Browsing by study line "Luokanopettaja, kasvatustiede"

Objectives. Positive classroom climate has direct effects on students’ school satisfaction and motivation to learn. Character strength interventions implemented in schools also have a connection with students’ school satisfaction and their enjoyment of school. The aim of this study was to translate a classroom climate questionnaire for finding out whether the students’ and teacher’s experience of the classroom climate dimensions were similar before the intervention and whether the character strength intervention affected the classroom climate dimensions from the perspective of the students and the teacher. In the study, a 10-lesson-long See the Good! -intervention was implemented to introduce students to character strengths and help them harness those strengths for everyday use. The structure of the intervention lessons is based on versatile See the Good! -material by Lotta Uusitalo and Kaisa Vuorinen. The classroom climate theory in this study is based on the five dimensions of classroom climate by Barry Fraser, Gary Anderson and Herbert Walberg (1982). Methods. The study was conducted as a mixed method intervention study, where quantitative data was obtained from the students of experimental group and control group using the MCI questionnaire and qualitative data by interviewing the teacher of the experimental group. The study contained two measurements, an initial measurement before the intervention and a final measurement after the intervention. Both measurements included the MCI questionnaires of the experimental group and control group and the teacher’s interview. 37 third grade students (experimental group N=19, control group N=18) and one teacher participated in the study. Quantitative data was collected using an anonymous electronic questionnaire and the data was analysed using the Mann-Whitney U-test of two independent samples. The reliability of the MCI questionnaire was examined using Cronbach’s alpha values. Qualitative data was collected with the teacher’s semi-structured thematic interview and analysed using data-driven content analysis. Considering the sample size of the study, the study does not aim for broadly generalizable results. Results. Experimental group’s and their teacher’s experiences on classroom climate dimensions before the intervention were somewhat similar and somewhat different. Both felt that the dimensions of satisfaction and competitiveness were present in the classroom climate and there were no strong signs of friction or difficulties. However, the teacher felt that the classroom climate includes cohesiveness but according to the students’ experience, there were not much cohesiveness in the classroom climate. The teacher found that the intervention had positively improved four of the five dimensions (cohesiveness, friction, satisfaction and difficulty). The teacher didn’t notice that the intervention had affected the dimension of competitiveness. According to the students’ experience, the intervention had a positive effect on two dimensions (cohesiveness and friction), of which the effect on cohesiveness was statistically significant. The intervention had not statistically significantly affected other dimensions. The intervention improved the dimension of cohesiveness according to both the students’ and the teacher’s experience.

Bicycle model on climate change education is a model recommended by the Finnish Board of Education. It combines current climate education and offers a way to educate children about climate change. The goal of the model is to be involved in solving the climate crisis, one of today's biggest issues. This study examines the thinking contained in the bicycle model from the point of view of ideology criticism. Its goal is to investigate how the bicycle model promotes or avoids facing the Real of the climate crisis, the contradictions that fundamentally challenges the current order of humanity. The research method is Žižek's critique of ideology, which consists of interpreting the symptoms of ideology and traversing the fantasy. The study shows how the bicycle model approaches the Real of the climate crisis to some extent, but ends up avoiding it through an ideological operation, according to which the climate crisis can be solved by environmental responsibility. Based on the study, the bicycle model offers means of consumption to change the consumption-oriented worldview and contains the fantasy of "Nature" as a coherent entity that interacts with the individual. The Study presents an alternative attitude towards the climate crisis based on Žižek's philosophy.

