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  • Lokka, Johannes (2021)
    The aim of the study was to find out how the recipes for fish published in Kotiliesi magazine in different eras have changed in the period 1936–2004. In the past, domestic lake fish and Baltic herring were common food sources in Finland, depending on geographical location. Fresh fish was a seasonal food and the fish was preserved by salting. From the 1950s onwards, the change in the structure of Finnish society and the proliferation of refrigerators and freezers made it possible to consume fresh and frozen fish in an unprecedented way. Instead of household fishing, fish was bought from the store when it was frozen or farmed to an increasing extent. The study examines how the food guidelines for fish published in Kotiliesi in different eras have changed and how the changes in the structure of Finnish society are reflected in the fish guidelines. According to previous research, Norwegian salmon is widely consumed by the turn of the 21st century, and the status of Finnish herring has collapsed. The study was a qualitative history study, and the material used in the study was Kotiliesi magazines of different eras to study the change in fish consumption in Finland, especially from a home economics perspective. 1936, 1958, 1976 and 2004 volumes of Kotiliesi magazine were used as research material. The re-organized research material covered a total of 59 magazines, which utilized fish instructions and fish-related articles. The material was analyzed by means of qualitative content analysis. Changed structure of fish guidelines, changes in fish species and processing rates, urbanization and purchased fish, increased living standards and prosperity, and internationalization are found themes. The fish instructions published in Kotiliesi have changed over the decades to a modern, industrial form and can be interpreted without previous cooking experience. The fish species that appeared in the instructions have changed so that Baltic herring and lake fish have changed to frozen fish and salmon. At the same time, the degree of processing of the fish has changed from whole to filleted. As a result of urbanization, fish was bought from the store instead of household fishing. The increase in living standards and prosperity made it possible to preserve fresh and frozen fish, so that salted fish was no longer used. In the internationalized market, Norwegian salmon fillet is an affordable choice when shopping for fish and there are plenty of instructions on how to make it easy.
  • Sällström, Ada (2020)
    The Bachelor’s degree should prepare students for the working life. Previous research has shown that especially students from generalist study fields have challenges to transfer to working life. In order to succeed in an ever-changing working life, students must learn during their studies the needed generic skills. The aim of this Master’s Thesis was to explore what generic skills the Bachelor’s graduates experienced that they had learned during their university studies, and which generic skills were the most important that should be learnt during university studies. Many previous studies have explored generic skills using quantitative methods, so there is a clear need for a qualitative approach. The research material of present study consists of 10 interviews of graduated generalist Bachelor students from The Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki. The research was conducted using theory-bound content analysis. The graduates described that they had learnt the following generic skills during their university studies: academic knowledge and thinking skills, knowledge integration skills, social and communication skills, leadership and network skills, IT skills and lifelong learning skills. The graduates experienced that academic knowledge and thinking skills were the most learnt skills, and they considered the skills to be the most important generic skills that should be learned during university studies. Other skills perceived important were knowledge integration skills, social and communication skills and lifelong learning skills. Identifying generic skills appeared to be challenging for some of the graduates. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the graduates emphasised that they have learnt generic skills moderately well during their studies. However, social and communications skills should be further developed during studies because challenges in learning them have been observed as this study shows.
  • Salminen, Kaisa-Maria (2023)
    The work of an artist performing popular music requires comprehensive commitment, and to be successful, the artist must not only be in a favorable starting point, but also practice long-term. Success is not achieved alone, and a supportive environment has been found to be essential when aiming for the top. Commitment to training as well as motivation and belief in one's own abilities are easily put to the test without a supportive environment. The purpose of this study was to examine the encouragement received by successful singing artists performing popular music and the meanings of encouragement. The study identified in which stages of the life path of successful artists the meaningful encouragement experiences are located and what kind of meanings successful artists give to the encouragement they receive. The necessity of the research is increased by the fact that scientific research on artists performing popular music is very scarce, and my research corrects this deficiency in part. In the study, five successful artists performing popular music were interviewed. The interviews were conducted as open narrative interviews. The research was carried out and analyzed according to the narrative approach. Based on the stories of the artists, I placed the meaningful encouragement experiences in childhood and youth, the beginning of a career, critical moments and places of choice, as well as publicity, success and increased experience. I categorized the meanings of encouragement into opportunities, motivation and enthusiasm, self-belief and contradictions regarding encouragement. The encouragement stories of the artists were mostly in line with each other. Their lives have been very similar in terms of, for example, a musically encouraging growth environment, opportunities received and a career with an ascending start. They have received a lot of encouragement from many different sources throughout their life and it has supported them even through difficult moments. In the artists’ stories, the diversity and importance of encouragement came up both in childhood and youth as well as in the midst of success, the encouragement for example strengthening self-belief and providing opportunities. The participants found it meaningful that encouragement never ceased in any stage of life. The results of this study mostly support the results of previous studies and indicate that encouragement received in the early years of life has a significant role in future achievements.
