Browsing by Author "Jussila, Tiia"

Studying by activity areas is less examined topic in the field of special education. Students’ educa-tion can be arranged by activity areas if the pupil is unable to meet the subjects’ objectives. There are five activity areas: communication skills, social, motor, cognitive and day-to-day skills. These areas have retained their form for tens of years, while the core curriculum has been updated. Because of that, it was necessary to find out what the teachers think of it. The need for this research was created through the InTo -project. The project was justified e.g. by the lacks in the activity areas curriculum. It was possible to notice perspectives in teachers’ conceptions, which related to equality. The purpose of this study is to interpret, through the conceptions of the teachers who are working with the activity areas curriculum, how the activity areas curriculum embodies equality. Equality has been examined via both teachers’ and pupils’ perspectives, reflecting it to activity areas curriculum. I examine the equality of activity areas curriculum from four perspectives: The curriculum as a tool for teaching, the teaching goals of the student, the recognition of diversity of the pupils in the activity areas curriculum and the teacher’s role as an interpreter of the curriculum. My material consisted of 18 interviews from teachers who work with activity areas curriculum. The interviews were conducted during the spring and autumn of 2018 in four different Finnish municipalities. My re-search is a qualitative study. I used phenomenography in the analysis of the data. To visualize my results, I adapted Attride-Stirlings (2001) thematic network system. The results showed that, according to the teachers’ perceptions, the activity areas curriculum needs to be sharpened and concretized. Its areas of activity are good, but it is not functional teachers working tool. The role of the teacher in the activity areas education includes a great deal of power and responsibility because of the different possibilities to use and interpret curricula. The students’ goal-oriented learning is not secured through the current activity areas curriculum, as it is challenging to find goals from it because of its generality. Goals are also developed under teachers’ consideration. The results also showed that the inclusion of the spectrum of pupils in the activity areas curriculum is challenging.