Browsing by Subject "barn"
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(2019)The material that has been analyzed for this study consists of video recordings from Natur & Språk’s [Nature & Language’s] multilingual summer camps. The aim was to study the children’s interactions and conversations at the camps, focusing on their stances towards other languages. A further aim was to study the results in relation to the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2014. The research questions focus on how the children in their conversations express their stances and positions towards other languages, and how this can be related to the views on language stated in the national core curriculum. The respondents were between 8 and13 years old and spoke either Swedish or Finnish while some were bilingual. The video recordings of the conversations between the children were transcribed and analyzed through thematic analysis. The transcripts were additionally analyzed through a sociolinguistic perspective by studying the children’s stance. The theoretical framework of this study was based upon stance. As a result of the analysis, four main categories were found that represented the children’s varied ways of expressing their stances towards other languages, as well as other people’s language choices and backgrounds. The children categorized themselves and others in relation to languages and/or language groups. They showed expectations regarding their own and/or other’s competence. They expressed comments or whishes about language choice and showed orientation towards language learning. These results demonstrate that multilingual practices with language encounters create opportunities for children to challenge themselves and develop their language awareness, their stances and interests in other languages. In relation to this, parallels were drawn to the views on language stated in the National Core Curriculum, with its aims concerning language awareness and cultural diversity. Therefor this study can contribute with insight in regard to the potential that multilingual practices and activities have to offer in different educational contexts. This study is written in collaboration with the project Natur & Språk [Nature & Language], a collaboration between the Finnish Society for Nature and Environment, the Finnish Nature League and the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki.
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(2021)The appearance ideals of today are very narrow and put excessive pressure on individuals to look a certain way. The ideals are seen as so unrealistic that most people cannot reach them. This has led to an increase in body dysmorphia to a degree where it nowadays is normal to be unsatisfied with one’s body. A negative body image can have several serious consequences, such as mental health problems, eating disorders and social and economic problems. Earlier studies have shown that problems with body image also affect children: the majority of children seem to be unsatisfied with their bodies, and many try to lose weight through unhealthy methods, such as skipping meals. Therefore, there is a big need in supporting children’s body image and researchers have highlighted schools as adequate places for this work. The aim of this study is to examine primary school teachers’ comprehensions about children’s body image, as well as their comprehensions about their possibilities to support their students’ body image in school. Six teachers, who at the time of the study were working in grades 1-6 in the primary school in Finland, participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews were used, and data was analyzed by using thematic analysis that took place in the qualitative data analysis software ATLAS.ti. The teachers in this study considered body image as a highly important topic. The teachers seemed to understand what influences children’s body image and they could observe children’s body image in different situations, such as during school lunch and through paying attention to children’s behavior. They also had a strong will of supporting their students’ body image, but at the same time the teachers felt that the lack of knowledge, resources and guidelines made them feel uncomfortable with working with body image. The teachers disagreed on whether supporting children’s body image really was part of their work responsibilities, but despite of this, there was a consensus of the importance that teachers need to be good role models for their students and that teachers should work for a school where every child feels worthy and safe. Based on the results of this study, it can be said that body image needs to be more emphasized in future school curriculums and that teachers need more knowledge in body image and more tools to feel comfortable with teaching this topic. The results of this study can benefit further studies in body image and studies regarding the school’s role in the work with supporting children’s body image.
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(2015)The aim of this study was to through mothers stories deepen the understanding of how mothers had experienced the colic time period and how they had experienced the support in the situation. The theory in this thesis has a parental perspective and deals with subjects about the everyday life and the interaction in families with colicky infants and the support that is aimed at these families. On the basis of the theoretical frame of reference the following research issues were formulated: - How did mothers to colicky infants experience the colic time period? - How did mothers to colicky infants experience the interaction with the child? - How did mothers to colicky infants experience the support in the situation? Seven mothers to infants who had had colic participated in theme-centered interviews that took place in spring 2014. The results of the study show that the mothers experienced the colic time period and the interaction with an excessively crying child as burdening all though the mothers felt the attachment was normalized to this date. The support that is offered to parents with colicky infants was experienced as lacking by the mothers and therefore a development of both the information and the support provided is considered important.
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(2019)Today, children in Finland live in a complex linguistic environment, which offers interesting opportunities for studying how they perceive and discuss their own and others’ language use. The objective of this study is to analyse and interpret how children express stance (Du Bois, 2007; Jaffe, 2009) in relation to language use and language skills in the context of a group interview. From the perspective of stance, interaction is viewed as the central process of meaning-making and identity construction. The study is based on qualitative, thematic focus group interviews on language use, language learning and language skills with students in second grade in a bilingual municipality in Finland. A total of 15 students participated in the study, of which 9 students attended a school with Finnish and 6 students a school with Swedish as the language of instruction. The interaction of the children is analysed from a stance perspective, aiming to demonstrate how the children use available resources to position themselves and others as language users, and how their stances can be interpreted in the sociocultural context. The results illustrate how children both implicitly and explicitly position themselves and others as language users by using social categories, topicalizing and not topicalizing language skills and by negotiating epistemic authority. In the interviews, the children positioned themselves in relation to each other and to their collectively constructed ideas about language identities, language use and language skills. The study adds to the growing body of research that applies stance theory to study how cultural and language identities are expressed in interaction, and exemplifies how stance can be used to analyse the interactions of children. It also relates to the larger discussion on how individual interactions serve as opportunities for stancetaking and meaning-making, and how they can contribute to the construction of more enduring identities and ideas.
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