  • Kauppila, Aarno (2013)
    My master's thesis is a study of citizenship and its ideals in disability policy from the perspective of critical ability studies. The main focus of ability studies is to analyze ableism and how it produces ideals of perfect humanness. Therefore, from the perspective of ableism these ideals produce disability and impairments as something intolerable as well as inherently and ontologically negative. My study focused on the disability policy paradigm as it is after the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities from the year 2006. The disability policy paradigm emphasizes both the rights of people with disabilities to full citizenship and their participation in society. The study data included 20 documents from European, national and municipal disability policies, released from 2006 onwards. In this study I explored how ableism defines the construction of full citizenship and how ableism affects individual's possibilities to participate as citizen according to the current disability policy. As my research method, I applied interpretative reading style based on the New Rhetoric. In the current disability policy paradigm the ideal of full citizenship is based on individualistic and neoliberalistic views, which emphasize self-mastery and independence. This ideal is impossible for people with disabilities because self-mastery and independence are defined as autonomy from other people and social services. Moreover, falling short from the ideal is located in ontologically negative space. Subsequently the bodies with impairments are always seen as imperfect and defective as well as economically burdening. Emphasizing the physical imperfectness of individuals defines their possibilities to participate in society because this participation is emulating the ideal. Also, the individuals with disabilities are forced to repeat their imperfectness in order to obtain social services, which enable participation. Ontological discrimination of people with disabilities is evident in the disability policy, even though it contradicts the aims of the policy.
  • Inkiläinen, Jaana (2020)
    The premise of the thesis was to study Finland’s folk costume’s most prominent aspects and develop learning material based on those aspects. I started by reviewing literature connected to the topic about teaching materials. Based on the results, I concluded that quite a bit of research has been done about folk costumes’ history, and there exists a fairly extensive amount of literature about it. However, there wasn’t that much teaching material available about folk costumes, even though a need for it has been recognized. Therefore, the mission for my thesis became to develop introductory teaching material about folk costumes for beginners. The goal for this thesis is to develop a folk costume manual, that offers an extensive information packet for beginners, along with instructions for wearing and acquiring one. As a research method I chose design-based research which consists of developing the teaching material and the theory of its development. I started the development of the manual by mapping out, what meanings are associated with folk costumes. This was carried out by interviewing four experts. The results were narratives of their experiences around folk costumes. These narratives were divided into categories to be used as material for the first draft of developing the manual, along with literary reviews. The first draft was tested by a heuristic review, in which three of the assessors of the previous step were evaluating the manual by making notes about ideas for developments and other comments. A heuristic list was offered to support the evaluation. Then, the notes were summarized into comments, and the experts classified them based on their prominence. The manual was developed based on the comments, if the experts estimated the problem to be significant. The result of the design-based research is a folk costume manual, and information about the development process. An expert interview and a heuristic evaluation proved to be functional methods for developing this type of learning material. Two themes were highlighted in relation to folk costumes in the experts’ comments: Way of speaking and vocabulary with which the costumes’ instructions and recommendations are being described, and versatility of the folk costumes. These themes had a significant impact on the folk costume manual as well.
  • Siltainsuu, Rebekka (2020)
    The purpose of this study was to examine in more detail the factors behind the inheritance of the teacher’s profession. This topic has been studied widely in Finland and abroad. The previous studies have shown that the teacher’s profession tends to inherit in the family. The information that one could have from the results, could be used for example in student counselling. The data was collected by sending a questionnaire via email to five teachers who are from families that include teachers. The questionnaire had nine questions which were based on previous studies and this thesis’ research problems. The previous studies that were used in this study were both Finnish and international. Thematizing was used as an analyzing method when questionnaires were analyzed. The Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on the method which was used to collect the data: originally it was planned to collect it via interviews but because of the pandemic the data had to be collected via questionnaire. As a conclusion in this study teacher occupation tends to inherit for example because of the support from the family and information about the occupation that is given by them. Being in a family that has other teachers has positive impacts, like for example common holidays. Knowing that occupations in families have an impact on a child's decision about education and future occupation, give student counsellors important information that they could use when working with the students.
