Browsing by Author "Wasenius, Ina"

The aim of this study is to find out how high school -aged adolescents are involved in home cleaning, what kind of cleaning tasks the parents require them to do, and how they are motivated to do home cleaning. Additionally, this study aims to find out what kind of cleaning practices exist in the families of adolescents and how the cleaning practices in a childhood home affect parents’ cleaning habits. This is related to how and where cleaning skills are learned. This study is qualitative by its nature, and the data were collected by interviewing six mothers of high school adolescents in the metropolitan area. The interviews were conducted in late autumn 2019, and the interviews followed the theme interview pattern where the interview proceeded according to predefined themes and related refinement questions. The interviews were transcribed and the data was analysed using a method of qualitative content analysis. The importance of home economics education at schools in learning cleaning skills was nearly insignificant. Cleaning skills were taught to children alongside their everyday household activities, without realizing it as a teaching or educational task. It seems that the primary responsibility for teaching cleaning skills to adolescents lies with the parents. The adolescents took part in the cleaning of the home by performing daily cleaning and organizing work, and they also kept their own room clean. Organising the cleaning work was the responsibility of the parents. A clear and balanced division of labor helped to involve the children in the cleaning and housework. In addition, the clear division of domestic tasks between parents affected couples' satisfaction with the division of homework.