Browsing by Subject "erityisyys"

In my research, I examine special education as a discursive practice in the Foucauldian sense, in which ideas about disturbance are almost exclusively produced as individual characteristics. The discursive perspective also challenges the position of scientific knowledge and concretizes the power and control contained within it. My study is situated in special education context where the education system has assumed a significant role in constructing the normal individual. Therefore, the examination of disturbance is closely related to questions of exceptionalism. In my research, I investigate how disturbance is conceptualized in Helsinki university course materials. Additionally, I reflect on the positioning that materials offer to individuals, mainly in expert positions, who consume them. My data consists of two course books used in special education training, which I approach and deconstruct discursively. In my research, discourses appear as information systems that, instead of merely describing, act as significant building blocks in our thinking and actions. Thus, course materials are kind of a window into the ways in which disturbance and specialness are structured within the education system and more broadly in society. The results of my research show that disturbance is primarily presented as individual deficiencies, which reinforces my preconception that disturbances are personal faults or defect. Consequently, various skills and self-management strategies are offered as solutions to disturbance, which enable one to overcome it. The results also challenged individualistic views. The disorder was presented as a product of Western culture, where certain behavioral patterns are intentionally excluded from appropriate and correct behavior. The course material also placed the adult i.e. the teacher, in a position where they are seen as an actor outside the disorder, who is able to know and report how, when, and why the disorder develops.

The foundation of our school system lays on the perceptions of normality and deviant. Special education and the dual system are structured in classification, choosing and naming the special. The ontologies of special or normality are yet to be defined, instead they are being understood as self-evident. The equality of students does not actualize. The ideological goal of the inclusive education is de- and reconstructing these othering structures. Furthermore, it aims for reinventing the ways of thinking and talking in relation to what has been named as deviant. Tanzania is among the poorest countries in the world. Since gaining its’ independence there has been efforts in building the school system more inclusive. Yet approximately two million disabled children are still left outside the school system. Superstitious beliefs about disability and its’ background factors are still prevailing in Tanzanian society. Consequently, this causes the discrimination and even violence towards people with disabilities. The purpose of this study is to explore the descriptions of Tanzanian educational science students about inclusive education. In addition, it aims to examine how ‘special’ discursively constructs and positions in these descriptions. This study is qualitative in nature and is positioned in the field of social constructionism. Two students from the university of Dar es Salaam were interviewed using theme interviews. Interviews were analyzed using the method of discourse analysis. The interviewees produced contradictory descriptions about inclusive education. The discourse about special was characterized by normal – abnormal –dichotomy, in which disability was referred as abnormality. Inclusive education had both conditional and unconditional forms in interviewees’ descriptions. The dichotomy of normal and abnormal dominated both descriptions. In their descriptions, the interviewees operated in the field of special. Depending on how they contextualized themselves within their descriptions, they positioned themselves either in or outside the field of special. The results suggest that the societal prejudices toward people with disabilities and the idea of inclusive education creates contradictions which affect the interfaces of professionalism of the future educational professionals in Tanzania.

Work well-being is receiving a lot more attention on all individual, corporate and societal levels. Well-being at work is nowadays a hot topic in workplaces and many organizations have thereby started to invest in increasing work well-being and the prevention of feeling unwell. Small business entrepreneurs are a group whose well-being at work is not paid enough attention to. This thesis examines work well-being from a small business perspective. In the beginning of this thesis, special attention is paid to the scientific literature on well-being at work. The subject of matter will be approached from three different angles. At first, work well-being will be examined as a phenomenon, what definitions it gets and what concepts it contains. After this, work well-being will be looked at from the entrepreneur's point of view, which presents entrepreneurial typologies and entrepreneurship in social context. The third aspect of the review is the specialty of small business entrepreneur’s work. This examines the impact of the special features of everyday work on well-being. The research material for this thesis will be five interviews with small business entrepreneurs. The benefit of a theme interview is in its dialogical nature. All interviews were carried out anonymously and took place in a location requested by the interviewee. Methods of discourse analysis were used in the analysis of the interviews. The review focuses on small business entrepreneurs' descriptions of well-being at work and their way of creating reality. The analysis focuses on illustrating the small business entrepreneurs’ perspective on work well-being. The analysis consists of meaning systems that were determined according to what small business entrepreneurs saw as meaningful in terms of work well-being. Within the meaning systems, deeper attention will be paid to the ways entrepreneurs describe work well-being and how they define it. The point of view of the examination was the individuality and specialty of small business entrepreneurs. The everyday life of small business entrepreneurs differ a lot from fixed pay workers and therefore work well-being is seen as a very different phenomenon. The topics of importance for small entrepreneurs' well-being at work were autonomy, risk, responsibility and the opportunity to influence.