  • Markkanen, Minna (2011)
    The aim of this study was to examine accessibility in folk high schools from the perspective of students with disabilities or learning difficulties. Accessibility in education means that psychological, sociological and physical environment enables equal study opportunities. Therefore the focus in this survey was on equal study opportunity deficiencies. Folk high schools are an essential subject for accessibility research as they follow the equal educational policy of liberal adult education. This study is a part of Liberal adult education -research project (2010-2012), which is the first accessibility research in Finnish liberal adult education. The equality-based claim of accessibility together with the need to separate the experiences of students with disabilities and learning difficulties from common experiences led naturally to comparative research frame. Firstly, experiences of the experimental group (students with disabilities or learning difficulties, N=278) were compared to experiences of the comparison group (students representing the educational majority, N=498). Secondly, experiences within the experimental group were examined according to gender, need of support and educational background. This study was mostly quantitative survey study. Data was collected from folk high school students with an inquiry created for this study. Data-analysis was mainly made by using analysis of variance (GLM) and test of Kruskal-Wallis. Qualitative data was analysed as an additional element by quantification. Equal study opportunity deficiencies were found in teaching and studying, other people's awareness and attitudes, own attitudes, information and peer group, where the experimental group found significantly more accessibility deficiencies than the comparison group. The most considerable difference was found in teaching and studying, wherein also the quality of deficiencies was explained differently between the groups. Within the experimental group women experienced more accessibility deficiencies than men. Also regular and great need of support and low educational background were connected with the experience of greater accessibility deficiencies. As a conclusion it seems that the equality-based accessibility in folk high schools could be improved especially by differentiating teaching and learning. This study also proved general need for more exact definition of the intention of accessibility: is the priority to develop common quality or equality of education, and is the aim to remove the barriers or advance support to overcome them.
  • Liikkanen, Kirsi (2016)
    The object of this study was the Finnish folk costumes used as work clothes at the Seurasaari Open-Air Museum. The museum's wardrobe had many shortcomings so there was a clear need for a study analyzing and enhancing the situation. The purpose of this study is to find out what kind of outfits should be designed for the staff of the open-air museum in order to meet requirements both for work clothes and folk dresses. Since the open-air museum is simultaneously a cultural history museum and a place of work, the dresses should be not only as historically authentic as possible but also practical as work clothes as far as comfort and maintenance are concerned. Due to the practical nature of the subject, the chosen method of study was design research, in which the design process moves forward in stages based on empirical knowledge. At the first stage of the study, the situation was outlined by making an inventory of museum's wardrobe and interviewing the keeper of the museum. At the second stage, the insights of the staff on their work clothes were reviewed through a survey. In the third stage the objective was to take into consideration both aesthetic and technical viewpoints of possible design solutions. Finally, a practical effort was made to combine these viewpoints regarding the folk dresses and work clothes by sewing the prototypes of two pieces of clothing that are a part of the work outfits. As a result of the study, the proposals for two outfits for two different museum houses were created. In addition to the results of the stages presented earlier, literature and pictures of folk dresses were used as support in the design process. Due to economical reasons, one of the outfits is also usable in two other museum houses. Since there is plenty of information available on both folk dresses and work clothes, it is possible to design outfits that meet the needs of the museum even though it sometimes requires compromises between authenticity and comfort. In addition, the results of this study can be used for rearranging and restocking the museum's wardrobe.
