Skip to main content
Login | Suomeksi | På svenska | In English

Browsing by Subject "etnisyys"

Sort by: Order: Results:

  • Kasurinen, Jaana (2001)
    The purpose of this research is to deepen the understanding of the culture of the veil among Somali women in Finland. The research deals with ethnicity, identity, easing the immigrant's readjustment with the help of one's own culture, and the connection between the religion of Islam and the veil. The veil will be studied from both the historical and religious point of view. The research will also familiarize the reader with the dress code for women in the Koran. The empirical part of the research is carried out as a qualitative study with the help of content analysis, with emphasis in phenomenology. The aim of the phenomenological research method is to reach a person's experience world, and to search for common contents from individual experiences. The material for this study has been collected by interviewing ten Somali women. Some of the women wear veils, some do not. It can be said, on the ground of this research, that the decision about taking on the veil is made by the women themselves. The main cause for wearing the veil is to indicate religiousness. As other motives we can see a search for security, enhancing of solidarity, individual interpretation of the instructions of the religion, covering the ethnic dress while outside, protecting men from the beauty of women, and wearing the veil in the mosque or while praying. As a latent motive we can point out the resisting of Western culture. Not wearing the veil can be justified by the women's need for independence, the veil being unpractical, the want of modernity, the alternation of different ways of dressing, the adaptation of the new culture, abandoning one's own culture, and abandoning the external emphasizing of the religion. Also the veil is not part of the Somali culture; it is a habit adapted from elsewhere.
  • Jääskelä, Nina (2014)
    The purpose of this research is to study and understand racism between ethnic minority group children as a phenomenon in schools. The goal is to study, through the speech of teachers, what kinds of cultural categories exist in schools and what factors, according to teachers, influence racist encounters between children from ethnic minority groups. This study is part of the research project Racism Between Ethnic Minority Groups, carried out by the youth education organization Non Fighting Generation. The intention of the project is to study racism between ethnic minority groups. The theoretical background of this study is in the theory of social identity, which focuses on group behaviour and out-group relations. It is based on the notion that people form evaluations about their own group by comparing it to other groups. The data of the research was collected from seven elementary school teachers in the Helsinki metropolitan area by using semi-structured interview method and the interviews were analyzed through discursive methods. The data show that there is hierarchy-based reasoning between ethnic minority groups. Considering one's own ethnic group to be better than other minority groups seems to help the individual strengthen his/her social identity. Based on cultural categorization children with Asian background were seen as calm survivors, more likely to stay in the background. Children with Russian roots were described to have a strong sense of cultural identity. Arrogant behaviour was also seen as a cause for why Russian boys got into trouble. The Somali children were the ones who stood out the most and who also separated themselves the most from other ethnic minority groups. Physical appearance, style of clothing, cultural habits and religious way of life defined the Somali children as a cultural category. In this study four factors were shown to influence racist conflicts between ethnic minority groups in school; religion, lack of a majority language, cultural habits and behavioural patterns learned at home. The results of this study indicate that racism exists between ethnic minority group children and that teachers feel they lack the means to tackle the issue. This research shows the need for a deeper understanding of the phenomenon, so that it can be prevented in the future.