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Objectives. The social role of children has been established over the years and the strengthening of children’s participation is strictly based on international human rights obligations such as the Constitution Law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Several theorists such as Hart (1992), Shier (2001), Lundy (2007) and Turja (2011) have also defined children’s participation creating different models. Although the importance of children’s participation and hearing children’s opinions are emphasized in several studies and reports (E.g., Karlsson, 2012; Stenvall, 2021; Turja, 2011; Weckström, 2021), it is not always implemented appropriately. The aim of this study is to describe children’s participation experiences and opportunities to participate in decision making. This study focuses on children in ECEC and in 6th grade in three municipalities with different demographical locations and population. Another purpose is to examine the role of adults in participation through children's narratives. In particular, the research makes use of Lundy's (2007) and Turja's (2011) participation models, where participation is seen as a multidimensional entity. The research focuses on the experiences of children in ECEC and children in the 6th grade of primary school to see how age affects those participation experiences. In addition, the review considers the effects of geographical location on the realization of equal participation. Methods. This thesis has been done as part of a sub-study belonging to a larger multidisciplinary research project that was commissioned and funded by the Ministry of Education: 'Multidisciplinary research project on the effects of demographic trends to education' and the sub study 'Equity, children's rights, and the child impact assessment.’ This study was carried out in workshop interviews with children and the data was analyzed using theory-based content analysis. Results and conclusions The data revealed many factors strengthening and weakening children's participation. The results of this study are linked to environments and communities. Children's participation is formed, and it culminates in community and respectful interactions.

The new Finnish curriculum (FNBE, 2014) calls for active and engaging learning that supports students' agency and active role in their own learning. It emphasizes creating meaningful contexts that interrelate also with students' out-of-school interests. Research shows participating with organized out-of-school activities has a positive relation to school grades. In addition, it seems that school engagement is low among Finnish 6th graders (Salmela-Aro et al., 2016). However, little is known of what currently interests Finnish pupils and how their topics of interest are related to academic well-being. This study explores the topics of interest and interest-driven participation and further, their relation to school engagement, school burnout and grades (GPA) of 6th graders. The study was part of Mind the Gap project (Academy of Finland #265528) and the participants (n=735) were 6th graders from Helsinki. I conducted content categorization of the whole sample that showed a rich variation of interests, largest categories being sports (43.8%) and arts (27.9%). The quantitative analyses looked at the intensity and form of the activities. I identified three interest profiles with two-step cluster analysis: Organized team participators, Informal individualistic participators and Intensive participators. The Organized team participators were most interested in team sports. They reported high school engagement, low burnout and high GPA whereas Informal individualistic participators had lower school engagement, high GPA and moderate school burnout. They were the most interested in music and arts. Intensive participators, who were especially interested in social interaction, were engaged to school, but had higher levels of burnout and the lowest GPA. The results indicate lack of supporting interest-driven participation in schools: only Intensive participators were almost as active inside as outside of school. It may be difficult for teachers to adopt new practices that call for supporting interest-driven participation. However, it would be important to use students' personal interests to bridge between school world and students' lives and to promote student agency and support school engagement.

OBJECTIVES. Oral foreign language skills are an integral part of one's social, academic and professional competence. This can be problematic for those suffering from foreign language communication apprehension (CA), or a fear of speaking a foreign language. CA manifests itself, for example, through feelings of anxiety and tension, physical arousal and avoidance of foreign language communication situations. According to scholars, foreign language CA may impede the language learning process significantly and have detrimental effects on one's language learning, academic achievement and career prospects. Drawing on upper secondary students' subjective experiences of communication situations in English as a foreign language, this study seeks, first, to describe, analyze and interpret why upper secondary students experience English language communication apprehension in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes. Second, this study seeks to analyse what the most anxiety-arousing oral production tasks in EFL classes are, and which features of different oral production tasks arouse English language communication apprehension and why. The ultimate objectives of the present study are to raise teachers' awareness of foreign language CA and its features, manifestations and impacts in foreign language classes as well as to suggest possible ways to minimize the anxiety-arousing features in foreign language classes. METHODS. The data was collected in two phases by means of six-part Likert-type questionnaires and theme interviews, and analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The questionnaire data was collected in spring 2008. The respondents were 122 first-year upper secondary students, 68 % of whom were girls and 31 % of whom were boys. The data was analysed by statistical methods using SPSS software. The theme interviews were conducted in spring 2009. The interviewees were 11 second-year upper secondary students aged 17 to 19, who were chosen by purposeful selection on the basis of their English language CA level measured in the questionnaires. Six interviewees were classified as high apprehensives and five as low apprehensives according to their score in the foreign language CA scale in the questionnaires. The interview data was coded and thematized using the technique of content analysis. The analysis and interpretation of the data drew on a comparison of the self-reports of the highly apprehensive and low apprehensive upper secondary students. RESULTS. The causes of English language CA in EFL classes as reported by the students were both internal and external in nature. The most notable causes were a low self-assessed English proficiency, a concern over errors, a concern over evaluation, and a concern over the impression made on others. Other causes related to a high English language CA were a lack of authentic oral practise in EFL classes, discouraging teachers and negative experiences of learning English, unrealistic internal demands for oral English performance, high external demands and expectations for oral English performance, the conversation partner's higher English proficiency, and the audience's large size and unfamiliarity. The most anxiety-arousing oral production tasks in EFL classes were presentations or speeches with or without notes in front of the class, acting in front of the class, pair debates with the class as audience, expressing thoughts and ideas to the class, presentations or speeches without notes while seated, group debates with the class as audience, and answering to the teacher's questions involuntarily. The main features affecting the anxiety-arousing potential of an oral production task were a high degree of attention, a large audience, a high degree of evaluation, little time for preparation, little linguistic support, and a long duration.

