Browsing by Subject "narratiivisuus"

This is a narrative research about the career paths of adult immigrants in Finland. The study is conducted in the context of a course that prepares immigrants to study in higher education in Finnish. Based on earlier research immigrants’ paths to work life are often complex and include overlapping studies. Different kinds of transitional courses and trainings have emerged to support educational transitions. There is little research of preparatory courses that focuses on the narratives of students taking part on a preparatory course. This research aims to describe career paths of the students studying in a preparatory course, and the most defining factors of the career paths progress. This phenomenon is specifically examined from a theoretic point of view based on agency of the students. 10 interviews were conducted with different students studying in a preparatory course. The course focused on the field of social and health services. The data was collected and analysed through the means of narrative methods. The interviews were semi-structured theme interviews that included questions about the students’ backgrounds, study experiences in the preparatory course and their visions for the future. The approach contains features of the life-course research branch in the narrative methodology. The results of the study illustrate the different factors on individual-, community- and society levels that affected the students’ career paths either progressively or restrictively. Different factors from individual attitudes and ways of action to policies of educational organizations affected the progression of career paths in the students´ stories. For example, motivation and Finnish language skills, the preparatory course and good studying opportunities in Finland appeared to be progressive factors for career paths. On the other hand, as restricting factors were described for example challenging life situation for studying, lack of high skill level Finnish teaching and bureaucratic obstacles in the education system. The different factors are put into perspective in type stories that describe the most typical career paths of the students in the preparatory course. For the highly educated the preparatory course seemed to be a secondary choice in their career paths and an adjustment to the current situation. The one’s with children described studying as motivating but challenging in their busy phase of life. The young adults who were the closest to the typical studying phase of life appeared to be very committed to their career choice and seemed to experience the least contradiction related to studying.

Objectives. Today migration and mobility have become easier and more common, which will affect people's relations to place. The purpose of this study was to examine the link between identity and place from the perspective of an individual, who belongs to diverse groups. This means that the meaningful places for identity formation were not necessarily mutually shared with the larger group. The aim was, above all, to bring out an individual's perspective on the importance of place in identity building process and to determine the impact of changed places due to occurred migration for an individual and his identity construction. The research task is to describe, analyze and interpret the significance of place for identity formation process for young adults who once lived in at least two countries. The link between identity and place occurs in the research groups place relationships and social contacts, which have evolved in the context of migration. Methods. The research data consisted of three interviews of young adults who had lived in at least two countries. All of the people from the research group had dual nationalities of both parents' homelands. From all of the interviewees one of the parents was Finnish and the other from another European country. Theme interview was used as the method of collecting data. It was conducted by individual interviews, which utilized theoretical frameworks main themes. These themes were identity, place, migration and social relations. The data was analyzed by means of a qualitative research by using the narrative analysis. Following the content analysis, the data was coded in various categories, which allowed us to examine the formation of identity in relation to place. The analysis referred the theory but didn't connect only to it because it also arose from the data. Results and conclusions. The research result shows clearly that the place and changes of place has an importance for the construction process of identities. Examining the link between identity and the place the uniqueness of the experience and the individual's personal perspectives were emphasized. The upper categories of the analysis; identity, location, migration and social relations, were a useful in presenting the results of the study. However, the upper categories had a lot of duplication and only by violating the structure by joining the categories together the actual research results were brought out. The research results were formed by the interactive whole of place and identity, which reflected the research groups' experiences of how meaningful the place had been in their identity formation. It showed also how a wide range of individual factors contributed to the formation of a sense of belonging as well as the relevance of the place. Due to migration, the changes of places played a big role in shaping the re-search groups identities. The migration affected the identities, relations of place and social relations to change toward the diverse cross boarder and diasporic manifestations. However, the research groups' reports were strongly personal and contained a lot of unique features. References to cross-border and diasporic identities, open understandings of place and widespread connections in addition to cross-border relationships were common to the entire research group. However, it should be borne in mind that the diasporic, hybrid, and the cross-border identities shouldn't be seen only connected to place, but identity should always be remembered identity consisting of a variety of factors. In addition to place the constructs of identity consist of various factors, ranging from situations and different life paths.

