Browsing by Author "Alhainen, Netta"

Aims and objectives. The purpose of this study is to define what primary school teachers find important in food education and how it is present in school and in class. As well as the aforementioned the aim of this study is to, based on the teachers' experience, find out what kind of support and added value primary school teachers get from the Ruuan reitti -learning material, published by Ruokatieto Yhdistys and how the material could be developed further. The theoretical context of this study is compounded of home economics education, the curriculum of home economics education, examination of the learning environment and materials as well as the multidimensionality food education. The research questions are: 1. a) What subjects within food education are important from primary school teachers' point of view? b) How food education is present in their school and in their class? 2. How the Ruuan reitti -learning material supports food education in primary school and what added value does it bring? 3. How would primary school teachers want to change or develop the contents and methods within the learning material? Methods. The nature of this study is qualitative research, which conforms to the principles of case study. The material was compiled using questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observation. Nine primary school teachers from three different schools in the Uusimaa region took part in the study. Analysis of the dataset was executed as a meta-combination of context analysis and systemic textual analysis. Results and conclusions. According to the interviewees the most important aspects of food education are healthiness, food behaviour, environment and day-to-day life of a child. In schools food education is present during school meals, within the curriculum and in class. In class teachers mainly effectuate the themes they themselves find important. According to the results the learning material is a valuable asset and it applies well in to teaching. As the main development proposal teachers were hoping for more complete material and various electric applications like games, tests and videos.