Objectives. In many families, housework is a daily topic of discussion and controversy. Although working life has changed, households have become more prosperous, and technology has become as a help in housework, there are still many household chores that need to be done. Women are still primarily responsible for doing housework, in addition to their own gainful employment. Spouse and children often play an assistant role. The same division of labour is also evident in girls’ and boys’ housework. Girls do a lot more housework than boys. The purpose of this study was study young people’s attitudes towards housework. Are young people required to do housework, and if so, do they agree to do it? How does the division of labour affect family relationships? Doing and not doing housework is an emotive topic. The views of young people on how they perceive their own roles and those of their carers as active agents in households are worth hearing. The research questions are: 1. How do young people feel about participating in housework? a) How does housework appear in family relationships? b) What do young people think about their own household skills? 2. How do young people feel about their own roles and the roles of adults in their family in taking part in housework? Methods. The quantitative material consisted of the answers to an e-questionnaire. The answerers were 55 ninth grades from an upper comprehensive school. The answers were processed using the SPSS program. The analysis used averages, cross tabulation, and Pearson’s correlation. Some of the results were tested with an even t-test and a chi-square test. Results and conclusions. Many young people are involved in doing housework because of their own choice. They also think that it is their duty. In their opinion they have good skills and they manage doing housework well. Girls do a lot more housework than boys and have a more positive attitude. Most young people find that the adults in their family take good care of the home and this makes them feel secure. Everyone agrees that doing housework is everybody’s responsibility. In home economics education it is important to strengthen the equal division of labor in housework. Particularly boys need to be encouraged to rely on their own abilities and to understand their role as an equal, responsible family members and not just a mom’s or wife’s helper.

Aims. The aim of this study was to identify different profiles of social media use among Finnish 9th graders (N=833), and to compare these profiles on academic well-being measured as schoolwork engagement and school burnout. Furthermore, the aim of this study was to compare these profiles on the Big Five personality traits and gender. The research of connections between social media use and academic well-being among adolescence is limited, and this is presumably the first research to combine personality traits, social media use and academic well-being in adolescence. Methods. The theoretical framework was the demands-resources model and the DC-DDR-model (Developmental-Contextual Model of Digital Demands and Resources). The profiles of social media use were formed on a two-step cluster analysis. In the clusters, social media was described by social activity and hanging out, information-oriented activity and creative activity, which were measured determining the type and amount of use. Differences on academic well-being and personality traits between each profile were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Differences on gender were analyzed using chi-square test of independence and cross-tabulations. Results and conclusions. The two-step cluster analysis identified four clusters, and the profiles were named as following: the profile of low social media use (23.3 %), the profile of versatile social activity (28.1 %), the profile of unilateral social activity (18.1 %) and the profile focusing on learning, information seeking and creativity (30.5 %). The profiles differed in terms of both schoolwork engagement and school burnout. Boys more often than girls belonged to the profile of low social media use, which also highlighted the lowest school burnout. Schoolwork engagement was reported to be highest in the profile focusing on learning, information seeking and creativity and lowest in the profile of unilateral social activity. Moreover, school burnout was reported to be highest in the profile of versatile social activity, which was characterized by high social activity and hanging out in addition to high social media use in other aspects. The profiles also differed in all the Big Five personality traits except agreeableness, and openness to experiences showed to be the most be distinguishing personality trait. The profile focusing on learning, information seeking, and creativity reported the highest amount of openness to experiences but also highest neuroticism, while the profile of unilateral social activity reported the highest amount of extraversion and the lowest conscientiousness. Regarding these results, individual differences in personality traits should be taken into consideration, since connections between social media use and academic well-being vary from adolescent to adolescent. This contributes to better understanding of adolescent's individual needs and the use of social media which promotes academic well-being.