The purpose of this Master's thesis was to find out what kind of role after-school clubs play in supporting the daily life and well-being of the child and family. The objective is to highlight the factors that are part of a high-quality after-school club. After-school clubs, as well as its connections with well-being support, have been little studied. However, previous research has shown that there is a strong connection between child and parental well-being. So, the well-being or ill-being of someone affects other family members as well. According to previous research, after-school clubs play a large role in combining parents' work and family life, as well as reducing a child's lonely time after school. After-school clubs also play an important role in strengthening the child's social relations and healthy lifestyle. The study was conducted as a qualitative study. The data were collected as themed interviews by interviewing eight parents of children attending Tennis- ja mailapelikoulu -after-school club organized by Grani Tennis. The research setting was phenomenographic, meaning the goal was to understand and describe the meanings given by parents to the phenomenon being studied. The data was analyzed using theory-driven content analysis in which the theoretical framework of the thesis served as the theory. The study’s results highlighted the important role of after-school clubs in organizing the daily life of the child and the family and in supporting everyone’s well-being. They allow parents to work full-time. While working, it is important to have a safe place for their child to spend time after school. Parental well-being is supported by the fact that the daily life is not burdened with additional planning in relation to reducing the child's lonely time. The well-being of the child and parents was also perceived to have a strong connection. After-school clubs particularly support the child's social, psychological, and physical well-being. After-school clubs in Finland, however, should be still developed more so that there are enough instructors that have the skills to work with different children and supporting their needs. It should be ensured that every child has equally a safe place to develop and grow. As after-school clubs are fee-required, they should also be developed so that every family has the possibility to use them in their daily life.

Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract Objectives. Sexuality is a part of humanity. Sexuality develops through our lives and includes various stages of growth and development. Sex education is part of human rights and WHO (World Health Organization) has defined Europe wide standards for sex education. Previous studies show that sex education increases more knowledge and strengthens the child’s self-esteem. On the other hand, studies have shown teachers experiencing sex education challenging and they need further education on it. The aim of this research was to determine perceptions and experiences of primary school teachers about sex education. Methods. The data of this qualitative research was collected by interviewing five primary school teachers. The material is analyzed by the method of analysis of the content. Interviews are transcribed and transcribed material decrypted into sections sorted by the topic. These themes emerged from the data itself and on research issues. By using content analysis, the purpose was to create a view of teacher’s perceptions and experiences and reflect them with the theoretical frame of reference of research. Results and conclusions. Teachers considered sex education important and relevant. The world is changing all the time and teacher’s knowledge should keep up with the change. Content areas of sex education were mainly familiar to teachers, but some flaws in their knowledge were also found. Teachers perceived the subject as a natural thing, but they also identified the challenging nature of the subject. Sex education raised some uncertainty among teachers which was mostly due to lack of education. Further education of teachers would improve sex education on primary schools and strengthens teachers’ faith in themselves as sex educators.

Continuous learning, identity and ecology are strong phenomena in our time. They are also quite wide-ranging. Previous research has shown an interaction between learning and identity. However, there is just little research on the link between learning and identity and there has been a need for it. Previous research has found that, for example, individual-relevant learning subjects has influenced his or her willingness to learn. Thus, the meanings contained in identity affect in its own way continuous learning. The aim of this research was to study continuous learning and the meanings of learning subjects in the context of coloring with natural dyes. The aim of this research is to determine, analyze and construe the learning and the meanings contained in identity that take place in the learning process related to natural coloring. Research material consisted of 26 interviews, which were interviewed as part of the BioColour research project led by Riikka Räisänen. Interviews were transcribed by an outside party. The research material was analyzed by content analysis. The research material was coded, classified and themed. The classifications were made based on previous research, but the subcategories come from the research material. The themed was done through themes that come from the research material. Using content analysis, it was possible to create a wide picture of the topic under this research. Those, who dye with natural colorants, learn in many ways. They learn especially through oblique knowledge transfer, where different courses were the largest class in the learning process. The interviewees described also that they learned, among other things, through their experiments. Those, who dye with natural colorants, experienced meanings on the learning subject. They experienced personal meanings: related to health, self and emotions, as well as ethical meanings: environmental and traditional meanings. Based on the results, it could be said that the those, who dye with natural colorants, experienced meanings on the subject that they were during their lifetime, but the connection between this experienced meaningful subject and their learning cannot be studied with this research.

