Browsing by Subject "nuoret"

Aims. The aim of my research was to study the use of social media of 15–17 year old Finnish teenagers and what effects social media has on them. Earlier studies have shown that an average Finnish teenager uses social media approximately 15 hours during a week. It has also been studied that the social media has an effect on self-esteem. I chose social media and it’s effects on teenagers as my research subject because as a phenomenom the social media is rather young, which is why there has not been done many Finnish studies focusing on the teenagers’ social media use. My research assignment is to find out what kind of social media users teenagers are and what kind of effects social media has on their self experiences. Methods. The study was qualitative and 45 teenagers from age 15 to 17 participated in it. The data was collected with an internet questionnaire which was shared through social media, and it contained mainly open questions. The data was analysed by using qualitative data-based content analysis. Results and conclusions. Most of the teenagers used social media 3–4 hours daily or more. It was used for entertainment, for finding information, communication, current affairs, sharing one’s own life experiences and for finding inspiration, among other things. Almost half of the teenagers were bullied over social media. Appearance was also essential in the social media. Social media created ideals for appearance for teenagers and set them under critique, gave them false image of reality and made the teenagers look for the acceptance through outlooks. 31 of them had gotten positive comments on their appearance from social media and 13 had gotten negative comments. Those comments had an impact on the teenagers’ self-esteem, mood and feelings. Teenagers had also objects of identification and admiration in social media, such as videobloggers, artists, models and their own friends, and they were influenced by them. They felt that social media had many positive and negative effects on their lives. Positive effects were the rise of self-esteem, being more brave in expressing one’s own opinion, the possibilities of keeping in touch with other people and being the source of inspiration, motivation and information, among other things. The negative effects were the social media taking too much time and creating pressure, its bad effect on physical condition and sleep, distortion of self-image, the mean people and the need to be always within reach, among other things. The results of this study implicate that the social media has a comprehensive effect on the lives of the teenagers and their self experiences.

The aim of this study is to find out how high school -aged adolescents are involved in home cleaning, what kind of cleaning tasks the parents require them to do, and how they are motivated to do home cleaning. Additionally, this study aims to find out what kind of cleaning practices exist in the families of adolescents and how the cleaning practices in a childhood home affect parents’ cleaning habits. This is related to how and where cleaning skills are learned. This study is qualitative by its nature, and the data were collected by interviewing six mothers of high school adolescents in the metropolitan area. The interviews were conducted in late autumn 2019, and the interviews followed the theme interview pattern where the interview proceeded according to predefined themes and related refinement questions. The interviews were transcribed and the data was analysed using a method of qualitative content analysis. The importance of home economics education at schools in learning cleaning skills was nearly insignificant. Cleaning skills were taught to children alongside their everyday household activities, without realizing it as a teaching or educational task. It seems that the primary responsibility for teaching cleaning skills to adolescents lies with the parents. The adolescents took part in the cleaning of the home by performing daily cleaning and organizing work, and they also kept their own room clean. Organising the cleaning work was the responsibility of the parents. A clear and balanced division of labor helped to involve the children in the cleaning and housework. In addition, the clear division of domestic tasks between parents affected couples' satisfaction with the division of homework.

The aim of this research was to find out how the digital media use of Finnish children and young people has been researched and which themes and topics are emphasized in it. The research questions were guided by the generally noted problems and the prevalence of the concern-based research in the research field. Previous research has highlighted, that the theory and methodology of digital media research should be improved (Orben ym., 2020; Granic ym., 2020). Digital media has caused wide concern generally, but especially with children and young people using it (Orben, 2020b). This way of thinking can be seen in the research as well (Orben, 2020b). This research focuses on gaps of the research on the digital media use of Finnish children and youth. The research questions were answered using metascience, which aims to evaluate and improve research practices (Ioannidis ym., 2015). The data is composed of 119 research articles published between 2015 and 2020. Classification and thematic analysis were used to analyze the data. The results had a lot in common with the earlier research. Digital media was a popular research topic, cross-sectional studies and self-reported measures were common and open science approaches (Avoimen tieteen koordinaatio, 2020) were rare. Also the age groups of young people and adults were comparatively common, most of the journals were of the basic level (Julkaisufoorumi, 2022) and quantitative research methods were used more often than qualitative methods. The most highly researched theme was digital media use in general. This shows what a diverse phenomenon digital media is. The diversity adds to the need to be thorough with concept definitions used. The research themes showed signs of concern-based research. This point of view stood out from the themes of threats of digital media use and problematic use of digital media. Future research should address these research gaps, add the use of the open science approach and diverse the research themes of digital media use.