This study investigated how singing together promotes the well-being of primary school children. The research questions were designed in a context when singing together was restricted due to the corona pandemic. The research questions were: 1) How singing together contributes to the well-being of primary school children according to teachers' perceptions, and 2) how singing together can be promoted according to teachers' perceptions. The dimensions of well-being, physical, psycho-emotional, social and spiritual, were based on Allardt's (1993) definition of well-being and Ryan and Deci's (2000) self-determination theory of well-being. In addition, studies written on the well-being effects of singing were used, many of which also addressed the role of the teacher as a facilitator of singing together. The data for the study was collected through semi-structured thematic interviews with five teachers. This data was analyzed using theoretical content analysis. The research shows that singing together contributes to the well-being of primary school children in various ways, supporting holistic development. However, the teacher needs to create a singing culture in the classroom, with a focus on a safe atmosphere, increased singing opportunities and valuing everyone's singing. The results of this study are important to consider for those who sing with primary school children and for those who decide to impose a singing ban. The research results can also be utilised in teacher education, where it is possible to ensure that teachers have sufficient musical skills and, above all, musical self-confidence for singing together with students.

Aims. The subjects of the study are autistic pupils and their potential prosocial behavior during the school day. The study discusses the factors which are relevant to the autistic student's receptiveness in both guided and free interaction situation. In addition, the aim of the study is to present types of interaction that the autistic students use. The theoretical framework is based on literature on the phenomenon of autism. Methodology. The data was collected in two ways. The first collection was carried out by observing the way the students behaved during the school day and by doing a research diary for a month. Another research data collecting method was videotaping three occupational therapy sessions. The research complies with the characteristics of qualitative research and it has strong ethnographic features. The primary research method is observation. The research data analysis was carried out by theory based content analysis. The study group consisted of ten students and six adults, excluding the researcher. The students were in grades 1 to 6 and from 6 to 12 years of age. Results and Conclusions. Prosocial behaviour such as helping, sharing and comforting was identified in the study. Sharing with the adults was the most common behaviour shown by the students. Also, although not to the same degree, sharing between students themselves was observed. In addition to sharing, helping was observed to some extent and comforting was observed only once. The number, attitude and behaviour of the supervising adults affected significantly an autistic child's capacity to absorb the guided interaction. The students had access to four different interaction methods, as Kangas (2009) had categorized. The methods included, being in their own peace, defending one's own territory, resort to the adults' support and to show willingness to attend a peer support group. In conclusion, this research studied students with autism spectrum disorder. The research observed examples of prosocial behaviour including, helping, sharing and comforting which are not common among children with autism. Additionally, students exhibited a variety of unique and different ways to interact. These have led to the development of the student's social skills during the school day.

Aim of the study. Traditionally teaching has been lonely work. Demands for towards teaching has been increased during the last decade: need for special education is growing, the contents of the curriculum has grown and there are also new challenges in the co-operation between school and families. Finnish students rank well in international comparison, but feel less comfortable at school. Teachers are tiring themselves out and choose other professions. Lack of resources does not allow smaller class sizes or more input in special education. Interest in a collegial collaboration between teachers has been suggested as a solution. The idea of inclusion and the changing law of special education stating that all pupils would attend the same classes are in the background. Co-teaching aims at avoiding extra special education by using existing resources, by combining two classes and with collaboration of teachers. The aim of the study is to find out the characteristics of co-teaching with two teachers and its added value to the teaching work. Methods. Eight pairs of co-teachers were interviewed, five of them co-teaching full time and in three cases the other teacher joining the class only for certain lessons. Research type was qualitative multi-case study. The study material was collected by observing the classes and by interviewing the pairs. The observations were reported as narratives describing the co-teaching of each teacher pair. The interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis, which was steered by the theory and the collected material. Results and conclusions. According to this study co-teaching was considered as a means to enhance quality of teaching, reduce teachers' work load, increase professionality, and to increase the motivation of pupils. Nineteen different forms of co-teaching were formulated based on the literature and the material collected at observations and interviews. These forms may be useful in better recognizing the individual needs of pupils and to better use the presence and experience of two teachers. As a conclusion, the didactic triangle was extended to form a didactic-collegial square, where the collegial relationship between the two teachers brings a new dimension to the picture reflecting the many dimensions of co-teaching and difference to the work of a teacher alone.

