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Aims: The recent conversations about disappearing family meals, mental problems of the youngsters and family meals' protective effect on youngsters problems have been the base of this study. The main aim of this study is to find out, what kind of position family meals do have in the youngsters' lives. Study questions are: 1. What kind of conceptions youngsters have of family meals? 2. What kind of hands-on experience youngsters have about family meals? 3. How youngsters feel family meals on a emotional level? a. Are meals positive moments with the family or do they just limit timetables? b. Do the youngsters need family meals if they do not have those in their families? Why? Why not? Methods: The data was collected using stimulated recall -interviews and basic themed interviews. The data was collected from thirteen 8th graders from Pirkanmaa and Kanta-Häme. The interviews were analyzed with the qualitative content analysis. Results and conclusions: The youngsters' concepts of the meals and the family meals were quite traditional, assuming that those are warm, varied and eaten with company. The situation of the family meals was good and those were eaten nearly every day in the most of the families. The youngsters thought that the family meals were important social moments with the family and they were able to talk about important things with the family during the meals. They also felt that the daily eating rhythm was good and they did not felt that the meals would have been somehow restrictive. Even so that the pupils felt the family meals were important, the pupil whose family did not eat family meals did not long those meals. He felt that he was able to share his thoughts and experiences also in other ways. It is important that youngsters have this channel of communication.

Objectives. Today migration and mobility have become easier and more common, which will affect people's relations to place. The purpose of this study was to examine the link between identity and place from the perspective of an individual, who belongs to diverse groups. This means that the meaningful places for identity formation were not necessarily mutually shared with the larger group. The aim was, above all, to bring out an individual's perspective on the importance of place in identity building process and to determine the impact of changed places due to occurred migration for an individual and his identity construction. The research task is to describe, analyze and interpret the significance of place for identity formation process for young adults who once lived in at least two countries. The link between identity and place occurs in the research groups place relationships and social contacts, which have evolved in the context of migration. Methods. The research data consisted of three interviews of young adults who had lived in at least two countries. All of the people from the research group had dual nationalities of both parents' homelands. From all of the interviewees one of the parents was Finnish and the other from another European country. Theme interview was used as the method of collecting data. It was conducted by individual interviews, which utilized theoretical frameworks main themes. These themes were identity, place, migration and social relations. The data was analyzed by means of a qualitative research by using the narrative analysis. Following the content analysis, the data was coded in various categories, which allowed us to examine the formation of identity in relation to place. The analysis referred the theory but didn't connect only to it because it also arose from the data. Results and conclusions. The research result shows clearly that the place and changes of place has an importance for the construction process of identities. Examining the link between identity and the place the uniqueness of the experience and the individual's personal perspectives were emphasized. The upper categories of the analysis; identity, location, migration and social relations, were a useful in presenting the results of the study. However, the upper categories had a lot of duplication and only by violating the structure by joining the categories together the actual research results were brought out. The research results were formed by the interactive whole of place and identity, which reflected the research groups' experiences of how meaningful the place had been in their identity formation. It showed also how a wide range of individual factors contributed to the formation of a sense of belonging as well as the relevance of the place. Due to migration, the changes of places played a big role in shaping the re-search groups identities. The migration affected the identities, relations of place and social relations to change toward the diverse cross boarder and diasporic manifestations. However, the research groups' reports were strongly personal and contained a lot of unique features. References to cross-border and diasporic identities, open understandings of place and widespread connections in addition to cross-border relationships were common to the entire research group. However, it should be borne in mind that the diasporic, hybrid, and the cross-border identities shouldn't be seen only connected to place, but identity should always be remembered identity consisting of a variety of factors. In addition to place the constructs of identity consist of various factors, ranging from situations and different life paths.