  • Ilomäki, Wiivi (2021)
    This is a research of the use and manufacture of Finland's various folk costumes and its related meanings. You can see folk costume in Finland rarely, although in many places people are still using them a lot. In dressing it is its own world to use the folk costume. The study had three research issues that were used to investigate the matter. Research issues investigated different meanings of folk costumes for their users and analyzed what the folk costumes means its user and manufacturer. The study analyzed what kind of things people can attach to use of the folk costumes. The study research what kind of role crafts had when people are making the folk costumes and whether handicrafts are needed in the manufacture of folk costume. At the beginning of the study, two theme interviews had been conducted to the people who are working with the folk costumes and based on these theme interviews, an internet-based questionnaire was prepared. The questionnaire was assigned to the target group in social media. In Facebook there are groups, with members of the people who are interested in folk costumes and many of them use folk costumes regularly. 78 people responded to the questionnaire. The study material was analyzed by a qualitative and quantitative method. Based on this investigation, it was found that the folk costume and its utilization played great importance to their users. Each user had its own meaning to the use of the folk costume, but in the investigation, the biggest importance rose to bringing their own family roots. The use of folk costume joined the user's identity, as its use is a very visible communication. In the study, it was clear that hobbies have a great role in the manufacture of folk costumes, as many defendants reported that they were a handicraft enthusiast but felt to be too novice to make a challenging folk costume for themselves.
  • Olli, Maija (2018)
    Objectives. The purpose of this study was to examine what kind of forms of co-regulation a teacher of early childhood education utilizes in order to calm down and activate children within a framework of a playworld. In addition, opportunities of the co-regulation were examined. One of the main interests of this study was also to examine, which kind of possibilities the co-regulation can create when it comes to the interaction between the teacher and children. In this study, the co-regulation was considered as an ongoing, moment to moment unfolding regulation process, occurring in the interaction between the adult and children. In this approach, calming and activating occur through multimodal communication. Methods. The video data of this study was collected by using video observation in the preschool group (6-year-olds children) in the Southern Finland in spring 2018. The data consists of 6 hours and 24 minutes of video recorded, naturally occuring interaction. This study was a qualitative research and conversational analysis was used as a method of data analysis. Results. In earlier research studies, calming and activating are considered as typical forms of the co-regulation. The third form of the co-regulation, however, was found in this study. This new form is calming and activating, which means calming and activating occur in the interaction at the same time. In according to this observation, the adult creates co-regulation by using two different interaction levels. When interacting on the one-child interaction level, the adult responds to the child’s co-regulation needs. As for interacting on the group interaction level, the adult responds to the needs of all children. There were found some similarities between the progress of the playworld activity and the co-regulation. In specific parts of the playworld activity, some forms of the co-regulation were found to be more recurrent. The results support that co-regulation is a dynamic regulation process which varies during the interaction. By utilizing the co-regulation, the adult is capable of responding to the different needs of a group of children. Benefits of the co-regulation occur especially when organizing pedagogical interaction in a big group of children.
  • Laaksonen, Anna (2019)
    This study examines co-regulation during clean-ups and transitions between activities in ECEC. The main interest of this study was to describe co-regulation and to promote knowledge and understanding of it in these specific situations. This study also investigates the ways teachers co-regulate children’s emotion, behaviour and attention. In this study co-regulation is approached from a socio-cultural perspective, and it is considered an important factor in child’s development and learning. The videodata used in this study was collected in a daycare center in Southern Finland in spring 2017. Data of this study consist of 24 episodes that were identified from the original 51 h video corpus. Children who participated in this study were between 1 to 4 years old. This study employes an ethnomethodological approach and multimodal interaction analysis was used as a method of data analysis. Co-regulation during clean-ups and transitions between activities in ECEC was identified as a specific event which had clearly distinguishable beginning and ending. The situations where co-regulation occurred were different in relation to which situational factors invited teacher to co-regulate with specific child or group of children. Teacher used mostly active-related strategies while co-regulating, and active-related strategies were identified more than emotion-related strategies. The situations where co-regulation occurred ended successfully satisfying both teacher and child. The results indicate that co-regulation during these specific situations in ECEC had an important role in children’s development and learning. Co-regulation supported and scaffolded the children’s participation in these ECEC activities, helped the children to complete tasks and to overcome disappointments and frustrations.
