Browsing by Subject "nuoruus"
Now showing items 1-11 of 11
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(2016)Aims. The main objective of this research was to find out what kind of factors are related to agency of young people in parental home context. This research explored assets from householdings perspective in everyday living. Continuous changes in the internal everyday householding and external operational environments challenges agency of young people. Young people also facing the chancing and growing expectations and demands. The research motive from the household teacher's perspective was to find out what kind of viewpoints can be found from everyday householding that can be use for recognizing and strengthening the relationship between the agency of young people and householding. Theoretical viewpoints for this research were attaches to dynamics of family members home been and work, the modalities of agency and positive psychology research. Research questions were: 1. Which agency building factors are resulting from home constructing activity? 2. What kind of tensions and conclusions can be found from householding activities? 3. What the young person has learned in householding classes and how this is present in householding activities? Methods. The research was carried out as a qualitative research. Research material was gathered from stories received by email. The material consisted of written stories about young people's participation in everyday living. These stories were written by parents who have or have had upper comprehensive school aged children living in their home. Ten stories were received. Results and conclusions. Relationship between object and subject of home constructing activity were seen as building factors for agency. Tensions and strenghts between young and parent were seen to be resolution from young peoples participation in home. Tensions and conclusions were themed by (1) changes in home operation model, (2) parents attitude and role, (3) youngs attitude and role and (4) things guiding individuality and object. External communities, specially youngs relationships with peers and household teaching were seen to support young agency in home. Teaching the meanings to every day living aroust from the research material. Parents described this as discussion and interaction with the young and it was seen as important factor for building agency.
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(2021)The objective of this study was to find out why adolescents stop taking part in organized sports. The aim of the qualitative study was to understand and get answers from adolescents themselves. The interest was to find out what exercise means to young people and what are the reasons for dropping out from organized sport. Studies show that physical activity declines and participation in organized sports reduces significantly in adolescence. The target group in this study was ten young people who had stopped taking part in organized sports. Participated adolescents were 12–18 years old. The material was collected by themed interviews. The interviews progressed through three themes. These three themes were: 1. the meanings of sports hobbies, 2. quitting sports hobbies and 3. exercise in the future. Due to the corona pandemic situation, most of the interviews were performed remotely. All the interviews were recorded. The material was analyzed using theory-guided content analysis. As a result of the study, doing sports had had different kinds of meanings for young people. There was also found different reasons for dropping out from sports in this study. The reasons were: competing priorities and other leisure activities, decreased motivation, negative experiences, lack of a suitable team or sports club, an injury and a want to change to another hobby. The results of the study confirmed the notion that the meanings and causes of doing sports may change in adolescence. Study showed that disciplined and serious competitive sport activities did not attract adolescents to participate to sports. Young people hoped that doing sports would rather be relaxed than serious leisure activity. The conclusion was that young people`s wishes should be considered when planning sport activities for young people. Also, the low effort sport club activities should be increased in Finland. In addition, the negative experiences of adolescents with sport activities which emerged from the material, are issues that need further research.
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(2019)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.
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(2020)In this thesis I inquire into young people’s stories about disability activism. This thesis aims to contribute to current discussions in the field of disability studies and youth studies concerning young disabled people’s societal influencing and participation. As it has been acknowledged in youth studies, young peoples’ political agency shouldn’t be seen only as an involvement in official politics, but more diversified and concerning also the different aspects of everyday life. In this thesis I ask how and in which ways young disability activists aim to influence societal practices and what opportunities for agency are available in these processes. I draw my analysis from five semi-structured interviews which I conducted with young disability activists aged between 22–26. The purpose of the interview was to produce accounts and descriptions about the research topic. I analysed the data using qualitative narrative method. Different disability and human rights organisations had an important role in enabling interviewees’ political agency. The organisations had opened a way to influence for many young people, nevertheless there were different contradictions attached to their narration. These contradictions were connected to the organisational practices effecting the limits and possibilities to be heard. Also the themes and topics young people consider important can be interpreted as apolitical from the organisational perspective. Some interviewees stated that for example sexual diversity was often bypassed. For some young people the political agency took the form of more mundane practices. These involved blogging and different social media activities, doing music with a disability politics twist and taking part in different demonstrations and marches. I interpreted these practices to be more spontaneous and not limited by organisational practices and thus they have the possibility to bring new topics and themes to the sphere of political. This thesis suggests that instead of seeing young people as politically passive, we should pay attention to their political agency and the different forms it might take.
