Browsing by department "Department of Teacher Education"

The emotional instability and the risk of being socially excluded are growing all the time among the children and young people. The chances of physical activities improving the quality of life is an interesting and current study, as for a human being the physical activities play a big role in one's psychological well-being, and there is a good chance to prevent children's and young people's social exclusion with sports. This study was purposed to find out what kind of children take part to Helsinki's EasySport -easy access sport clubs. The study is supposed to find out if the EasySport -action is reaching the right children, which are in threat of being socially excluded or are the participating children mainly already having experience in sport clubs and sport as a hobby. I am also analyzing if participating a sport club is improving child's social interaction or if it's bringing more friendships. I also think it's very important to know the children's opinion about how this easy access action differs from a traditional sport club action and physical education at school. The study's theoretical frame of reference forms from the social exclusion and it's prevention as well as the affection of sports in psychological and social development of a person. The sport club action and physical education in relation to easy access sports are also handled in the theory part. The research questions were: What kind of children are participating the EasySport-clubs? Is the EasySport-action reaching the right children to support the prevention of the social exclusion? How do the EasySport-clubs differ from the traditional sport club action? What makes the EasySport an easy access action? Are the EasySport-clubs encouraging children's social development? The target of the research was, therefore, the children participating the Easy Sport -ball clubs. The study was carried out in form interview by visiting eight Easy Sport -ball clubs. A total of 71 children from age 7 to 13 responded to the survey. The study was conducted as a qualitative case study and the data was analyzed using content analysis. Based on the study it became clear that the children participating the EasySport-clubs are mainly boys with immigrant background. The activity supports the integration of immigrants, which is part of the prevention of the exclusion. Ball clubs also develops children's communication skills and the regular participation in the club can improve the children's quality of life and ignite the enthusiasm of exercise. The results of the operation can also be seen as contributing to children's social development and friendships. The children participating the Easy Sport -ball clubs experience the activity meaningful and different from the school sports or sport club activity, because the children have the opportunity to decide what the program includes and the activities are considered more free.

Objectives The aim of this study is to research and analyse preliminary debates by Finnish Parliament about the citizens initiatives called "Tahdon2013" and "Aito Avioliitto". The themes that emerged from the debate are analysed and discussed in the light of literature and previous studies. The themes are quantitatively or qualitatively meaningful topics risen from the debate. Different voices are identified from the debates through the Bakhtin's (1991) polyphony theory and the model of the activity theory of speech by Ritva Engeström (1999). The purpose is to clarify what is being discussed about the renewal of marriage law and Rainbow Families in the Finnish Parliament and to analyse voices behind these opinions. The frame of reference is family research in Home economics science. Methodology Citizens' initiatives Tahdon2013, discussed in spring 2014, and Aito avioliitto, discussed in fall 2016, were used as material in this study. Citizens' initiatives can be found transcribed on the Parliament website. Findings and conclusions The analysis of both citizens' initiatives reveals that there was a clear dichotomy between those who supported and resisted the amendment to marriage legislation. From the literature it can be concluded that meaning of marriage has been changed in the society to the direction where marriage does not necessarily mean having children and people do not get married for safety. Getting married is more about love, not about having children. There has been a clear separation between a family and marriage, parenthood and sexuality. For those who resisted the change of legislation, marriage is still an old institution for starting a family. These arguments were related to Christian and more conservative values. For those who supported the change the main arguments surrounded around human rights and being able to marry the person who you love despite the gender of the other. Differences in opinions were caused from differences in values. Differing values inflicted different voices that members of parliament were using. Only a few personal voices could be found, but it can be concluded that certain rules were followed in conversations, which made it more difficult to find different voices. However, it was possible to adapt the polyphony theory in to this setting as well.