  • Suomela-Inkeri, Kirsi (2019)
    Tiedekunta - Fakultet - Faculty Educational Sciences Tekijä - Författare - Author Kirsi Suomela-Inkeri Työn nimi - Arbetets titel Kapteeni käskee: ”Kiipeä puuhun!” Varhaiskasvatusta ja lasten leikkejä metsäympäristössä Title Captain says: ”Climb the tree!” Early childhood education and children’s games in a forest environment Oppiaine - Läroämne - Subject Education Työn laji/ Ohjaaja - Arbetets art/Handledare - Level/Instructor Master’s Thesis / Kristiina Kumpulainen Tiivistelmä - Referat - Abstract The documents guiding early childhood education were updated a few years ago. In 2016, the National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care became work defining instead of being a mere recommendation. The curriculum expands the learning environment to include the neighbourhood as well. Simultaneously, the concern in society regarding children´s decreasing amount of exercise has grown. There is also fear of children becoming disengaged from the natural environment. Motivated by these issues, I wanted to research what kind of games children could play in nature. The framework of this study is Gibson’s Affordance Theory. Affordance describes the possibilities a child has for action. A forest environment provides an abundance of possibilities for play. The objective of my research was to discover what kind of games children play in the forest. I categorised the games according to the play type categorisation of Bob Hughes (2002). This research is a qualitative case study. The case was a specific day care centre with two child groups. Each child group had 14 children, a kindergarten teacher and a nurse. I studied the child groups with participative observations and filmed the groups with a digital video camera. From the research material I transcribed the parts that were interesting from the viewpoint of my original questions and categorised them according to Hughes’ play type categorisation (2002). The analysis of my research was theory-guided: theory and previous international studies guided my research. The games played by the children in the forest were diverse and almost all of Hughes’ (2002) play types were represented in my research. The activities lead by the educators included different games compared to those children played spontaneously. When the children were playing independently, more play types occurred. I categorised almost all games belonging to several play types. The children were enthusiastic about the activities. Unwanted behaviour, such as bullying, occurred rarely. Almost all the playing in the forest included physical activity and the children were often breathless from the physical exercise. The possibilities for play offered by the forest were versatile. In conclusion, the research showed that the forest represents an inspiring environment for play. Avainsanat - Nyckelord Varhaiskasvatus, luonto, affordanssi eli tarjouma, leikkityyppi Keywords Early childhood education and care, nature, affordance, play type Säilytyspaikka - Förvaringsställe - Where deposited Helsinki University Library – Helda / E-thesis (theses) Muita tietoja - Övriga uppgifter - Additional information
  • Koskenkorva, Kaisa-Leena (2023)
    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.
  • Paunu, Sonja (2012)
    Aims. Generous supply of food has made it difficult to perform everyday food choices. There are heterogeneous food trends which may define what to eat and how the public discussion about food and nutrition is comprised. Media, parents and peers are major influences on adolescents' food choices. The taste and the familiarity of food are emphasized over healthiness of or information about food when selecting food. The aim of this study is to find out how the complexity of choosing food is manifested in perceptions of adolescent and how knowledge on nutrition is transformed into action in adolescent's lives. Furthermore, the effects of nutrition education on the quality of knowledge and action are reflected. The questions of this study are: 1. What kind of perceptions do adolescents have on food trends? 2. How is the importance of food selection related issues structured in adolescent's perceptions? 3. How the information and education on nutrition are combined in adolescent's perceptions? Methods. The qualitative data was collected by focus-group interviews from the students of optional home economics courses (N=24) in a school at Pirkanmaa, on May 2012. The data was analyzed with a qualitative method called qualitative content analysis. Results and conclusions. Teenagers were somewhat annoyed by food trends and worried about how these may increase incidences of anorexia nervosa. They were also hoping more criticism towards media by nutrition education. On the other hand, examples, such as adults' weight loss on low-carbohydrate diet effected positively on adolescent's perceptions of food trends. Adolescents are puzzled by the contradiction between eating habits they are taught and eating habits their parents follow. Adolescents' food choice was determined by the availability of food such as place to eat, the needs of food such as hunger/craving and the nutrition knowledge that is gained from parents, among others. Food choices are compromises between the three factors above. For example adolescents choose healthier foods at home than in restaurants, feel guilty after eating delicacies and appreciate homemade food; nutrition knowledge changes the eating behaviors of adolescents both physically, mentally and socially.