This study aims to compare the two most recent national core curriculums (POPS 2004 and POPS 2014) of the Finnish school system with the help of critical discourse analysis. The goal of the comparison is to find ideological differences within the national core curriculums from a multicultural/intercultural point of view. The final purpose of this study is to then compare the same ideological differences in the content of geography textbooks. Previous studies have shown that school textbooks adapt always in some level to the contents of the national core curriculums. But on the other hand, some previous studies have shown that textbooks may posses the values and ideologies of the people who have ratified the textbook. Our study tries also to find an answer to this problematic question. The data of the research composed of two national core curriculums published in 2004 and 2014 respectively. The text was analysed using the critical discourse analysis from a multicultural point of view. The textbooks used in this study were made by the same Finnish publishing company (Sanoma Pro Oy) : Avara (which followed the national core curriculum of the year 2004) and Geoidi (of the year 2014). The textbooks were analysed from the themes created by the differences that were found in the national codes of education. The results found out that people tend to be the foundation of the concept of culture in both national core curriculums. The previous national core curriculum took culture as a static and stable concept, of which the borderlines were easily defined in accordance with the fundamentalist interpretation of culture. As for the current national core curriculum, it saw culture as a more unstable entity, being constantly in a process. There was no longer discussion of multiculturality, however it was replaced by the concept of cultural diversity. The textbook series that followed the previous national core curriculum (Avara) shared the values of creating borders between cultures and creating more prejudices. The current textbook series (Geoidi) saw culture being constantly in a process, like the current national core curriculum, even though it sometimes depicted a stable view of the culture.

Objectives. The purpose of this thesis was to study the experiences of former lower secondary school pupils related to their school attendance problems (SAPs). The research seeks to provide information related to the phenomenon and the role of school-related factors in the Finnish context. Previous research has shown that teachers and other school personnel highlight the role of individual and family factors when explaining the reasons for school attendance problems and the pupils emphasize the importance of school-related factors. As such, the research questions are 1. How did school-related factors influence the pupils’ SAPs? 2. What kind of support was offered to the pupils when they were having SAPs? 3. What kind of support the pupils would have wished to get from the school personnel when having SAPs? Methods. Five former lower-secondary school pupils were interviewed during October and November 2021. The youth were 15-17 years old and had completed their basic education in a middle-sized southern city in Finland in 2020 or 2021. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using the phenomenological interview method and analyzed by interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results and conclusions. All the pupils had lower academic achievement because of being absent from school. The participants considered their pupil-teacher relationships important. They highlighted the importance of being supported and seen as an individual. Some thought that their teachers did not believe them and their explanations for SAPs. Peer relationships were important for all the youth but there was also bullying and discrimination from peers. Some pupils were absent together with their peers, while for some the support gotten from the peers was important. The pupils would have wanted

Objectives: This thesis is about interior designer and interior design. In this thesis, I interviewed seven people who had had their home designed by an interior designer. My main goal was to find out if the interior design or the interior designer had any influence on dwelling or how the inhabitants felt about their home or if they even called their apartment as home. The terms "apartment" and "home" are often used as a synonym for each other but in my mind, there is a clear difference between those concepts. My goal was also to find out if the interior design had an influence on how the people define those two concepts. Methods: My method in this thesis was theme interview. Of the seven people interviewed, four were women and three were men. Five of the interviewees lived in the Helsinki metropolitan area and two in the inner Finland. The interviews have been transcribed and the answers have been categorized into themes. I also requested my interviewees to take pictures from their homes and those pictures have also been analyzed in this thesis. Results and conclusions: The interior designer had a little influence on how well the inhabitants dwelled in their homes but the apartments had been called homes without the designer, as well. The interior designer did not either have any influence on the inhabitants' favorite places. However, the co-operation between the interior designer and the inhabitants had been successful excluding some minor exceptions. The inhabitants trusted especially in the designers' expertise in the major changes such as bringing down a wall etc. and in the color choices. Based on the interviews, the functionality of the apartment is essential for the inhabitants in their everyday life.

