Browsing by Subject "eronteot"

The objective of this study was to examine what sort of differences and Otherness are constructed in global education and how those are produced. Education for global citizenship can be seen as an objective for global education. Therefore, it is also important to analyze how global citizenship education is justified in global education. My perspective on global education is based on post-colonial and post-structural feminist theories. The study data consist of three documents that deal with global education. The documents are produced in different projects governed by educational administration offices. As a research method, I applied deconstructive reading. The method was utilized in order to identify hierarchical binary oppositions through which the differences and Otherness are constructed in the study data. In addition to deconstructive reading, the metaphors I have applied are 'the return of the colonial and the return of the colonizer' and 'modern Western thinking as an abyssal thinking' invented by Boaventura de Souza Santos (2007). The study data constructs a subject named as "us", which is positioned as Finnish, European and Western. The subject "us" is constructed in relation to "other", which I named in this research as colonial Other, new abyssal colonial Other, and/or Other referred as minorities. According to my study, education for global citizenship was justified as a response to the encounter of "us" and Other and as a response to global challenges. Global education and global citizenship education were based on the offset of modern humanism, which appeared in the attempts to define universal epistemologies and ethical codes. Based on the results of this research, the offsets of global education epistemologies ought to be re-evaluated critically. Furthermore, opportunities for global education which question the categories of "us" and Other should be addressed in forthcoming research.

In this thesis I examined meanings of gender articulated by children, on the basis of video art pieces. I am interested in the meanings of gender the children would bring up and how this would be related to the wider thematic of gender. Based on earlier research, children have been noted to express normative interpretations of feminist fairy tales which challenge traditional gender positions. This has been seen as a wish to localize in a gender position that is perceived as correct. Children have been noted to challenge the norms in addition to maintaining them. In my thesis I reflect on how the children I interviewed position themselves and the video art pieces related to my research based on gender. My research was supported by post-structural feminist thought and feminist film theory. The essential concepts were gender, discourse, subjectivity and subject position. For my research I interviewed ten children between the ages of 7 and 10. I examined their views on gender thematic on the basis of the video art pieces Punahilkka ja susi (2012), Lasso (2000) and Masa (1999). I applied discourse analysis as a research method. I read material with my focus on gender thematic and, for instance, searched for gender related distinctions and different gender related positions mentioned by the interviewees. I aimed for gender sensitivity while doing research. In my research, gender appeared as a complex discourse. The children expressed many dualistic and normative views on gender. On the other hand, gender related dualisms and norms were also subverted. The children could be seen to simultaneously describe normative discourses and still position themselves or others outside of these discourses. They can be noted to both repeat and resist gender related cultural ways of thinking. The meanings of gender were shown to be persistent but also something containing possibilities for change. Views on gender could be subverted and the concept of gender could be deconstructed during the research process. On the basis of my research, I propose that critical examination of gender with children can contribute to, for example, the deconstruction of normative views on gender. This kind of examination is important because it contributes to the actualization of gender sensitivity, equality and diverse possibilities for being human. Video art pieces can offer a rich conversational basis for thinking about gender.