  • Hirvaskero, Milka (2020)
    The research analyses how the impression of gender is corporally produced in the everyday life of a primary school sixth grade class. The work is based on Judith Butler’s notion of gender as a construct that is produced and reproduced through a work of constant repetition. The research investigates the gestures, styles, and bodily signifiers that produce an impression of gender, and especially that of girlhood, in the everyday orders of school. An additional focus is on the touching that takes place between students during school day and how touch becomes gendered in school. Methodologically, the study is framed on feminist ethnography. Feminist research is critical research in which the central importance is on a critical analysis of power relations, a strong ethical commitment, a political and emancipatory knowledge interest, and an understanding of knowledge as situated. The research data was produced through ethnographic observation while participating in the everyday life of a primary school sixth grade class in Helsinki, Finland. The observation took place during 10 school days in May 2018. The data consists of approximately 100 pages of field notes written at the time. The research observes the school days of students, including lessons, recesses, lunch breaks, swimming lessons, and movements between these. Observational data is enhanced by seven student pair or group interviews in which 15 sixth graders took part, and an interview of the class teacher. The research concludes that the impression of girlhood is produced through corporal stances such as hip curvature or outstretched ankles. Material objects, such as cosmetics or jewellery, and clothes that leave girls’ bodies more visible than boys’ bodies, are also associated with girl corporality. Girls also took advantage of a specific strategy for claiming space, in which (some of) the girls used their physically skilful bodies to claim space through dashing postures and movements such as stretching or cartwheels. There was a line between the genders in the class and the impression of gender was produced through touching, among other things: friends of the same gender were most in contact with each other. The girls more commonly used gentle and caring touching, the boys more raucous touching and play fighting. However, the gender line was habitually transgressed in many ways and also all the different ways of touching were used by students of different genders. The research found that gender categories are not consistent and the ways of corporally producing gender is influenced by several overlapping factors which the research analyses through the concept of corporal style.
  • Laakkonen, Otso (2021)
    Objectives. Geomedia has been part of Finnish elementary school curriculum for five years in grades 3–6. Geomedia as a concept gathers old content with new one in the pursuit of devel-oping geography in school. Success of geomedia in teaching derives from perceptions of teachers, textbooks, and local curriculums. According to expectation value theory teachers perceived competence, task value of content and expectancies for its success in teaching ex-plain the motivation of how teachers invest in teaching of variable teaching contents. The re-search problem was to clarify the state of geomedia in 3rd to 6th grades. Methods. The study was conducted in the form of pragmatic exploratory mixed methods re-search using parallel convergent design. Design combined quantitative and qualitative data and methods. Data consisted 846 quantitative answers and 21 qualitative answers from open-ended question in the survey research conducted in the autumn 2020 by order of the Finnish National Agency for Education. Additional qualitative data was provided through the analysis of three textbook series and five local curricula. Quantitative data was presented though table and analysed using correlation. Qualitative data was analysed using content analysis. Results and conclusions. The concept of geomedia was not defined in any local curriculum and it was verbalized in one textbook only. Due to the broad formulation of the concept of ge-omedia, all textbooks included geomedia in its mainly older form and in such way, it was not consciously used by teachers and pupils in learning. The perceived expectancy value to teach geomedia was clearly lower compared to other main contents of geography in science teach-ing. This result was explained by the teachers lack of understanding about geomedia. Fur-thermore, teachers didn’t have the applicable teaching materials and had not received any additional training for the usage of geomedia in teaching. Since the poor competence of teachers leads to reliance on learning material, it can be stated that geomedia is not rooted as a conscious concept in teaching. If geomedia was defined and instructed from the pupil’s point of view of using technology in their daily lives, it could renew the teaching of geography. Developing the perceived competence of teachers through additional training and research based-learning materials would, based on expectation value theory and results, increase the importance of how the teachers perceive content in their teaching. In this way, it would be possible to redeem geomedia among the more entrenched teaching content of geography.
  • Rikanniemi, Kanerva (2022)
    Aims. The aim of this master's thesis was to gain insights to the nature of the workplace mediation field and mediators in Finland. The purpose is to fulfil the current research gap on workplace mediators as similar studies have not been conducted before. This research focuses on workplace mediators' orientations which are considered the internalized theories of practice, the perceptions of mediation process, the roles of participants and the intervener and goals for the mediation intervention. Orientation reflects on mediators' actions and participants' autonomy in situational mediation framework and its' explication has been acknowledged to be part of mediators' ethical principles. This research explores if congruences can be identified within theoretically formulated orientation variables and between previous mediation literature. Further, this study explores whether these orientation dimensions can be utilized in distinguishing clusters amongst mediators. Methods. The research data was collected in January 2020 by using an electronic questionnaire. Re-spondents, who identified as workplace mediators (N = 99), form a self-assorted sample of population. The questionnaire contained descriptive and orientation-related variables along with questions considering mediation experience and training. Orientation dimensions were extracted with principal axis factoring method. Further, the respondents were divided into four different orientation pro-file subgroups by using Two-Step Cluster analysis. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to explore if orientation profile group memberships could be predicted by demographic or mediation experience related antecedents. Results and conclusions. Three orientation dimensions were identified from the research data. Based on the content analysis which builds upon the theoretical framework, the dimensions were labelled as evaluative, facilitative and transformative. Based on the orientation dimensions, four distinguish orientation profile subgroups were identified amongst workplace mediators in Finland. The orientation dimensions overlap and emerge interrelatedly contradicting the traditional and typical representations of theoretically formulated approaches to mediation. The explanatory variables selected for the multinomial logistic regression model were incapable to predict memberships to different orientation profile groups.