This thesis examines the discourse of future working life and working skills as advanced liberal government. The aim of the thesis is to create understanding regarding what the discourse of future working life and working skills include and what are they about to produce. As empirical material I chose to use two reports of Ministry of Education and Culture, two reports of Finnish Government and one report published by STTK Union of employees. They all examine the phenomenom of changing working life and factors related to it such as digitalization, knowledge, employment and lifelong learning. In my thesis I use critical discourse analysis as a methodological framework. I examine discourses from the point of view of the theory of advanced liberal government considering what kind of governance, relations of power or drives of influence can be found in these discourses. As a framework for the analysis I use the concept of political rationalities by Nikolas Rose and the process of translation by Michel Callon. As a result of my thesis I found that the discourse of future working life and working skills is determined by a few themes that stand out repeatedly from reports. These themes were for example the theme of inevitability, business-focused discussion and that the change of work is seen as a threat and ideal employee is seen as eternally adaptive multi talent. One conclusion of the analysis is that the empirical material of the thesis expresses rationality of the adaptive employee. By applying the process of translation developed by Callon, it is possible to see how individuals are conducted and worked towards the ideal subject of employee via different steps of the process. The point of view of my thesis is consciously critical, because I hope to question things that might otherwise be seen as natural and inevitable and by doing this I wish that contrary thinking becomes possible.

The purpose of this study was to determine what kinds of representations of human rights are presented in a ninth grade social studies textbook, Forum 9. The results are interpreted from the viewpoint of human rights education. By means of the qualitative analysis of the textbook, the aim of this study is to indirectly enhance the education of human rights in social studies. The research material in this study consisted of a ninth grade social studies textbook, Forum 9, and its sections of texts. This study was based on qualitative research methods and the main research method can be defined as discourse analysis. I used three different approaches to examine how human rights appear in the Forum 9 textbook. In the first approach, I examined how the articles of The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights appeared in the textbook. In the second approach, I compared those contents in Forum 9 textbook that were related to human rights, to the contents and objectives of teaching social studies required in the national curriculum. In the third approach, I identified the rhetorical methods used in the arguments related to human rights and interpreted their possible ideological consequences with the help of rhetorical discourse analysis. The results indicate that the aims of human rights education do not seem to be achieved in the best possible way with the use of Forum 9. The presentation of some of the human rights were inadequate. Forum 9 primarily meets the requirements of the national curriculum. However, some flaws occurred in the presentation of human rights and international agreements on human rights, as well as in presenting the universal significance and the tenets of human rights. The argumentation related to human rights was based on versatile rhetorical methods. However, the social effects of the used argumentation may cause some unclarity. At the same time when the textbook underlines the importance of human rights, it produces images of a good state of human rights in Finland. It would be more important to represent the true global state of human rights. In addition, it is crucial to teach students critical thinking and reasoning. Given the fact that textbooks often play an important role in Finnish schools, these results give teachers reason to consider teaching human rights with a broader scope.

The aim of the study is to explore teachers' perceptions of cooperation with civil society organisations (CSO) in human rights education. Teachers' perceptions are a relevant subject of research because the CSOs can do school visits only if invited by teachers. Teachers' experiences of cooperation may influence how they include human rights education in their work. The study also scrutinises teachers' motives to cooperation with CSOs. According to the international human rights conventions, human rights education is a human right and states are responsible of its implementation. In Finland, human rights education is included in the national core curriculum. Finnish studies and reports on human rights education have shown that human rights education is too much on the responsibility of civil society organisations and individual teachers. The realisation of human rights education also depends much on personal commitment of individual teachers. The target group of the study were primary school teachers who had participated in "Lapsen oikeuksien kymppi", a human rights education project organised by Plan Finland. The research data consists of thematic interviews of five teachers working in the Capital Region of Finland. The analysis was conducted using discourse analytical approach. As motives for their participation in the project, the teachers emphasized the importance of the content and the connection to the core curriculum. However, it seems that the teachers had been and still were quite unaware of aims of the project. The teachers tended to highlight the practical impacts of the project whereas they seemed to avoid speaking about cognitive impacts. The data also demonstrated that the teachers' content with the systematical handling of the themes of human rights education. The teachers showed interest in participating in the project or using the materials produced by Plan Finland in the future. However it seemed that the teachers had not included the human rights education in their teaching during or after the project. Teachers frequently explained that the hectic daily life in schools hinders the realization of human rights education. Talk about expertise was often present in the interviews. Teacher perceived the school visitors as experts with both cognitive and affective expertise and also reflected on the sufficiency of the professional skills of their own.