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(2019)The objective of my study is to examine therapeutic ethos in public presentations of project-based activities that are directed at young people. Youth is examined in societal level in late-modern time where transitions to adulthood are becoming more risky and complex in the markets of work and education. The young people that are outside of institutions, create societal concern which is answered by creating therapeutic project-based support. These projects are also subject to markets and competition. In this study, I ask the question how the therapeutic ethos is present in the projects public presentations and how therapeutic ethos in projects as discursive practices creates images of youth and possible subjectivities that are offered to them. The perspective of this study is based to post-structural theories. The data in this study consists six different project-based support systems public documents from public web pages. The data includes reports, project depictions, brochures and marketing material. The data has been analyzed with a discursive approach which uses the nomadic research method. The analysis was based on the idea that discourses are seen as societal and cultural practices that create ways of being and speaking in the right way. These discourses can also be opposed. According to this study, therapeutic ethos in projects discursive practices appears as culturally influential discourses and understanding of feelings and inner state of mind where it also turns societal interests and project-based actions to the language and view which emphasizes representations of inner state of mind. This leads to a situation, where the problems that young adults face are translated as young adults’ inner psychological deficits where the societal view point becomes marginalized. At the same time therapeutic ethos, as a part of discursive practices, expands the general awareness of vulnerability and importance of therapeutic knowledge. The possible subjectivities created were self-knowing ideal-subjectivity and its counterpart lost-subjectivities.
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(2023)Aims. Research has shown that self-esteem predicts success and well-being in important areas of life, such as relationships, work, and health. Thus, it is important to study self-esteem, its development and the factors that influence its development. Parents have a major influence on adolescents’ self-esteem and good relationships between adolescents and parents have been found to be associated with adolescents’ higher self-esteem. Only little research has been done on the association of the adolescent-parent relationship with a person's self-esteem in middle age. The first aim of this study was to investigate whether the adolescent-parent relationship is associated with self-esteem at age 16. The second aim was to find out how the quality of the adolescent-parent relationship predicts the self-esteem of the subjects at age of 52, considering the level of self-esteem in adolescence. Methods. The data is part of the Stress, Development and Mental Health (TAM) research project of the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. The data has been collected when the respondents were 16, 22, 32, 42 and 52 years old. In this study, data collected in 1983 and 2019 were used when the subjects were 16 (N=2194) and 52 (N=1160) years old. The variables used in the analyses were conflict proneness, closeness and trust, and self-esteem. Research questions about the associations between adolescent-parent relationships and self-esteem at age 16 and 52 were answered using stepwise linear regression analysis. Results and Conclusions. The study found that the adolescent-parent relationship was associated with self-esteem in adolescence (at age 16) and predicted self-esteem in middle age (at age 52), when the level of self-esteem in adolescence was considered. From the aspects of the adolescent-parent relationship, it stood out that girls showed a stronger association of conflict proneness with lower self-esteem and boys showed a stronger association of parental trust with higher self-esteem and a stronger association of conflict proneness with lower self-esteem. In middle age, women showed a stronger association of closeness in the adolescent-parent relationship with higher self-esteem, while men showed a stronger association of parental trust with higher self-esteem. The results suggest that a good adolescent-parent relationship is associated with good self-esteem in adolescence, but also with higher self-esteem development to middle age. A key factor behind good adolescent-parent relationships is effective and trusting communication - this could also be a potential area for development in interventions.
