Browsing by Author "Suoranta, Tuuli"

In recent years, secular ethics education has increasingly risen to a prominent position in societal discourse because there has been a discussion about how to organize worldview education in Finland. The discussion has notably emphasized perspectives on equality and the needs arising from due the post secular changes in society. In this qualitative research, conducted for a master's thesis, I focus on the perspectives constructed about secular ethics as a school subject in discussions on social media platforms. The aim of this research is to provide more information and understanding about secular ethics education, examining it from the perspective of layman’s information, as an everyday knowledge. In general, laymen play a significant role in influencing to worldview education, as they engage in societal discussions, participate in political decision-making, and, as a parents, make decisions regarding their children's matters related to beliefs. In this study I investigate layman’s everyday information views based on social constructionism theory, which interprets social reality as being constructed through linguistic processes and interactions in society. The way reality is constructed is in significant role as shaping reality itself, in this context, secular ethics as a school subject. This is a relevant matter for the subject because, for instance, it is not mandatory for students without a religious affiliation to study it. Also, the subject may undergo changes in the future as part of the renewal of worldview education. I interpret the views constructed by anonymous online discussion participants in relation to the nature of the subject, the curriculum, regulations, research, and phenomenal changes in relation to religious, worldviews and society. The questions for the research are: 'How do anonymous online discussion participants construct views on secular ethics education?' and, as a sub-question, 'What are the prevailing interpretation strategies for constructing the views related to secular ethics as a subject?'. Research data is collected from six discussions debated between years 2016–2022 on online forum of www.vauva.fi. Topics were focused on secular ethics education and they comprised the amount of 275 comments. I analyzed my qualitive research data with an interpretative approach using discourse analysis to identify hegemonic and less hegemonic discourses in the comments of online discussion participants. I define hegemonic discourses as the most common ways of construct the views, and less hegemonic discourses as the rarer but present ways of assigning views on the subject. The analyze revealed that the most common ways to construct the view of the subject involved by making a positive affirmation of the secular ethics’ by constructing the view by comparing it dichotomous way how Evangelical Lutheran religions’ education is taught, by value choices and the best interest of the child, as well as a submitting critical examinations of the model of organizing worldview education in general. Less common ways emphasized the subject's being a ideology or the process of othering the student in the cause of studying secular ethics. I gathered the content of the most common views of the subject of secular ethics and it was based on the formatting a positive description by especially making a comparison to the subject of Evangelical Lutheran religion education, examining various dimensions of equality, emphasizing the subject’s modernity, demonstrating trust towards the subject, expressing the subject’s inadequacy in meeting changed needs of society, and need of making value choices caused by the Finnish school systems’ separative worldview education. Less common views included themes of expressing fear of othering the pupil due to studying the subject and constructing views that differed to way how secular ethics is based at curriculum and taught by emerging from it. Based on my research findings that are researched from the laymen’s everyday knowledge, secular ethics education can interpret as having a conflicting views regarding its sufficiency and adequacy as a part of Finnish worldview education. Furthermore, equality does not automatically prevail in this system which secular ethics takes a part even though it is the target of the activity’s arrangement. This observation provides additional insights for examining the Finnish worldview education within the current model of the separative worldview education and as a one sight of public opinion of the secular ethics as a school subject itself.