The aim of the study. Young people who are not in education or employment are a constant subject of public debate. However, the debate does not capture the diversity of their lives and lifestyles but sees them as one homogeneous group, which needs to be guided quickly towards employment. I am interested in this diversity, in the everyday life, capabilities and agency of these youths’. My research questions are: 1) how do youths’ construct their authentic life stories, 2) how their agencies are constructed in their life stories, and 3) how different capabilities enable and restrict youths’ spheres of life. Methods. The study takes place in the youth workshops, in three different locations across two municipalities. I acquainted myself with the youth and their surroundings by spending 12 days in the field in the spring of 2017. I interviewed 15 people, aged 18–24. The data came from four sources: youths’ authentic life stories, individually tailored questions inspired by their stories, thematic interviews and background information forms. The analysis of the data was done by coding and categorisation, Halliday’s types of processes and Jyrkämä’s modalities of agency. I also did a reading of the data in light of Nussbaum’s capability theory. Results and Conclusions. The youths’ authentic life stories were rarely concerned with educa-tion, work or transitions or worries related to them. Their authentic life stories adhered to dis-cussing other people, socio-economic circumstances, resources, identity work and different cri-ses. Through analysis using Halliday’s types of processes, I identified five different ways to narrate in the authentic life stories. Using Jyrkämä’s modalities of agency, the youth produced mostly narratives which expressed affection or ability. Most seldom they used narratives which expressed know-how, aspirations or obligation. I compressed Nussbaum’s ten capabilities into three aspects: the structure of life, one’s inner world, and communities and societal integration. There are many issues which challenge youths’ wellbeing. There are a lot of mental health issues as well as cumulated and inherited disadvantage. When considering One’s inner world, feelings and aspiration were rarely volunteered. Youths’ daily activities took place in close social net-works and I interpreted that their societal integration is frail in many ways. Youths’ authentic life stories lack the aspect of the future, which I interpreted as learned cautiousness. A recommenda-tion for the future would be to increase the availability of psycho-social support alongside career guidance and skills development.

Wellbeing and its development has gained a remarkable position in welfare policy. Although as an objective for politics it is far from new, I argue, that the objective itself has found new forms and meanings. In my masters dissertation, I see wellbeing as an intrinsically philosophical concept, that when translated to politics takes rather normative forms. Wellbeing as an ideal for education has in itself normative ideas on how children and youths should be and how they should behave. Questioning the concept of wellbeing itself creates a space to examine what do we really improve when improving wellbeing in education and to what ends. By pointing out to the late changes in the welfare state, I suggest that the welfare state has changed to a ‘competitive society’. This, for example, manifests itself as a way of educating children to be self-responsible self-entrepreneurs gaining skills with which to compete in the future labour market. Equality has no space in competition, where only the best are rewarded. This goes against the core values of the welfare state, hence the competitive society. I take to closer examination the OECD report ‘Skills for Social Progress’ (2015), which I analyse discoursively from the point of view of governance. In a future of global challenges, accordinf to the OECD other attributes than cognitive skills will have more meaning in ‘life success’. Cognitive skills are important, but according to the report I have analyzed socioemotional skills have importance in bringing up a ‘happy and successful citizen’. I ask my data the questions (1) what kind of subjectivity takes form for youths in the OECD’s Skills for Social Progress report and (2) how is the developing of wellbeing (socioemotional) skills justified. I argue, that wellbeing as an educational ideal or objective is, instead of actually improving wellbeing, contributing to the neoliberal rationale of creating hard-working, self-entrepreneurial subjectivities. I do not deny that wellbeing could not be improved by these skills, but I argue that wellbeing takes a performative ultra-active form of a way of being. It contributes to the liberal, out-of-date illusion of the American dream ‘work hard and you will succeed’ and does not take into account the various embedded obstacles for ‘life success’.