  • Räsänen, Vilma (2012)
    In the future the school will be working more and more together with the formal learning environments in the informal environments. Taking a socio-cultural perspective on learning it is characterized as a process that happens in interaction through collaborative participation. The earlier studies have illustrated that an initiative-response-evaluation -cycle (IRE-cycle) is reproduced in formal classroom interaction. This way of organizing interaction supports a teacher-led conversation culture in the classroom. Even though the school strives for expanding outside the formal environment the ways that the interaction is organized in an informal environment during school time have been studied very little. The purpose of this study was to find out how the interaction is like in an informal learning environment during the school time. The study was aimed to find out how the interaction was organized on a school birding trip and how was it like. The study was qualitative and data-driven. The data of the study consisted of a two-hour and 59-minutes video data that was collected as a part of the Learning Bridges research project in 2008-2010. The data was filmed on a school birding trip in Viikki and the participants were 18 fourth graders, their teacher and a birdwatcher. The analysis started of an urge to find out why the atmosphere on the birding trip was so free. The data was analyzed using the progressive refinement of hypotheses as an analysis method which implies that the research questions were formed watching the data over and over again. During this process significant episodes were selected in the data and they were analyzed more carefully. In the data there were only a few situations in which the interaction was organized as a teacher-led and by the IRE-cycle. The interaction was organized this way only in those situations where the teacher for example was checking out the knowledge of the students of something and the use was then well-grounded. Instead on the birding trip the interaction was organized often around the observations in the shared observation process. I called it crowding when an observation gathered the people together suddenly in the middle of the ongoing interaction and fading when people were little by little moving away from a shared situation to make something else. It were the teacher and the birdwatcher who usually brought the observations to the shared attention but they also encouraged the students to share their observations with others by giving them responsibility and choice of how they participated. The conclusion can be drawn that working in an informal environment can create new interactional structures in the formal learning and that they can enable different ways of learning. The informal learning environments should be brought as a natural part of the curriculum and the everyday life at school to support the idea that learning takes place everywhere.
  • Kuivalainen, Rosanna (2019)
    This master’s thesis sets out to examine the reasons behind high school seniors’ choices in application to higher education. Focus of this thesis is directed to seniors’ family history and future goals. Application reform to Finnish higher education takes place during the making of this thesis and therefore the effects of this reform will be also investigated. I utilize theoretical ideas and concepts by Pierre Bourdieu. Earlier studies have shown that social class is connected to consumption of education. I aim to reveal cultural manuscripts, which are connected to application to higher education. I interviewed ten final year students from two high schools from Helsinki. Both high schools demand high grade point averages from their applicants. Qualitative methods and especially analysis of expectations is used in examining the material. As a conclusion, many cultural manuscripts were found to guide seniors in their choices in applying to higher education. Some of them were more obvious to the seniors than others. The pressure by highly educated parents was an easily recognizable storyline, whereas many manuscripts were formed in such a long period of time and were repeated so frequently that they had become invisible and a natural way of life. Cultural manuscripts were formed within the surroundings and communities of the high school seniors. Resources as well as habitus gained from the childhood has helped seniors in their studies. They had gained working routines and adequate skills to cope in the school system, which has made their studies feel pleasant and relatively effortless. Educational institutions have given validation to their habitus and resources, which has driven the students to follow a cultural manuscript of aiming to the highest of educational paths. The experiences of success in school have motivated seniors to keep going and to aim higher. As a result, many potential options are left as non-alternatives to the seniors during application process and correspondingly other options are considered even if they are not appealing to the applicant.