Browsing by Subject "maahanmuuttaja"

The main idea of this study was to find out how immigrants understand and define successful co-operation and professional partnership in early childhood education. Another target of this research was to think over how the parents see professional partnership from their viewpoint, and how willing / ready the they are in engaging in the professional partnership with the day care personnel. The theoretical part of this research is based on theories of immigration and theories of it's different forms, theories of cultural varieties and theory of modernizing co-operation through using professional partnership. Also guidelines and policies for day care and early childhood education play a part in the theory section. Theory part is written to support research problems. The research method used in this study is peer interview. The interviewed are both immigrants and customers of day care services. The data collected is comprised of materials from peer interviews and personal background information. The interviewed were of Somalia and Russian ethnic groups. Interview were carried out in each group in the participants own mother tongue. These peer interviews showed that parents were interested and willing to discuss professional partnership. From this research one can conclude that the term professional partnership is seen as a complex term, and as a term difficult to understand. From the results it is seen that quite often the principles of professional partnership are not carried out in practise. According to the material gathered, the parents feel that lack of common language and prejudice against immigrants effectively prevents the professional partnership from being formed. The cultural differences can become challenging in a professional partnership. Based on this research, one can conclude that when different cultures meet, there has to be mutual will to understand and to be understood in order to make sure that the children's development, both educational and physical, is supported in a best possible way.

Earlier studies have shown that in Finland immigrant children have on average poorer numeracy skills than native Finnish children. More and more children with immigrant background enter schools so effective means to support their numeracy skills are highly needed. The study explores if immigrant children's early numeracy skills can be supported with an intensive early numeracy intervention programme. A total of ten six-year-old immigrant children participated in the study in a preschool in the metropolitan area. Half of the children had intense training in early numeracy skills during the day in preschool twice a week for about eight weeks. The other half of the children formed a control group who participated in preschool activities as usual. The children's early numeracy skills were measured with Early Numeracy Test (Van Luit, Van de Rijt & Aunio, 2006) as pretest, immediate posttest and delayed posttest. There was also a logbook that was filled during and immediately after the training sessions so that assessment of fidelity would be possible. The participants' background information and level of Finnish skills were asked from the preschool teachers. These pieces of information were used as control variable. The children in the intervention group improved their early numeracy skills during the intervention more than the children in the control group. Especially the effect was seen in understanding mathematical relations. The intervention group performed statistically significantly better in the immediate posttest and the delayed posttest than the control group. In counting skills the results weren't significant. In the Early Numeracy Test (Van Luit, Van de Rijt & Aunio, 2006) as a whole, the intervention group performed significantly better in the immediate posttest, but the gap was not statistically significant in the delayed posttest. This study shows that by supporting immigrant children's early numeracy skills with an evidence-based intervention programme, their skills in understanding mathematical relations improve significantly and permanently. The immigrant children can also get their numeracy skills to the same level with the native Finnish children and so the intervention programme for one can prevent them from dropping out of the school system later.

The purpose of the study is to explore the acculturation of eating habits among Somali immigrants: What kind of acculturation happens and which factors prevent or promote the change in their eating habits. In addition, it is studied how important role food has from the perspective of the stability or change of identity. The main research question is as follows: What kind of acculturation has occurred after moving to Finland? The study had three additional questions: 1. How is acculturation reflected in eating habits and the choice of food? 2. What are the main factors that prevent or promote the change? 3. How the respondents find that the acculturation of eating habits affects their Somali identity? In this study, the model of adaptation to a new dietary pattern (Koctürk-Runefors 1991) is an important part of the theoretical framework. The data were collected in March 2017 through individual, pair, and group interviews from fourteen Somali immigrants, aged 19 to 46 years. All the interviewees were women who had lived in Finland six to twenty-six years. They were interviewed in Finnish. The interviews were audiorecorded and transcribed into written form. After that the data were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis. According to the study, acculturation had taken place at different levels. Meal rhythm, the content of meals and choice of food had changed. The number of the meals increased in Finland. The breakfast was usually prepared by the Finnish way. If there was enough time, the breakfast would be prepared by a Somalian way. The lunch would be prepared in a Somali way if it was eaten at home. Legumes were often offered for dinner in Somalia but no longer in Finland. The religion prevented any major changes in the diet. The socio-economic status affected food choice: higher education and income level affected the choice of the food. Media, household technology and catering services promoted the change. Somali identity is strong and the identity is supported with eating habits. Food restrictions defined by religion were kept unchanged, and they did not reflect acculturation in this study.