The aim of this study was to observe bread memories as a part of a Finnish food culture. The purpose was to examine what kind of experiences do Finns have about bread and what do the memories tell about Finnish food culture and its change. Bread is one of the oldest foods in the world and it has a significant role in many food cultures. Dark bread has a specific place in the Finnish food culture. Rye bread was chosen as national food of Finland in January 2017. Ruoka-Kalevala is a website where S-Group and Martha Organization are collecting food memories from Finns. Anyone is free to write a food story in Ruoka-Kalevala. The data of this study was collected from Ruoka-Kalevala and it consisted of 134 food stories which all were connected with/related to bread memories. The theoretical framework of the study was narrative approach. The data was analyzed in two parts. At the first part the focus was to read the stories through model of food experience and find details of the stories. Narrative analysis was used in second part when bread memories were organized into type stories. Type stories were reflected to previous research and the Finnish food culture. The typical stories of bread were self baked bread, dishes made of bread, packed bread, bought bread and recipes of bread. One collectively shared bread memory seems to be home made fresh and warm bread baked by grandmother or mother. Good memories were also "bread porridge" made out of dried bread and packed bread eaten in a forest or at school. People had memorized baking traditions, childhood and the people with whom they shared their memories. According the data, it was possible to distinguish two basic stories of bread: The story of traditional bread and the story of modern bread. The story of traditional bread is related to time when bread was baked at home and self-sufficiency was more common. The story of modern bread tells about time when bakeries have the main responsibility of making bread and a purpose of baking is more about spending time than daily need.

The Finnish instrumental education system is said to be one of the bests in the world. Finnish musicians have become famous and they have gained success all over the world. To produce professional musicians has been the main goal of the whole Finnish instrumental education system for a long time. This has meant that playing an instrument as a hobby has been neglected. The focus of this qualitative study is the culture of instrumental education from the view of amateuring. One of the goals is to describe the Finnish context where music lovers grow up and where they construct their identities. The other aim is to give answers to the question "How can we develop the culture of instrumental education to serve also the needs of amateurs?" The data of this study is narrative. It consists of the stories of five amateurs, who were in their thirties. In the analysis I've used two different types of analysis: the analysis of narratives and the content analysis. In the analysis of narratives the stories were seen as narrative identities. Because the main focus of this study is the culture of instrumental education, I used the qualitative content analysis to find out some themes or phenomena which should be improved from the view of amateuring. This study has shown that there are many ways to become a music lover. An essential factor in the construction of an identity of a music lover seems to be a society which values the amateuring. In this study music schools weren't that kind of societies. The present study reveals that to construct the identities of music lovers should be one of the most important aims of the music education. This means for example that, in practice, instrumental studies could be more activating, there should be more music making in groups, and the evaluation should concentrate on the whole learning process.

This qualitative Master's thesis is a narrative case study which examines life of an elementary school teacher who worked for 42 years in the same school in a municipality located in Uusimaa region in the early 20th century. The study began from the researcher's interest in village school teacher's role, status and long work history in the same village school where the researcher herself was working on the end of the same century for 27 years. The investigation determines who Kaarlo Juho Vitalis Ollila was and what he was like as a teacher and educator. The study aims to answer what kind meaning Ollila's teaching had to his students and their parents. It is also being pointed out how teacher Ollila's life and development of the village could be seen and experienced in the village, and what role teacher Ollila's family had in the development of the school and village. Previous studies show that the village school teacher has been quite alone and separate from the villagers when entering teacher's position in the village community and the villagers were expecting good teacher's signs from the new teacher. Villagers also required the teacher to participate in the development of the village. 16 villagers born in the years 1908 – 1941 were interviewed in this study. Nine of the interviewees were men and seven were women. All the interviewees were lively older people motivated to interviewing. Data was gathered as theme interviews which took place mainly in the interviewees' homes. Data were transcribed by the theme.

The aim of this study was to investigate from what a warm student-teacher relationship consists of and how this relationship is meaningful to a pupil’s life path. Earlier studies have shown that pedagogical relationship is much more than just a way to get an education for a child. It is a life experience which an individual carries with them possibly for the rest of their life. Therefore, it is important that the relationship is seen as positive. This study aims to describe, analyze and interpret these warm pedagogical relationships through narrative research on participants’ memories of their teachers. The study asks what kind of warm memories the participants have of their teachers and how these memories have influenced participants life paths. Research data consisted of semi-structured interviews of five university students. The participated students were approximately 20 to 30 years old and all represented different field of study. Semi-structured interview was constructed based on earlier research and it consisted of three themes: dialogue, pedagogical love and pedagogical authority. This study was qualitative, and the data was analyzed by using content analysis, coding and thematizing. The results show clearly, how meaningful the teacher’s role is in a pupil’s life and how the teacher can affect a child’s life even after the school years. Teachers that stayed in university students’ memories, were seen very similar compared to each other. The studied themes appeared in their pedagogical interactions through eight different subthemes. Participants also experienced that these teachers gave them a lot of skills to use even after the school years. University students noted that they had received tools for working life from their teachers, and teachers had also affected their carrier choices and broadened their worldviews. There results can be utilized by raising the educators’ awareness about this subject and also as a guide on how to create warm interaction in classrooms.