Browsing by Author "OIkarinen, Sampo"

Objectives: In the Finnish media and society there is a lot of talk about schools and changing schools to follow current trends and modernize its pedagogy and subjects. Life in the postmodern society produces pressure for school change at accelerating speed. Previously researchers like Säntti (2007), Syrjäläinen (2002), Kiviniemi (2000) and Sahlberg (1996) have studied school change and teachers position in this change. In this thesis the change in school, society and teachers profession is studied through memoir texts, which teachers produced themselves. The study aims to answer two questions: 1) According to teachers' memoirs, how has the school changed? 2) How have these changes in school and society affected teachers' everyday school work? Methods: Research data consisted of 27 teacher memoirs which were part of My school memory -collection. The collection was organized by The Finnish Society for the History of Education in collaboration with Finnish Literature Society during the year 2013. Central in the data analysis was how teachers themselves produced the discourse about schools and society's change. Oral history conventions guided the analysis and besides content analysis focus was on teacher's positions and motives to remember and write about certain themes. Results and conclusions: Study showed that changes in school and teachers work reflect the changes in society wider. Central themes of reminiscing were 1) the birth of elementary school in the 1970's and the changes it brought 2) changing society and its effect on teachers work and 3) changes in the education policy and its effect on teachers work. When remembering the change related to organization and occupational group it was common that teachers wrote about it on a general level and used us-form. The first-person form was used in the memoirs in which writers wanted to add more personal feeling. The results rose a question: are schools able to produce change in which students' well-being and pedagogical solutions are the primary goal? In this study school appeared as an organization, which tends to respond to changes in the society around it, instead of being the driving force for a change