomena, as it provides better understanding regarding parents’ role in adolescents’ learning and achievement. Methods. The data (N=1344) were collected from all classes of first-year students in general upper secondary schools in one city in Eastern Finland. The participants completed self-report questionnaires, which included measures regarding achievement goal orientations and relationship with mother among other things. By utilizing a person-centered approach and latent class clustering analysis (LCCA), groups of students with different motivational profiles were identified. The group differences in perceptions of mother’s parenting style were further analyzed by using ANOVA. Results and conclusions. Five groups with different achievement goal orientation profiles were identified. The groups were named as indifferent (32%), avoidance-oriented (26%), success-oriented (17%), performance-avoidance-oriented (15%) and mastery-oriented (11%). Mastery-oriented, success-oriented and indifferent students perceived that their mothers showed higher level of maternal affection and were more involved in their lives compared to performance-avoidance- and avoidance-oriented students. Success- and performance-avoidance-oriented students perceived their mothers’ psychological control to be higher than students in the other groups. Avoidance-oriented students perceived their mothers’ behavioral control to be lower than students in the other groups. According to the results, there are differences in how adolescents with different orientations towards studying perceive their mother’s parenting style. This study deepens the understanding regarding the phenomena relating to achievement goal orientations and shows the meaning of parenting in terms of adolescents’ learning and achievement.

Objectives. Young people's eating related facts have been studied earlier, e.g. a study of young people's food choices influencing their lives by Vanhala. The aim of this study is to evaluate young people's food choices at home, at school and with peers, and to study the influencing factors. The purpose of the study is to determine the influencing factors behind young people's food choices and find out how these affect their alertness and general well-being at school and at home. Another aim is to find out how well young people recognize the significance of healthy eating on their well-being. Methods. The data were collected from 12 first year baker-confectioner students in a vocational school in Helsinki Metropolitan Area. There were 12 students altogether, nine of whom were girls and three boys. They were interviewed individually with 28 interview questions. Pictures of their food diary were also used in the data. The pictures were taken in a 24 h period by the students using Whatsapp program. The interviews took 1-2 hours per student. The aim of the interviews was to assess young vocational school students' food choices at home and at school. The study was qualitative and the data were analysed using content analysis. Results and conclusions. The data showed that young people's eating habits at home and at school were influenced by behaviours and habits learned at home. Another factor was whether the parents were at home or working when the young people were eating. The environment at the time of snacking affected how healthy snack choices the young people made. In a bakery, various delicacies were alluring and the majority chose to snack on a Shrove bun. Young people's evening meals and snacks were also influenced by their families' long-term habits and by what their parents permitted them to eat on their own after coming home from school. The data show that the key factor influencing young people's food habits was behaviours learned at home, and the second biggest influencing factor was peers. School was a factor only for snacking and lunch, and according to the results, only two students skipped school lunch.

Online youth work is a relatively new area of research in youth work. Previous studies have shown that internet lives in the world of constant change and technological development proceeds apace. For today's young people internet has always been there. Young people use net for the free-time recreation, information retrieval and interaction. The purpose of this study was to examine youth workers' perceptions of the opportunities and challenges of the use of net in their work. The research questions were: 1) How do the youth workers use the net at work? 2) What kind of problems and opportunities do the youth workers see in the use of the net for developing youth work? 3) How do the youth workers describe online interaction with young people? Research data on the internet usage in municipal youth work in Finland was collected by Verke (Verkkonuorisotyön valtakunnallinen kehittämiskeskus) in the spring 2013. This study analysed open questions of a larger questionnaire survey carried out by Verke. The respondents were youth workers at the capital area. The methods of analysis were the theme analysis and phenomenography. The results highlighted three ways to use the net in youth work: narrow, developing and wide. The analysis of the challenges in using the net revealed three kinds of problems: underdeveloped online practices, technical limitations and the lack of support in the workplace. There were five different ways to interact with young people through the net: communication, working together, guidance, care and availability. These conceptions link the net-based youth work to the post-war time key issues discussed in youth work regarding its task in the society. Based on the results it can be pointed out that the youth workers practices, willingness and readiness to use the net are diverse, which tells about different ways of using the net in youth work. Youth workers also expect to get rules and help in meeting with young people through the net. They also wanted to receive support from their supervisors and organization and to get better equipment.

