Browsing by Subject "väkivalta"

In my research I examined violence in secondary school from the point of view of the students. I asked, how the students themselves defined violence. I focused on who was considered to be someone who has information on the phenomenon or power to define it. In previous research it has been reported that mundane, everyday violence has been studied less than extreme acts of violence. In my research, I drew attention to the mundane aspects of the phenomenon and what it is at its limits. I tried to determine why some things were named violence, when others were not. In my research I regarded violence as gendered, since I wanted to study the phenomenon as a structure rather than as attached to specific individuals. In my understanding, violence and power are inseparably linked. Therefore I chose to approach the phenomenon from the perspective of a feminist theory. Key concepts in my research were violence, gender, school and agency. I used feminist ethnography as a method to both produce and analyze the data. In feminist ethnography it is essential to interact as respectfully as as possible with the people who are being studied as well as to maintain a critical attitude toward knowing and the hierarchies related to knowledge. The ethnographer tries to understand the world of the people she studies by participating in it. In feminist ethnography attention is drawn to power relations as well as in the intertwining differences. The data consist of field notes and interviews. For two weeks I observed the school days of the students of one seventh grade in one school located in the Helsinki metropolitan area. My observation covered classes, breaks and meal times, but I did not follow the students if they left the school grounds unless the classes were held there. I interviewed 17 of the 18 students in the class, in pairs or individually. Half of the interviews were done individually and the other half in pairs. There were 12 interviews in total. According to my research, the student's status in the social hierarchy, their position regarding the norms in the society and the discourses related to violence or bullying in society were some of the factors that influenced the way the students defined violence or were affected by it. Violence in school appeared to be so normal that often it was not even noticed or regarded as such. An atmosphere was maintained actively where the possibility of violence was always present. The teachers used the threat of violence as a resource to emphasize their message. Gendered structures were also entwined with the normalization of violence. Violence or the threat of it was linked in particular with the correct representations of masculinity. In addition to gender other differences affected how it was possible to be present in school and how violence could be defined or used as a resource. According to my research, racism, homophobia and gendered structures limit the students' agency. The students seemed to be struggling to understand situations from other person's points of view and to understand the consequences of their actions. On the other hand, the teachers did not seem to understand the students' perspective. I too shared the difficulties with identifying and naming violence. My conclusion is that even though no one is able to distinctly define violence, it is not to be accepted. Based on my research, violence should always be intervened, despite the difficulties of defining it.

Youth violence has been a topic in public debate for many centuries and violent entertainment has been a main focus in search for reasoning youth violent behaviour and the acceptance of violence. The aim of this study is to survey the aspects of major consumers of entertaining history culture on the legitimacy of violence. The hypothesis was, that the major consumers of entertaining history culture do not justify the use of violence as problem solving measure. The entertaining history culture is limited to include historical movies and tv-series together with computer and console games. This study was executed as qualitative research with phenomenography as the methodological philosophy. The focus was to find out the thoughts about justified violence of ninth grade students who consume a lot of entertaining history culture. The research material was collected from inquiry from one hundred participating ninth graders. The inquiry was held to find out major consumers of entertaining history culture that would be suitable for semi structured interviews. Seven people were chosen for interviews. The study revealed that the major consumers of entertaining history culture react negatively to the legitimacy of violence both in historical context and in real life. The youth say that movies and games aren't a direct cause of violent behaviour, but can be harmful if a person has another mental difficulties already. The youth told that they can easily separate movies and games from real life and think them as entertainment that you can also learn from. The youth also had a positive image about the future, although they saw the media stirring up some threats. This study should stand by earlier research which say that violent entertainment don't increase either youth violence or the legitimacy of it.

Objectives. Previous studies on teachers being cross-peer abused and harassed by students and parents are scarce and mostly all but one is over ten years old. Previous studies point out that students inappropriate behavior was more common than parents inappropriate behavior and most common form of inappropriate behavior was verbal harassment. In addition, studies have shown that inappropriate behavior is more common than systematic bullying and physical violence differs in primary and secondary school. The subject has been studied by Kivivuori, Tuominen and Aromaa (1999), Salmi and Kivivuori (2009), Rantala (Rantala & Keskinen, 2005) as well as by Kauppi and Pörhölä (2010). This thesis investigates comprehensive school headmasters vision of teachers being bullied and harrassed. The aim is to find out how the headmasters experience this phenomenon and how the conflicts are being solved. The theory of conflict management is being used to study this phenomenon. Conflict management has not been previously studied in the school context and therefore the templates applied are originally designed for private sector companies. Methods. The material was collected by semi-structured interviews and there were eight interviewees, all of them were comprehensive schools headmasters in Helsinki. Phenomenography was used as a research orientation and as an analysis method. The analysis of the data was four-step and conformed to Niiko’s (2003) description of phenomenographic analysis. Results and Conclusion. According to the headmasters bullying of teachers was a marginal phenomenon and inappropriate behavior confronted by teachers was more common than systematic bullying. Headmasters thought that situations were a matter of interaction and the causes of bullying and harassment were manifold. Students and parents who were harassing teacher might felt bad and they might had contacts with health care or child welfare. In resolving the situation the headmasters underlined presence of multiple adults, transparence, good interaction and rapid communication. Headmasters saw the teachers primarily as an civil servant and they considered it important that teachers followed the law and other instructions. The headmasters felt that they had not received training for the situations and their functions were guided by previous experience and self-acquired knowledge.