Finnish education politics presume that basic education should be equal to all students. While organising craft education equality can be understood as similarity or as possibility to choose. The possibility to be able to choose whether textile or technical craft despite of one's gender has been the aim of laws and curriculums already over 30 years. In practice it's almost impossible to students to ignore feminine and masculine roles that go deep into our culture. Choosing craft has been divided by gender, which is the reason why possibility to choose has not been good enough to educationalists of equality. The latest guidelines for the National core curriculum for basic education were issued in 2004. According to curriculum craft education consists parts of both technical and textile craft. All students should take part in both sectors of crafts. Furthermore, one can be given a possibility to concentrate his studies in whether textile or technical craft. The curriculum does not set the rules how the education should be organised, which means that it can be organised in many ways depending on city, school or teacher. Teachers and other specialists have contradictory feelings towards shared craft education, because traditional way to see craft in Finland is to separate textile craft from technical craft. Both crafts have some common features that are introduced in curriculum. Besides there is many equal things in craft theories that bind textile and technical craft to each other. The main purpose of this research was to find out, how shared craft education has been organised at the 7.th grade in Finnish comprehensive school, and which things affect in the settlements. Second goal was to describe and compare teachers' experiences in teaching shared craft education. Third aim of this study was how shared craft has changed craft education. I collected the research material in May 2006 by interviewing both textile and technical craft teachers who teach shared craft. The material consists of fourteen theme interviews. In the analysis of the material I used theoretic bounded document analysis. According to the research there are three different ways to organise shared craft education: 50-50-arrangement, exchanging period and project week. In the schools that carried out 50-50-arrangement teaching was realised mainly in heterogenous groups. Principals had usual a lot of authorization on how to arrange craft education, which means that their views on equality, laws and curriculum affected in the settlements more than teachers' opinions. Teachers' attitudes to shared craft were mainly positive. The changing of craft education can be divided in two parts: the aims and the containings of the curriculum have changed, as well as the meaning of the craft as core subject. Teachers have been forced to decrease the containings of both textile and technical crafts. Despite of eliminations both crafts still have comprehensive containings. Teachers decided what to teach by these arguments: Students should learn some basic things or produce a certain product. Usually teachers had also a lot of experience and special interests in crafts. According to this research there is four significant meanings for shared craft education: 1) developing readiness for doing things, 2) developing skills of thinking, 3) delight of doing things and 4) teaching attitude.

This thesis aims to examine teachers’ conception and experiences of co-assessment. School assessment is a surface issue right now. New curriculum in 2014 shifted the focus from the assessment of pupils to the assessment of learning. The new curriculum did not work as well as hoped, so chapter 6 assessment of learning was renewed. The newest version which aims to increase equality will be implemented in the autumn of 2020. Teaching has traditionally been seen as independent work done alone. Co-teaching is a method where two or more teachers plan, teach and assess together in equal collaboration. Studies have shown that the benefits of co-teaching are worth pursuing. The concept of co-assessment was derived from the key concepts of the thesis. The purpose of the study is to examine teachers' perceptions of co-assessment as well as its benefits and challenges. The research was carried out with a phenomenographic research approach. The research material was collected through interviews with 13 teachers in an elementary school in Vantaa. The semi-structured group interviews were held in April 2019. The material was analyzed with phenomenographic analysis. Teachers described co-assessment as a formative and summative assessment. Co-assessment was carried out everyday life and in planning of assessment in various ways. Co-teaching teams also split assessment tasks. Teachers spoke about formative assessment a little bit more than about summative assessment. Formative co-assessment was seen as more diverse and there were more differences of opinion. Conceptions of summative co-assessment were more similar. According to the teachers the challenges of co-assessment are related to time, teamwork, differences of opinion and pupil-related worries. Co-assessment benefits both teachers and pupils. Co-assessment provides an opportunity to improve well-being at work and simplify assessment. Co-assessment is higher quality and more equitable for students. The benefits were related to the challenges in many ways, and were perceived as mitigating them.