Aims. The main meals that youngsters have during the day are eaten at home and at school. In the Nordic countries breakfast and supper are often eaten with other members of the family. The way that Nordic countries arrange the school lunch and the frequency of family meals differ between countries. However, the challenges related to eating habits of the young are surprisingly similar. The aim of this study is to discuss how the Nordic countries could support youngsters' healthy eating habits. This study was carried out as a part of a Nordic research project and it completed the work done by Kauppinen (2009) and Niemi (2009) in their Master's Theses. The research questions are: 1. How do the youngsters evaluate their own eating habits and those of their family? 2. How do the youngsters evaluate the influence of home, family and school on their own eating habits? 3. What kind of relationship exists between eating at home and at school according to the data? Data and methods. A quantitative internet-based survey was used to collect data (N=1539) on the 9th graders conceptions and understandings. The survey consisted of respondents from Finland (N=586), Sweden (N=427), Denmark (N=295) and Norway (N=246). In this study the whole data to the appropriate extent was analyzed. The analysis was done with the SPSS-software and included examination of means, standard deviations, cross-tabulations, Pearson's correlations, Chi-squared -tests, t-tests and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results were compaired between the countries and between sexes. Results and discussion. The studied youngsters evaluated their own eating habits positively. There were statistically significant differences (p< .05) between countries concerning the people who influence the youngsters' healthy eating habits. Youngsters from Finland and Sweden considered making healthy choices at school easier than those from Denmark and Norway. Also eating a so called healthy lunch at school was more common in Finland and in Sweden. Eating breakfast and eating a healthy meal at school had a statistically significant interconnection (p< .001). The differences between sexes were not equal between the countries. The results supported those from previous studies, but also raised ideas for further study. Youngsters' near environments should support their possibilities to make healthy choices and to participate to the decision making process. Co-operation between the Nordic countries and between the home and the school is important. Listening to the youngsters' own voice is a challenge and a possibility for developing both home economics education and research in this area.

The target of this research was to find out experience of students in vocational education concerning early school leaving among students who has dropped out. Other target was to find out underlying reasons for early leaving the school. I also was interested in life stories and current life situation of those early school leavers. Drop out phenomenon has perceived as a problem in terms of the waist of appropriations and the delay in the transition from school to working life. Early school leaving in secondary education has considered as remarkable risk of eventual exclusion. Previous studies show that the risk to become school dropout already arises during primary school. Academic success and school satisfaction in primary school has a great effect on one's studies and how much they enjoy to study in that school. Also puberty, home conditions in general and motivation have an impact on eventual school dropout. The research questions were: What kind of experience lead to student's decision to quit studies in Ypäjä Hevosopisto? How did the students experience dropping out? What were the reasons why a student applied for studies in Ypäjä Hevosopisto? What is the life situation of each student like nowadays? This study was a case study with three drop outs. I interviewed every dropout student separately by thematic interview. The cases had started their studies after year 2010 in Ypäjän Hevosopisto and then, eventually, dropped out. Everybody studied in triple decree. I also interviewed the current study advisor in Ypäjä Hevosopisto in order to get another viewpoint. First I transcribed all interviews and then analyzed them by using theory based content analysis. I categorized the answers first to upper and then to subordinate concepts. The result of the study was that any case was not dropping due to factors that appeared in earlier studies. All the cases were students with success and high motivation. The most important reason for dropping out was some sad and unexpected coincidence. Two students quitted because of injuries and one student was distressed due to life in the student dormitory.