Goal. Multidisciplinary approach is considered to be the objective of education. Studies however show, that designing lessons that integrates subjects is perceived to be labor-intensive, and planning requires a lot from the teacher. Some studies show, that teachers often rely on materials that are easily available, such as teacher's manuals. Hence, the content that guides how to integrate subjects, should be studied. My research task is to analyze the integration tips in the 5th grade teacher's manuals. I focus particularly on the integration of subjects. Methods. I studied 5 teacher's manuals, I use at work, which contained tips on how to integrate subjects. They represented the following subjects: environmental and natural sciences (2 manuals: biology and geography, physics and chemistry), religion, history and social studies. The material was quantified, analyzed by content analysis and categorized by integration style. Results and conclusions. The manuals contained a total of 167 integration tips. Up to 51% of all content integrated to visual arts, 23% to mother tongue and 16% to music. These contents accounted for 90% of all integrating tips in the teacher's manuals. The proportion of other subjects was marginal. 42% of the content was subservient as integration style. 52% was co-equal and only 6% represented the affective integration style. As a conclusion, it can be stated that the tips guided to integrate the subjects co-equally or subserviently almost as often. Visual arts was the discipline most used and its methodological goals were often taken into account in the contents. On the other hand, visual arts was also used as a form of presentation of information. making its role subservient. For the same reason 2/3 of the tips integrating to mother tongue represented the subservient integration style.

Objectives. The aim of this study was to examine class teachers' opinions and experiences of teaching health education in primary school level. The main purpose was to explore what kind of significant experiences do teachers have of teaching health education, in which kinds of situations do they teach contents of health education, and do they appreciate health education as a school subject in primary school. The health of children and youth has gotten worse during the last decades. It provides food for thought about the importance of coherent health education even for young kids. Methods. The study involved six class teachers, men and women, aged between 26 and 55. They worked as class teachers in the metropolitan area or in the North of Finland. They all had taken university degree of education in a Finnish university. Three of them worked as teachers for second graders, three of them taught pupils at 5th or 6th grade. Research material was collected by interviewing the teachers with structured theme-interview in April-May 2016. After interviews the recordings was transcribed and analyzed using the methods of content analysis. Results and conclusions. The results show that the class teachers give health education mainly without consciously considering that as health education. For the most part, the interviewees didn't consider the contents as a health education except for when they taught contents of puberty and sexuality at grades five and six. Overall, health education as a school subject is experienced challenging because of its common essence. The conclusions are that teachers teach health education according to their own values of health and when the topics come up in the daily life. The teachers aren't conscious enough about the contents of curriculum of health education and aren't that sure about the role of health education as a school subject in primary school level.

