Browsing by Subject "maahanmuuttajat"

The purpose of the study was to examine the communication of Finnish anti-immigration politicians, especially their representations of immigrants. Previous studies have shown that the self-named "immigration critics" have played an important part in making stigmatizing and derogatory talk about immigrants seem more acceptable. The theoretical framework of this study was built on Smith's (2007a) model of stigma communication. Stigmatizing messages consist of marks to recognize and categorize people, labels to distinguish people as a separate social entity, cues of responsibility to imply blame, and implications of peril linking people to physical or social dangers. The aim of the study was to find out if these contents can be found in anti-immigration discourse. The data were drawn from six blogs written by True Finn candidates who got elected in 2011 Parliamentary election. The data also contains the Sour Election Manifesto (Nuiva vaalimanifesti) signed by them. The main method in analyzing the data was theory-driven qualitative content analysis. Methods of rhetorical discourse analysis were used as a complementary analysis in reviewing the strategies of this communication. The results show that the strongest mark was affixed to the groups that have the lowest positions in the prevailing ethnic hierarchy. Muslims and people of African origin were marked most strongly, but marking was for most part indirect. The marked were labeled as culturally backward and strongly separated from "us". Responsibility was linked with the immigration itself: it was implied that the labeled people had only left their country in search of an easy life. Prejudice was claimed to be caused by the immigrants' own actions. Presenting the immigrants as both physical and moral threat to the Finnish community was the most dominant stigma message and it was used to justify stigmatization. Immigrants were presented as a homogeneous mass (part of label), but there were also claims that they should be seen and judged only as individuals. This color-blindness makes it possible for the stigmatizers to never actually face their victims, because they are not seen as members of a stigmatized group on an interpersonal level. It is also very hard for the stigmatized to change the stigma in these circumstances. The model of stigma communication proved out to be an effective tool for qualitative interpretation in this context. Further study should investigate the receiving end of these stigma messages, in this case it could mean studying the comments or the readers of political anti-immigration blogs.

The purpose. The purpose of the reseach was to study the experiences of immigrant parents about cooperation with kindergartens in Helsinki. Very little research has been done on this topic in Finland, so my research questions are focused on a fairly wide research field. The background literature focuses on the prevalence of immigrant families in Finnish kindergartens, how the Early Childhood Education Act and the national Early Childhood Education Plan guide and enforce co-operation with parents, and why kindergartens should seek open and confidential co-operation with immigrants. In addition, I have presented the social psychology theories, such as the cognitive categorical schemas, prejudiced attitudes, stereotypes, intergroup relations, social identity and ethnic identity. Methods. The data corpus of this qualitative research consists of five thematic interviews. I interviewed five parents, two fathers and three mothers. Four of them had lived in Finland for less than five years. I found them from three different kindergartens. They had an experience in total of nine different kindergartens in Helsinki. The data corpus has been analyzed using the thematic-analysis method. I analyzed data corpus first time with a data-based orientation, to answer the first research question; second time I analyzed my data corpus with a theory-based orientation, to answer the second research question. Theory-based analysis was premised by the social psychology theories, which were presented in the third chapter. Results and conclusions. According to the parents' experiences, kindergartens had not taken into account their different needs in collaboration with them. However, an interpreter was ordered for annual discussion sessions and start-up discussions. The time while parents were not able to speak in Finnish, they practically did not have the opportunity to communicate with the kindergartens' educators on daily bases. It seems that being able to communicate in Finnish language has become a condition that allows and encourages the inequalities and isolation of immigrant parents. Finnish speaking skills should be a technical problem in itself, but it is used as a pretext for exclusion. Meeting the needs of this early age education customer group is a very timely problem. I think that the necessity for new arrangements and new cooperation structures are the responsibilities of the party who provides the services.

The educational transitions of immigrant youth are seen as challenging and young immigrants complete the upper secondary education less frequently than their native counterparts in Finland. The aim of this study was to examine how the school officials, such as student counselors, principals and education administration officials, consider the specific features of the upper secondary transitions of immigrant youth and their own possibilities in supporting these transitions. The theoretical setting consists of the concepts of transitions system and transitions regimes. The data included 10 semi-structured interviews with school officials from the Helsinki metropolitan area. The interviews were analyzed using phenomenography. According to the school officials the specific features of the transitions of immigrant youth are educational choices and the assessment of competences in the comprehensive school; abilities and educational background in the upper secondary school; and the importance of language skills and social groups in both school levels. The specific features become challenging because they operate in a specific context: the Finnish education and transition system. Transition to the upper secondary school is above all institutional and in order to receive a place of study one must comply with the rules of the system. Instead of a short phase the transition is a longer process that should be supported in the long term. The school officials considered their own possibilities in supporting immigrant youth relatively good but the possibilities were restricted by resources and structural practices. The guidance of the youth could be done with more and deeper cooperation between various parties. The different preparatory educations are characteristic for immigrants but the present quantity and forms of the educations do not meet the requirements of the diverse groups of youth. The potential discontinuities and prolongations of the transitions on an individual level are in a conflicting relation to the macro level objectives of fluent transitions. The role of education in equalizing the positions of different groups in the society is increasingly important as the population becomes more diverse. The multiple needs of the immigrant youth have to be taken into consideration more consistently. The thesis is a part of the research project "Transitions and educational trajectories of immigrant youth" (Transit) of the Research Unit focusing on the Sociology and Politics of Education in the University of Helsinki.