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The penetration of digital media has had a big impact on life in modern society. The new national core curriculums for the Finnish basic education and general upper secondary education (from year 2014 and 2015) are therefore emphasizing the importance of media literacy for practicing one's citizenship. On the basis of John Dewey, social scientist and pedagogue, the aim of this study is to examine a group of Swedish speaking teachers' perception of the media education responsibility of schools. Furthermore, the aim is to review these teachers' experiences of taking part in the media education project Yle Nyhetsskolan. The research questions are: How do the teachers understand the media literacy responsibility of the schools? Besides Yle Nyhetsskolan, how do the teachers conduct media education and what are the challenges? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the project Yle Nyhetsskolan? Eight teachers, from five different basic or general upper secondary schools in the Swedish speaking part of Finland, participated in the study. All teachers had taken part in the project Yle Nyhetsskolan during year 2014. They were interviewed, based on a semi-structured model and open questions. A phenomenological approach was applied and the answers were transcribed and analyzed in three stages. The answers were categorized in order to describe the essence of the teachers' reflections. The teachers had an evident engagement for media literacy and an understanding of the importance of developed media skills in the digital society of today. The teachers found it challenging to define and integrate media literacy education and they urged for more time and shared responsibilities among colleagues. The lack of time, pedagogical tools and technical skills form the main challenges for media literacy education. There is a need for teachers training, especially focusing on pedagogical methods for integrating media literacy in the education. The teachers found the project Yle Nyhetsskolan to be authentic, exciting and rewarding. Taking part in the project was, on the other hand, challenging because projects do not always fit into the non-flexible school day and because news as a genre is difficult, to both teachers and students. Yle Nyhetsskolan should be developed into a project with an even lower threshold concerning both timescale and desired result.

The aim of this study was to explore the attitudes of general upper secondary school teaching staff towards support for learning as a part of their job. Furthermore, this study focuses on the professional agency and orientations of the teaching staff in the context of general upper secondary education reform. One of the pivotal changes in the reform is the legal right of students to receive special needs education and other support for learning in accordance with their needs. It is stated in the new core curriculum that special needs education will be provided by a special needs teacher, whereas other support for learning will be implemented by teaching staff as a whole. This study was carried out as a qualitative case study. 19 members of teaching staff in one general upper secondary school participated in the study, including subject teachers, guidance counsellors and a special needs teacher. The data was collected through six focus group interviews and an online survey. Topics covered in the interviews and the survey included providing support for learning, defining one’s role and its boundaries at work as well as values related to work. The data was analysed using content analysis. Based on the results of this study, teaching staff perceives support for learning to be important in general upper secondary education. However, their opportunities to give support in practice are influenced by multiple external and personal factors as well as factors related to the work community and students. Teaching staff finds it challenging to support their students especially due to large group sizes, lack of time, student hesitation to seek and receive support, and the limited skills of subject teachers. The results indicate that strong professional agency is especially practiced by subject teachers in class. On the other hand, as general upper secondary education undergoes several reforms, teaching staff points out that their responsibilities increase while resources are inadequate. In this study, four types of participants’ professional orientations were found regarding their perceived core tasks at work. According to the teaching staff, the main objectives of general upper secondary education are to provide students with extensive general knowledge and skills for the future as well as to support their personal growth.