The ageing of population and workforce has major economic and social consequences for Finnish society. The aging, over fifty years old, workers are the largest age group on the labor market. The aim of this Master's Thesis is to understand work-efficacy and expertise of aging workers through their own accounts and descriptions of work, professional ability and development opportunities. The work and the knowledge of seniors are the research themes of this study. The research questions concerning work were: What are the impacts of age and experience on work-efficacy from the seniors perspective? What kind of plans and possibilities do seniors have for developing their work and advancing and their career? The research questions concerning expertise were: What are the impacts of age and experience on professional knowledge from the seniors perspective? How seniors build up professional knowledge and expertise? The research is qualitative and the data was produced by semi-structured interviews. The nine interviewees were ageing personell of communal technical sector. The method of this research was theory bound content analysis. The research concepts were based on social cognitive self-efficacy theories of Albert Bandura and critical theory of self-directed learning of Jack Mezirow. In the frame of this study these theories guide and structure the analysis of learning, self-directiveness, and professional developmental potential and possibilities of senior adults. The findings of this study showed that the age and experience increase efficacy and interest in developing work and expertise. Developing capabilities and expertise in rapidly changing environment requires proactivity, self-directiveness and critical reflection of working and learning. In the case of the aging workforce aims of lifelong learning are relalized. From the perspective of ageing personell networking and benchmarking are seen as the most efficient way of developing work and regenerating learning in the workplace. Seniors develop their work and expertise actively. As the retirement age approaches the developing efforts are sifted from advancing one's own expertise and career to developing of the work and knowledge of the organization. Transferring the knowledge and expertise of seniors to younger members of organization is also important. The research findings are noteworthy because the potential of aging workforce and value of their expertise is not yet fully understood and appreciated. Supporting and enhancing aging workers efficacy, learning and development is important from the seniors own point of view but also essential for Finnish competitiveness and society.

Goals: Aging population is a global and a social challenge to business life. Due to aging workforce, organizations need to adjust and adapt to this changing social structure. One of organization's ways to manage this phenomenon is age leadership, which means those policies and practices that organizations use to control, or possibly even benefit from aging workforce. The dominant perspective to age leadership has been human resources management. This study is taking the perspective of transformational leadership theory and focuses on the interactional relationship between the leader and the subordinate. Because the concept of age leadership has multiple meanings and it holds a lot of conceptual confusion, this study aims to describe what age leadership is and what form it takes in organizational practices. In this study, my aim is to describe what age leadership is, and what challenges and possibilities the leaders of today's organization see in age leadership. Methods: This is a qualitative research. The data was collected by using theme interview as a data collection method. For this study, I interviewed 11 leaders from both private and public sectors. I selected the interviewees so that I would have a heterogenic sample. The data from the interviews was analyzed by using content analysis. This research uses mostly theory driven content analysis. Some of the analysis benefits also from inductive analysis. Results: The research findings give a comprehensive view on what today's age leadership is and what are its challenges and possibilities in the framework of transformational leadership. The research showed that age leadership is divided into individual interaction and organizational policies and practices. Age leadership has a significant effect on organizations' performance and it has a positive effect on work well being as well. According to this study, the challenges of age management are performance driven mentality, negative age attitudes and problems regarding motivation and change. This research shows that transformational leadership is an important part of age management. This is a significant finding, because it highlights the importance of the interactional relationship between the leader and the subordinate. According to these research findings, I have divided age leadership into different micro-, macro- and meso levels, in order to conceptualize the content of age leadership and clarify the conceptual confusion. These research findings can be used in organizations to map age leadership and its goals and challenges.