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(2015)Aims: Previous studies have shown, that being in a romantic relationship in adolescence is associated with increase in depressive symptoms. The major aim of this study was to determine whether the association can also be found between romantic relationship and anxiety and psychotic symptoms. The linkages between being in a romantic relationship and depressive, anxiety and psychotic symptoms were examined in this study. It was hypothesized that being in a romantic relationship would predict increase at least in depressive and anxiety symptoms. Besides that this study also examined the linkages between the quality of romantic relationship and depressive, anxiety and psychotic symptoms. It was assumed that the good quality would be associated with increase in symptoms whereas the bad quality would be associated with fewer symptoms. This was also seen to explain the possible associations between romantic relationship and psychic symptoms. Methods: The data of this study was a part of a wider Pathways to Desistance –study which followed serious juvenile offenders' psychological development, behaviour, social relationships, mental health, and experiences in the juvenile or criminal justice system. The subjects were 14–19 years old adolescents and the number of subjects fluctuated between 699–1262 adolescents depending on analysis. The linkages between romantic relationship and symptoms were examined both in a cross-sectional and longitudinal studies whereas the associations between the quality of relationship and symptoms were studied only cross-sectionally. The analyses were done by Poisson Regression. Results and conclusions: This study showed no associations between being in a romantic relationship in adolescence and depression, anxiety and psychotic symptoms. Thus, being in a relationship does not seem to be a risk factor for depression, anxiety or psychotic symptoms according to this study. The quality of romantic relationship does not either seem to be associated with the amount of symptoms. Therefore the bad quality of romantic relationship does not seem to predispose adolescents to more symptoms and respectively the good quality does not seem to promote psychological wellbeing. According to this study only adolescent's partner's antisocial influence was a significant risk factor to an adolescent's psychological wellbeing; It was associated with more depressive, anxiety and psychotic symptoms.
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(2020)Objectives. Entrepreneurship is the future of work and the need for entrepreneurial skills is increasing with any type of work. But who can become an entrepreneur and does it require a certain kind of personality? The objective of this study was to increase the understanding about the role that personality has in entrepreneurial intention during adolescence. The study was conducted by analysing the differences in personality traits between 7th grade and high school 3rd grade students, examining how personality traits explain entrepreneurial intention and comparing different personality profiles based on entrepreneurial intention. There has been little research about entrepreneurial intentions among adolescence. Furthermore, the results from previous research have shown mixed results on the association between personality and entrepreneurial intentions, making the topic interesting. Methods. The data for this study were acquired as a longitudinal data from Mind the Gap -project that was funded by the Academy of Finland. The data were collected in 2014 (7th grade n=1310) and 2019 (high school 3rd grade n=751). Personality was measured using Big Five personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness. The paired t-test was used to analyze the differences in personality traits between 7th grade and high school 3rd grade students. The associations between personality traits and entrepreneurial intention were examined using regression analysis. Cluster analysis was used to form personality profiles and the differences between profiles based on entrepreneurial intention were analysed using one-way analysis of variance. Results and conclusions. There were no statistically significant differences in the personality traits between 7th grade and high school 3rd grade students. Openness was the only personality trait that explained entrepreneurial intention of 7th grade students. Neuroticism (inverted) and openness explained entrepreneurial intention of high school 3rd grade students. The effect size was low on both measurement points. The participants were classified into four profiles based on their personality traits: 1) Entrepreneurial, 2) Amicable, 3) Creative introvert, and 4) Reserved. Participants with Entrepreneurial profile reported more entrepreneurial intentions than participants with Amicable and Reserved. The findings suggest that even though personality was significantly associated with entrepreneurial intention, the role of personality was not major. This means that most of the variance of entrepreneurial intention can be explained with other variables. The results can be applied especially to entrepreneurial education in schools where adolescents can be encouraged to consider entrepreneurship regardless of their personality traits.
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(2019)The aim of this study is to examine relations between body mass index, self-esteem, body image and adolescents thoughts about body positivity. Earlier study has showed relation among increasing body mass index, body dissatisfaction and lower self-esteem. Body positivity has its roots in the fat acceptance movement in the late 1960s. Goal of the body positivity movement is to address unrealistic ideals about beauty, promote self-acceptance, and build self-esteem and learning to love oneself to the fullest. Body positivity is popular on social media and in Finland discourses about it are controversial. Some think it is a good for health and self-esteem, others think it glamorizes overweight. Finnish adolescents thoughts about body positivity has not been explored before this study. This statistical study was made in Spring 2019. The research subjects were finnish adolescents aged 13-18. The data was obtained from the adolescents by an electronic enquiry. The sample consisted of N=109 adolescents, n 89 women, n 19 men and n 1 transgender. The data was analyzed by using SPSS Statistics 25 program and frequencies, cross-tabulations, Pearson`s correlations, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA tests. In this study self-esteem or body image were not varied by age. Body image was varied by gender so that girls had lower body image than boys. Body mass index were not significant for self esteem or body image and disagreed with earlier study. Physical activity behind many of the adolescents has been noticed while reporting results. Term body positivity was familiar for 72,4 % of participants, specially from social media. Girls knew it more often than boys and estimated its effects for better self-love stronger than boys. Majority of adolescents thought that body positivity tries to increase self-love among every size and age. Only few thought that body positivity glamorize overweight and obesity. This research reveals that there is a need for wider study around relations between body mass index, self-esteem, body image and body positivity among adolescents. This study offers a base for extensive study in the future.