Objectives. The aim of this study is to analyze pupil agency and pupil initiatives in the formal context of school. Based on previous studies, the traditional school is claimed to offer limited possibilities for student agency and initiatives, even though current research and national curriculum highlight the active role of pupils. The purpose of the study is to find out what kind of initiatives pupils express during interaction in their peer groups and with the teacher, how the teacher can support the agency of pupils, and what kind of challenges the fulfillment of pupils' agency faces in the school's formal activity. Methods. This study is an ethnographic case study. The research site was a combined 5th and 6th grade class in a small comprehensive school in Southern Finland. The data was collected by videotaping and observing the class working on a Good Life Project during four school days, and also interviewing the teacher of the class. The data on pupil initiatives in peer group was collected in a Desert Island exercise of c. 3 hours. A thematic interview of the teacher was carried out at the end of the data collection period. The material was analyzed by utilizing interaction analysis and narrative approach. Two analyzers were used as a way to improve the reliability of the results. Results and conclusions. The results show that in their peer group pupils generate constructive initiatives, supportive initiatives and deconstructive initiatives in many different ways. Deconstructive initiatives could also advance activity. Pupils generated initiatives more diversely with their peers than with the teacher. In interaction with the teacher, pupils' initiatives were mostly answers to teacher's questions or questions about the task. The teacher could support the pupils' agency by using self-evaluations, giving positive feedback to pupils, using humour and creating positive interaction. The teacher was aware of the tension between agency and control in the school institution. However, the data shows that pupils in this study did not express initiatives equally. Expressing initiatives was gendered in a way that in the Desert Island exercise boys were more active than girls. There was a tense relationship between pupils' activity and passivity, and in this study this contradiction was observed as a dialectical dimension of agency.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine with the help of one case factors which make possible the fact that the pupil ended up designing the school massacre and to threaten with it and also what factors prevented him from carrying out his intentions. The idea of the study was created by itself when I was working as a teacher in the centre of events. The case woke me to look for the answers and manuals to the difficult and demanding situation. At the same time, it led to analyse the structures of the school and my own and my values as a teacher also more deeply. Case under examination in this thesis has been teased and suffered from the loneliness during his whole comprehensive school time. The missing of the sense of belonging caused in him anguish, depression and the lack of the motivation. Because the case of the study was examined from two directions, from a teacher's position and from the case examined, I have taken as my one background theory an ecological system theory. I hope that this theory gives a frame to examine the case from wider point of view. The thesis is the case study in which I interviewed the person under examination repeatedly and furthermore, again about five years after he threated with school massacre. In addition to this, the material consists of my observations written by me when teaching him when the events happened. The analysis of the material was carried out with a Grounded Theory approach, reading narratives again and again. I mirrored my own observations to the story of interviewee building the story about them where the experience of the interviewee and my own observation as a teacher who has taught him combine. The study sharpened considerably towards the end, including theory background. The lack of sense of belonging and the loneliness interviewee felt caused him a serious depression and lack of the motivation. The indifference of the adults of the school and fact that the one did not become heard caused anger because of an unjust treatment and lack of confidence towards the adults. All this together leads to hopelessness and rage. For this kind of a young, the big and changing multi-professional expert groups can cause bigger lack of confidence than before towards the school. It would be important to be heard in the school community and feel sense of belonging there to both the teacher and the pupil. The study brought out also the how vulnerable young like this is when moving along from the comprehensive school. The study brought out also the how vulnerable young like this is when moving along from the comprehensive school. The study wakes to think about the new procedures and structures with school bullying and loneliness and for the support of the transitional stage when moving along from the comprehensive school

This study examines what kind of fears children have in day care (pre-school education) and how those fears are related to their age and sex. The study analyses the social interaction in a day-care centre and its relationship to children's fears. The theoretical framework of the study is based on children's fears, the factors causing fear as well as children's mental development. The theory part of the study evaluates how children behave while in day care and what kind of social interaction they have with each other. Previous studies on children's fears indicate that children regard day care as safe, and children's fears are part of their normal development. The research material of the study comprises a survey conducted among parents/carers whose children were in a public day-care centre in Keski-Uusimaa (Kuuma) region. The survey was carried out as part of the project Searching for Orientation, coordinated by the University of Helsinki as well as the municipalities of Kuuma region. The survey, to which parents/carers answered online after interviewing their children, was a structured feedback form including open questions regarding children's views on day care. According to the results of the study, children are seldom afraid in day care: 71 % of the children interviewed were not afraid in day care and 29 % of the children interviewed had sometimes been afraid in day care. Girls were more often afraid than boys. Younger children had more fears than older. Mostly, children's fears were related to social situations, such as relationships with friends and the fear of getting bullied. Day care itself can be frightening to a small child in terms of physical environment and new situations. Furthermore, meeting the staff in a day-care centre and longing for parents during the day may increase fear among children.

Objectives The purpose of the study is to find out how the 14 cookbooks selected for research help homemakers towards a more ecological and sustainable future. Research questions are divided into three themes: sustainable development, ecology and ecological choices. This study examines the pictures, recipes and texts for cookbooks as well as the functionality of their instructions. In general, very few studies have been conducted on cookbooks. Methods The study focuses on 14 Finnish cookbooks, each containing a structure of recipes according to different seasons. Cookbooks were published during years 2010-2013 and were written by food professionals, amateurs, musicians, and other people familiar with the topic. The data were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis with the help of key questions: what, why and how. Books within the same theme were compared against each other, and recipes and pictures were evaluated for how they support the homemaker. Results and Conclusions Originally, the cookbooks studied here were supposed to be ecological, however, the seasonal separation was not sufficient to describe ecological qualities, since ecology is the sum of many factors as defined by the theoretical part of the thesis. The cookbooks studied here help the homemaker to move towards a more ecological and sustainable future to varying degrees. Only two cookbooks emerged as more informative on the topic. When the homemaker is ready to make sustainable changes, he or she can get new ideas for everyday life, such as dining instructions, from the ecological cookbooks. Thus it can be said that ecological cookbooks play a role in helping the homemaker to move towards a more ecological and sustainable future.

