Browsing by Subject "barncancer"

Purpose. When a child in Finland is diagnosed with cancer, and being treated at the hospital, the school education is provided by the hospital school. Later, education is arranged by the child’s own school. The most common arrangement is that one or more of the pupil’s own teachers visits the child at home, because the child cannot attend regular school because of the high infection risk. Earlier studies show that in a situation like this, school becomes an essential element for the child’s quality of life. The aim of this research is to describe, analyze and interpret how teachers have experienced the interactions and eventual tensions between different cooperation partners in a situation when they have a child with cancer in their class. Threory and methods. This research was conducted as a qualitative study with a phenomenographic research approach and is based on six semi-structured interviews of teachers in Finnish and Swedish-speaking primary schools in three municipalities in Finland. The material was analyzed by using thematic analysis and with activity theory as a theoretical framework. Results and conclusions. Teachers showed a genuine interest in helping the pupils and ful-filled their work with much pride and a sense of responsibility. They saw that the overall health of the pupil and keeping up the social contacts with the rest of the class was more im-portant than academic performances. The teachers had very different experiences of how they needed and obtained support from their principal and colleagues. One of the most im-portant resources for the teachers was the pupil’s family, while there was almost no other cooperation with other partners outside the school. The overall experiences of the education with special arrangements were good. The identified tensions between partners occurred mostly because of lack of open communication and knowledge.