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(2018)This master's thesis is a case study during Positive CV intervention in two ninth grades in Southern Finland. The purpose of this study is to find out what kind of thoughts ninth grade students have about positive education, dealing with character strengths, positive CV, and their own strengths. The material of my research was collected in September 2017 at the end of Positive CV intervention with focused interview from selected ninth grade students. I interviewed four ninth grade students from both schools. In total, eight ninth grade students participated in the study. The theoretical framework of the thesis familiarizes the concepts of positive psychology, positive education, character strengths, strengths-based education, and youth. In addition, the theoretical framework examines other earlier results of research and research interventions related to positive education and character strengths. The theoretical framework also introduces the link between strengths-based education and the national curriculum 2014. According to the results of the study, seven of the eight interviewed ninth grade students considered positive education classes positive. Seven of the eight ninth grade students said that dealing with character strengths is important for the future career and the career choice. Each of the interviewed ninth grade students felt happy when making Positive CV. Six of the eight students found that making Positive CV would be useful for other students as well. All the ninth grade students found their own character strengths and expressed their own strengths in a positive way in the interview. The results of this thesis are compatible with the results of earlier positive psychology interventions based on character strengths. That confirms the reliability of the thesis. As a conclusion, the classes of positive education, dealing with character strengths and Positive CV had more positive than negative effects on ninth grade students. It can also be concluded that positive education, dealing with character strengths and Positive CV would help ninth grade students especially with their career and career choices in the future, as well as in building up their own identity and positive self-image.
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(2014)Objectives: Overweight is a common health problem in children, adolescents and adults. Its effects on somatic well-being are well known, but the knowledge of its relationship with mental health is contradictory. The connections are likely to be stronger in studies that have studied adolescents who are receiving treatment to obesity. It is important to study what kinds of risk factors there are for psychiatric symptoms and substance use in adolescence and early adulthood. This master's thesis studies whether overweight and obesity are in connection with psychiatric symptoms and substance use in adolescents and young adults who have received treatment to obesity in childhood. Methods: This study is a part of Elintavat ja luusto nuorilla (ELLU) research project. The patient group consisted of adolescents and young adults who have received treatment to severe or morbid obesity in childhood. The control group consisted of normal weight adolescents and young adults of a similar age. The study involved 42 14-19-year-old adolescents (22 patients, 20 controls) and 62 17-24-year-old young adults (27 patients, 35 controls). Information about psychiatric symptoms and substance use was collected using the Youth Self-Report (YSR) and the Adult Self-Report (ASR) assessment forms. The data was analyzed using covariance analysis, linear regression analysis and logistic regression analysis. Results and conclusions: The overweight and obese adolescents had more total problems, internalizing problems, somatic problems, attention problems and social problems. Gender was significant in social problems: overweight and obese girls had more social problems than normal weight girls, but among boys there were not differences between the groups. In young adults overweight and obesity were not in connection with psychiatric symptoms. Gender had no importance in this connection. The overweight and obese young adults had 3.77-fold increased risk of smoking compared to normal weight young adults. Overweight and obesity are thus connected to psychiatric symptoms in adolescence and tobacco smoking in early adulthood. Conclusions about causality cannot be drawn based on this study. Information about overweight's and obesity's connections with mental health and substance use may help in treatment planning. It may as well increase the desire to draw attention to overweight children and adolescents early enough.
Now showing items 1-11 of 11