In my study I examine expatriate teachers' experiences of working abroad and the development of their professional identity. The starting point of my study is the idea that a person's identity is formed through interaction with other people and is a constantly changing process. My study is based on a narrative inquiry. This is because my intention has been to open up new perspectives to better understand the experiences of expatriate teachers, instead of trying to get measurable results. My research questions are: 1. What kind of image(s) do teachers give about expatriate teacher's work? 2. How do teachers reflect on their professional identities after their working period abroad? a) How do teachers experience the fact that they have been expatriate teachers? b) Have teachers' professional identities changed according to their stories? Four teachers who taught in Abu Dhabi as part of EduCluster Finland's education export program were interviewed. In my interviews I used the method of thematic interview which gave space for stories. In the data analysis I used the perspective of the different roles teachers held. This approach is based on Hermans' (2001) positioning theory according to which people have different roles depending on context and interaction with other people. In my first research question I used content analysis as a method to find out the different roles teachers held in their different social contexts. In my second research question I used Webster's and Mertova's (2007) critical event analysis to outline the conflicting roles from the data. In the end I focused more on the conflicting roles by using dialogical analysis based on Hermans' (2001) positioning theory. The results revealed that expatriate teachers have multiple roles many of which are in conflict with each other. From the roles of expatriate teachers were formed four different classes of conflicting roles through which the teachers reflected on their professional identity. As a result of their self reflecting process the teachers created an in between identity in order to survive among all the conflicting roles. In the end the teachers found their experiences as expatriate teachers positive but also educational. They experienced that the period abroad had an influence on their professional identities in different ways and that it brought change to their thinking as well as to their teaching in practice. The results of the research can be used in the development of teachers' international mobility and teacher education.

The starting point of this study was to find out how the historical consciousness manifest in conceptions and experiences of Chilean refugees and their descendants. The previous research of historical consciousness has shown that powerful experiences such as the revolution and being a refugee may have an effect on historical consciousness. The purpose of this study is to solve how those experiences in the past have influenced Chilean refugees and their descendant's interpretations of the present and expectations for the future. The research material was collected by interviewing four Chilean refugees that escaped to Finland in years 1973 1976 and four young adults who represent the second generation. All second generation interviewees were born in Finland and their other parent or both parents were Chilean refugees. The two groups were not in a family relation to each other. The empirical part of the research was made by qualitative methods. The research material was collected by the method of focused interview and it was analysed by the qualitative data analysis software Atlas.ti 6.0. Content analysis was the main research tool. The previous theory of historical consciousness and the study questions was used to create the seven categories that manifest historical consciousness. The seven categories were biographical memory, collective memory, experiences of living between two cultures, idea of man, the essence of history and the reason for living, value conceptions and expectations of the future. Content analysis was based on those categories. Subcategories were based on the research material and were created during the analysis. The results of this study were made up of categories. The study revealed that experiences of revolution and of being a refugee has a significant role in the historical consciousness of the Chilean refugees. It became evident in their biographical memory being separated in three parts, in their values and in the belief of possibility of an individual to govern her own life. The second generation was also exposed to their parent's experiences in the past. The collective trauma in their parent's past has been part of their life indirectly and has affected the way they think of themselves, their concepts and their place in the present world. The active and regular retrospection in Finland by Chilean adults and special Gabriela Mistral club activities has played a big part in the construction of their historical consciousness.