Aims: The older the youngsters are, the more important role hobbies and leisure time activities have in their life. That is why various activities organized by the non-profit organizations have an important role concerning the development of food habits of youngsters. This study has three main themes. The themes and their respective study questions are: 1. The youngsters' conceptions on healthy eating and food choice: What kind of food do youngsters consider as healthy? How do they see their own eating habits from this point of view? 2. The youngsters and the significance of everyday food-related information: How do the youngsters perceive the role of different actors and these actors' role regarding their own food habits and food choice? 3. The possibilities of the organizations that work with youngsters to improve their food habits: What kind of role do the non-profit organizations have on the youngsters' food habits and healthy food choice? Methods: This study comprises of two types of data. First, a quantitative internet-based survey (N=582) was used to collect data on the 9th graders conceptions and understandings. The data was analyzed with the SPSS-program. Means, cross-tabulations, Pearson's correlations and t-test were calculated from the data. The qualitative data was collected using interviews. The respondents were 12 experts from non-profit organizations. The interviews were analyzed with the qualitative content analysis. Results and conclusions: The non-profit organizations studied have good possibilities to communicate with youngsters through their hobbies. As part of their activities these organizations are able to influence on health-promoting lifestyle and food habits of youngsters. In order to reach more youngsters, these organizations should actively act e.g. in virtual societies of youngsters. Youngsters will participate when activities are voluntary and exhilarating. From the point of food habits doing, learning and identifying are the most important factors to engage the young. Also the models of peers and adults are important. Non-profit organizations should offer youngsters activities but these organizations should also influence on society.

Aims. Generous supply of food has made it difficult to perform everyday food choices. There are heterogeneous food trends which may define what to eat and how the public discussion about food and nutrition is comprised. Media, parents and peers are major influences on adolescents' food choices. The taste and the familiarity of food are emphasized over healthiness of or information about food when selecting food. The aim of this study is to find out how the complexity of choosing food is manifested in perceptions of adolescent and how knowledge on nutrition is transformed into action in adolescent's lives. Furthermore, the effects of nutrition education on the quality of knowledge and action are reflected. The questions of this study are: 1. What kind of perceptions do adolescents have on food trends? 2. How is the importance of food selection related issues structured in adolescent's perceptions? 3. How the information and education on nutrition are combined in adolescent's perceptions? Methods. The qualitative data was collected by focus-group interviews from the students of optional home economics courses (N=24) in a school at Pirkanmaa, on May 2012. The data was analyzed with a qualitative method called qualitative content analysis. Results and conclusions. Teenagers were somewhat annoyed by food trends and worried about how these may increase incidences of anorexia nervosa. They were also hoping more criticism towards media by nutrition education. On the other hand, examples, such as adults' weight loss on low-carbohydrate diet effected positively on adolescent's perceptions of food trends. Adolescents are puzzled by the contradiction between eating habits they are taught and eating habits their parents follow. Adolescents' food choice was determined by the availability of food such as place to eat, the needs of food such as hunger/craving and the nutrition knowledge that is gained from parents, among others. Food choices are compromises between the three factors above. For example adolescents choose healthier foods at home than in restaurants, feel guilty after eating delicacies and appreciate homemade food; nutrition knowledge changes the eating behaviors of adolescents both physically, mentally and socially.

It is essential to listen and pay attention to the youth in matters that concern them. The right to be heard is written down in the UN’s Declaration of the Rights of the Child and Finnish national curriculum. However, the right to be heard is not wholly implemented at schools and this is especially true in the case of the young who attend special education. By listening the young more attentively could the school institution be better prepared to create school that can educate more diverse bodies of students and be more inclusive. School experiences correlate with educational decisions that the youth make and positive school experiences correlate with contentment with their lives. In addition, the experiences that the young have at school can be seen to be connected with the development of their identities that is one of the main developmental tasks in youth according to life-span theories. Identities can be studied using the narratives that people tell about themselves. The narratives that people create about themselves are part of their narrative identities through which people give meanings to their experiences in form of narratives. The purpose of this study is to examine what a ninth-grade student in special education tells about herself in her school narratives and examine how her narrative identity appears in the narratives. One ninth-grade student attending special education was interviewed for this study. The narratives that were formed in the interview were examined with narrative analysis through which a comprehensive narrative of the school experiences of the interviewed student were constructed. The narratives were also examined using analysis of the narratives with which core themes of the narratives were searched for and formed. The research showed that the narrative, that the interviewed student constructed, was a growth narrative of herself, in which she depicted her changing school motivation and behavior through comprehensive school. In the narratives her attitude towards the school was mainly negative because of her challenges with behavior and learning in primary school. However, her attitude changed completely when she moved to the upper levels of comprehensive school. The central themes in the narratives were growth, future, sports, and others as resources and impediments, through which she constructed meanings for her experiences. The narrative identity of the student appeared to be positive and her outlook for herself and for her future were optimistic which is reflected in the narratives of her overcoming the hardships at school. In the narratives the interviewed student found ways to maintain her well-being, for example, using sports and her family’s support. The narratives of the interviewed student mainly coincide with the statistics of the school experiences and future prospects of Finnish youth. Moreover, the experiences of the interviewed student agree with the results of previous research that showed that students in classroom special education were more content with special education classes than general education classes. According to the previous research the attitudes towards school deteriorated at the beginning of upper levels of comprehensive school that is completely the opposite what happened in the narratives of the interviewed student. Therefore, it is vital to listen to the young so that it is possible to prevent negative school experiences.