Objectives. The aim of this study was to investigate the connection between parental alcohol use and school bullying among eighth and ninth graders in School health survey from 2019. The research problem was to find out if parental alcohol use could be linked to being a bully at school when other risk factors of being a bully have been observed as well. Previous studies have found that parental alcohol use and being a bully at school may be linked though there were not numerous amount of previous studies. Parental alcohol use affects the lives of many children and adolescents in Finland which makes this as an important topic to explore. This research raises the experiences of adolescents whose parents are consuming alcohol and develops ways to recognize children and adolescents who have a higher risk to become a bully as well as expand the understanding of bullying and it`s causes. Methods. The data used in this study consists of a Finnish school wellbeing survey that was conducted in 2019. The survey is a nation-wide study with target group being one cohort of eighth and ninth grade primary school pupils. The survey received a total of 87 215 responses of which 52 821 fulfilled the criteria of the employed analysis methods. The data was analysed through a linear regression using a forced entry method. There were 15 additional variables used in addition to parental alcohol use. Those variables were formed based on previous studies. Linear regression was used to examine the connection between parental alcohol use and being a bully when other risk factors were observed as well. Results and conclusions. In contrast to previous research, parental alcohol use and other risk factors of this study did predict being a bully at school. But even though the linear regression model itself was statistically significant, it was capable to explain only 16.5 percent of the total variation in being a bully variable. There could be a potential link between parental alcohol use and being a bully at school but the link seemed to be weak according to this study.

The purpose of this study is to find out how Karelian language and culture are described in Finnish primary school textbooks. Karelian is one of the minority languages of Finland, used by approximately 30 000 people in Finland at different levels. More speakers of Karelian are found in Russia. Karelian language is different from the various dialects of Karelia. The research approach of the study is based on the methods of the European language diversity for all (ELDIA) research project, which has been used to study the status of Finno-Ugric minority languages in particular and the possibilities for language learning and revitalisation. Karelian language is highly endangered, although there has been some increase in revitalisation efforts in recent years. ELDIA's findings suggest that the availability of language products (e.g. textbooks), improves both the access of language speakers to their language and the status of the language in general. It was therefore decided to investigate how Karelian language and culture are presented in Finnish textbooks for basic education. Previous studies have shown that textbooks have a major impact on pupils' perceptions and attitudes. The research method used was discourse analysis with thematic analysis, which divided the references to Karelian language and culture found in textbooks into three different groups. The study included all primary school textbooks from three Finnish publishers (Sanoma Pro, Otava, Edukustannus) in the following subjects: Finnish language and literature, history, religion and environmental studies. The total number of books studied was 146 and they were in line with the 2014 basic education curriculum. Included were pupils' books, exercise books and teachers' guides. A total of 25 references to Karelian language and culture were found in the textbooks examined. These findings were divided into three different discourses according to the topic in which Karelian was mentioned. These three discourses are history, Kalevala and minority languages. There were 10 mentions related to history, 7 related to Kalevala and 8 related to minority languages. Most of the mentions were in the same textbooks. The mentions of the history theme were either related to the geographical area of Karelia, treaty of Nöteborg or the Karelian tribes. In connection with Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot was mentioned as having made collecting trips to Viena Karelia. Karelian poem singers were also mentioned. Mentions of minority languages were mostly part of a longer list of minority languages. All the findings were no more than two sentences long. Karelian language is therefore not described in a comprehensive way in this study. Based on ELDIA and other previous research presented, textbooks could play their part in improving the status of minority languages by telling more about them, giving a voice to speakers of the languages, and telling about minority languages and cultures on an equal footing with majority languages.

