Browsing by Subject "monikulttuurisuuskasvatus"

We are all affected by global events on a daily basis. Current examples include the COVID-19- pandemic and the war in Ukraine, with both having had a wide impact on the world. Coopera- tion between nations has been more crucial than ever on the global level. Global education promotes upbringing of children and young people into active and responsible global citizens working for human rights, equality, and justice. The foundation for global education is built on National core curriculum for basic education 2014 and can be implemented using various meth- ods. Implementation of global education is conditioned by many different factors. The aim of my research was to investigate how global education is implemented in basic education and what factors influence the implementation of global education for classroom teachers. The thesis was conducted as a qualitative study. The interviews were conducted with five classroom teachers, four of which had worked abroad and one teacher who had worked only in Finland. The data was collected by semi-structured thematic interviews and collected data was analyzed by using data driven content analysis. Based on the results of the interviews, almost all teachers felt that today’s world emphasizes the need for global education. All interviewees felt that the implementation of global education belongs mainly to homes and schools. Teachers who worked abroad at some point in their careers, felt that the implementation of global education had become more concrete during their careers. The differences in the implementation of global education for the interviewees were that teachers who worked abroad implemented global education as part of everyday life and used discussion as a method of teaching. Working abroad can be seen to have influenced teachers’ approach to global education, with an emphasis on continuity and deeper under- standing of it. Those currently working as teachers in Finland utilized the services of the third sector as well as various materials to support the implementation of global education. Looking at the factors influencing the implementation of global education, almost all teachers shared the idea that teachers’ backgrounds and students are influential. The teacher who worked in Finland highlighted the impact of resources on the implementation of global education.

We are saturated and surrounded by intertwined cultures, by multiculturality. Multiculturality has to do with both our individual identities and more extensively communities and societies consisting of individuals. Constant change and internal diversity are characteristics of identities and cultures. However the discussion concerning them has often a very stiff and a segregational tone to it. As a consequence we create seemingly natural distinctions between the categories generated and reconstruct an idea of "us" and "others". Diversity and the mechanisms of separation occur also in the school world. The objective of this study is to examine how teachers talk about multiculturality and what kind of meanings and implications are associated with multiculturality within this discussion. I also try to illustrate power relations both between and inside the narrational discourses and present possible rationale behind these discourses, all in the theory frame of critical pedagogics. In this qualitative study I interviewed four teachers working in the Helsinki metropolitan area. I collected the research data through theme interviews. In the analysis I used thematic analysis and discourse analytic methods. In the teachers' narrations of multiculturality a childcentric, pragmatical realistic and a natural multiculturality discourses were present. The core of the discourses was based on the division between a child-origininating and a societal frame. All the discourses created based on the data were seemingly positive, in accordance with a fair equality understanding and acceptable speaking manners. However, a deeper examination of the nuances and functions of the discourses showed hidden mechanisms creating and sustaining otherness. Due to the use of language in a way that it creates otherness, school does not appear and actualize similar to all children, as the institution sustains ethnocentric and segregation-creating reality. On the basis of the results of this study the structures and discourses determining the practises of schools should be more critically examined. Furthermore, becoming aware of this discussion should not only happen at the individual and societal level, but it also should concern the education of future teachers.

The object of my thesis is to solve how Finnish primary school music books approach non-western cultures and their music, and how they construct cultural identities. In this research, I see identities as socially and discursively constructed: identity of "others" is always formed in relation to "us". Biased or negative descriptions may affirm stereotypes and prejudice of a certain group. This study is based on the ideology of multicultural education: the aim is to teach students to understand and value different perspectives and offer equal rights to different groups in society. As for music education, it means that different cultures should be approached from their own perspective, taking into account the musical diversity and dynamic nature of cultures. For my thesis I analysed two series of primary school music books: Soi (published by WSOY) and Musiikin mestarit (Otava) for grades 1–2, 3–4 and 5–6. All six books were published in the past two decades and encompass the majority of music books that are generally being used in the Finnish primary schools. I applied discourse analysis as research method for my study. It aims at understanding language as social behavior in a certain cultural and historical context. Within discourse analysis, I chose the critical approach as I was interested in the way the discourses were used to produce, renew and question unequal power relations, depending on how they positioned people. My aim was to observe how the cultures were represented and positioned in relation to "us" in the data. I categorized lyrics, pictures and their captions as per cultural areas, mainly by their geographical location. After that I observed the verbal and visual representations and how identities were constructed by them. I found many repeated and strong representations of certain cultural groups. They created a hegemonic discourse, which failed to take into account the diversity of the culture but instead repeated and boosted existing stereotypes of it. Identities of "others" were constructed in relation to "us" as a part of a long historical continuum. However, there were differences between books. The amount of different cultural contents, captions and photos in relation to drawings grew towards higher grades. Yet only Soi 5–6 had a clear attempt to approach other cultures from a multicultural perspective. On the whole, critical discourse analysis offered an interesting perspective to observe schoolbooks, and would be necessary for all authors, in order to improve multicultural approach in Finnish music education. Nevertheless, multicultural approach should be acknowledged already in teacher education in order to prepare teachers to approach different music cultures in their future work.