Objectives. Attachment theory is a theory of social development and personality, known around the world. According to the theory, children have an innate tendency to develop a biologically based and central nervous system-regulated attachment bond to their primary caregivers in order to ensure safety, care, and survival. Early attachment experiences contribute to the way one sees oneself and others and lead to secure, insecure, or disorganized attachment styles, which affect rest of one’s life. Previous research has confirmed the universal nature of attachment, different attachment categories and styles, and early attachment’s links with future relationships and various internal and external problems. Attachment research has traditionally concentrated on early childhood and early childhood environments, whereas middle childhood, adolescence, and school context have been studied less. The objectives of the present study were to find out what kinds of links there are between attachment and the lives of school-aged children and youngsters, what kinds of attachment-related challenges teachers encounter at school, and how teachers could support their students with those attachment-related challenges. The aim is to explore attachment in the lives of school-aged children and youngsters, including at school, to gain a better understanding and to create a valuable foundation for future research. Methodology. The present study was conducted as a systematic literature review, which allowed the gathering of diverse and comprehensive, yet relevant research material, while also supporting objectivity and reproducibility aspects of the study. The material, available through electronic databases, was comprised of research articles from around the world, published in peer-reviewed international research journals. The material was analyzed thematically by research questions and topics, which were then used as a framework in the Results section. Results and conclusions. Early attachment and attachment styles were directly and indirectly linked to the lives of school-aged children and youngsters, including teacher-student relationships, peer relationships, family relationships, and academic achievement, as well as internal and external problems. Various attachment-related challenges and problems were visible at school, but teachers had many ways to buffer them. Current attachment research has not affected or changed school environments enough. Much more attention should be given to attachment within schools, teacher education, and in-service training programs in order to give students better support for their attachment-related problems and challenges.

The aim of this study was to investigate how 6th graders’ self-rated health, physical activity and sleep disruptions are related to schoolwork engagement. In more detail it was examined what kind of groups 6th graders can be divided into according to self-rated health, physical activity and sleep disruptions. Furthermore, it was studied if these groups are differently related to sex, sleep duration, the quality of sleep and schoolwork engagement. The aim is to gain better understanding about the factors which might have a strengthening effect on the adolescents' schoolwork engagement. The data was collected by the Mind the Gap –project in Helsinki in the spring 2013. The 6th graders (N = 761) from 33 different schools answered a questionnaire. The variables that were used for this study measured adolescents’ self-reported schoolwork engagement, health, physical activity, sleep disruptions, the quality of sleep and sleep duration. K-means cluster analysis was used to sort ado-lescents to groups by the variables of self-rated health, physical activity and sleep disruptions. When interpreting the contents of groups, an analysis of variance was used. The differences of these formed groups with sex, sleep duration, the quality of sleep and schoolwork engagement were ex-amined with the cross tabulation, analysis of variance and Kruskal-Wallis test. The 6th graders were divided into four groups regarding experienced health, physical activity and sleep disruptions. These groups were named healthy movers, movers with sleep and health prob-lems, non-movers with sleep problems and non-movers with health problems. In the group of healthy movers adolescents was slept longer and had more schoolwork engagement than in the other groups. In the groups of healthy movers and non-movers with health problems had better qual-ity of sleep than in two groups in which sleep disruptions were experienced. The self-rated health, the physical activity and the paucity of sleep difficulties together were connected to sufficient sleep duration and schoolwork engagement.