Browsing by Subject "barn"

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.

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.