Over the last few decades the religion and belief landscape in Finland as well as in other parts of Europe has become more pluralistic mainly due to secularisation and globalisation. Therefore, research regarding worldview education has questioned if the existing separative teaching model is current enough to create fertile ground for developing general worldview education. Some schools have adopted partially integrative teaching, which has sparked more interest to further research this topic. The aim of this thesis is to increase understanding of teachers’ perspectives on the purpose of worldview education and its future. The study was conducted as a part of the research project Osittain yhdistetty katsomusaineiden opetuksen kehittäminen (Odysseus). The material was collected in the autumn of 2022 by using qualitative research methods. Seven teachers who teach worldview education in primary school were interviewed individually for the study. The material was analysed using data-based content analysis. In the light of the results, the teachers described the purpose of worldview education through five dimensions. They saw the knowledge relating to the pupil’s own and others’ worldviews, the supporting of the pupil’s identity development, ethics, communication skills and teaching from a non-confessional standpoint as particularly important. The results show that the teachers consider the purpose of worldview education to be holistic and affiliated with both the personal growth of the pupil as well as the promotion of equality in the society. Concerning the future of worldview education the teachers brought up three different approaches, which are comparison between the subjects, the process-like nature of the development work and a spectrum of different emotions and attitudes. According to the study the teachers’ views on the future of worldview education keep up the negotiations around the purpose of worldview education and whether it should be modified or kept unchanged. Thus worldview education appears to be in the middle of an intense transitional phase.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to examine the views of teachers participating in the Transformers 2030 education on the phenomenon of sustainable development and to find out how they experience their own opportunities to promote sustainability in the context of the school. The aim of the thesis is to study, through discourse analysis, the talk produced by teachers on the promotion of sustainable development. The focus will be on joint and small group discussions, as well as written outputs. This study is timely because studies show that people are easily paralysed by too complex issues. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the radical weakening of the balance of nature are shaking people's sense of security and hope. Imagineing alternative futures and acting on them are ways to strengthen confidence and hope for the future. This thesis is a qualitative study in which research material has been approached from the point of view of social constructivism. Discourse analysis was built around the language produced by individuals. Teachers and educators, participating in Transformers 2030 -training (n=34) throughout Finland in autumn 2021, participated in the study. The training took the form of distance training, which is why the research material consisted of different audio and visual recordings. Discourse analysis was used to study the material produced in the training. The analysis identified factors which could be interpreted to answer the research questions of the study. Understanding the phenomenon of sustainable development and the importance of action in line with its objectives was important for teachers. Although they experienced uncertainty in their competence and know-how, they considered the lack of social debate and concrete actions to be more problematic. The lack of cooperation and a common direction was also seen as an essential challenge in the field of sustainable development education. Teachers had the will to change their own thinking patterns and the need to produce teaching aimed at understanding biodiversity. They thought that the change should be based on the perspective in which nature is at the heart of all acting and making decisions. Teachers used utopia to express alternative future images and felt that this kind of work was liberating and giving hope.

This study is an article-type master’s thesis, and its purpose was to study immigrant background families from ECEC personnel’s perspective. In this study ‘immigrant background’ is defined to include everyone who has either moved to Finland, been born in Finland but has parents with an immigrant background or speaks a foreign language at home. The personnel perspective in this study is brough by ECEC leaders and educators. The research questions were: How do the views of parents with an immigrant background appear to the ECEC leaders and educators? By what means do the ECEC leaders and educators support the families in their integration? The theoretical framework was produced by the diversities, acculturation and integration that was based on the international declarations, Finnish laws, policies, and recommendations from the curricula. With the help of these, this study aims to add knowledge of immigrant background families in ECEC, which is needed according to previous studies. This study was conducted between September year 2021 and May year 2022. The data was collected in December via individual and group interviews. The empirical material was gathered through semi-structured interviews with five ECEC unit leaders interviewed individually, and nine educators interviewed in four groups of two to four educators. The interviews were analyzed with content analysis using an inductive approach. The results indicate that the immigrant background families’ views appear for the leaders, and educators are mainly positive, especially the families' desire to integrate into Finnish society. The diverse cultures appeared for the personnel to conflict with Finnish culture, however, the conflict depended on the individuals and was not able to generalize. The means of integration were clear, and they matched all the dimensions of integration. The results explain the need for ensuring a shared understanding between parents and ECEC personnel. The article script “Language is Important” Perspectives from ECEC Personnel on Supporting Families with an Immigrant Background” is supposed to publish in an ECEC journal called Journal of Early Childhood Education Research. As co-authors in the article were Arniika Kuusisto and Heidi Harju-Luukkainen.