Browsing by department "Opettajankoulutuslaitos"
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(2017)Aims. The aim of the study is to research the causes and reasoning for starting vegetarian diet. The research explains how and why one's vegetarianism has begun. In addition, it elaborates on how a vegetarian experiences his or her diet in the surrounding environment. Thirdly, the study focuses on deviations from the vegetarian diet and why and when they occur. The theoretical background of the study is based on the history of vegetarianism and on the consumer food choice model. The research questions are: How and why did the subject's vegetarianism begin? How does a vegetarian experience his or her diet in the surrounding environment? How and why do deviations occur from a vegetarian diet? Methods. The material of the study was collected from two group interviews organised on Facebook. Altogether, thirteen people were involved in the interviews. Eight of them were vegan, three lacto-ovo vegetarians and two lacto vegetarians. Participants were between ages of 23 and 30. Eleven of the entrants were women and two were men. The material was analysed using the content analysis method. Results and conclusions. Fifteen themes stand out from the material. The vegetarianism was usually started in progressive stages. The causes for starting a vegetarian diet are based on ecological matters, ethical matters, animal rights and the individual's health. Usually changing one's diet to vegetarianism was as result of more than one single cause. Family's and friends's opinions are both positive and negative towards one's vegetarian diet. The interviewees are dissatisfied towards the narrow choices of vegetarian meals in restaurants. Also, they criticize the high price level of vegetarian products in food stores. The interviewees agree on the challenges in maintaining the vegetarian diet in social situations (ie. events). But in general, maintaining in the vegetarian diet is seen as easy and effortless. Interviewees are contented towards the diverse variety of vegetarian food options in grocery stores. The deviation to one's vegetarian diet may occur during holidays due to avoidance of conflicts and due to avoidance of food waste. Additionally, an individual may make a deviation to his or her vegetarian diet in case of drugs or stimulants. Many of the interviewees think that deviations to one's vegetarian diet are made using dairy products or eggs but not meat.
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(2018)Objectives. This Master's Thesis is related to the University of Helsinki's research Pieni Oppiva Mieli (POM), which focuses on early childhood education. Pieni Oppiva Mieli research applies the MindUP™ -program, as is also done in this Master's Thesis. The MindUP™ program is based on the theories and research data of neuroscience, social and emotional learning, positive psychology and mindful awareness. Earlier studies with children of school age have found out that the MindUP™ -program promotes children's well-being and social skills, reduces stress, increases obedience, and provides guidance and academic skills. (Schonert-Reichl et al. 2015.) This Master's Thesis brings children's perspective to the subject and provides information to the research Pieni Oppiva Mieli (POM) and to early childhood education on how the welfare and learning of the children can be supported by exercises like the MindUP™ -program. This Master's Thesis examines 1) How did brain-focused teaching appear in children's stories? This was explained through the sub-questions and asked: 1A) How did children's stories about brain and behavior change during the intervention? 1B) What did the children think about their self-regulation skills in different interaction situations in their daycare? Methods. The research focused on a child-centered research and featured aspects of inclusive action research. The study involved a six-month pedagogical intervention, which involved the exercises of the MindUP™ -program in the daycare centre. The study covered 10 five-year-old children of this group. The children were interviewed five times during the intervention of the exercises related to the MindUP™ -program, with a total of 45 interviews. An analysis of narrative, content analysis and quantification were used to understand the material. Results and Conclusions. From the interviews' responses, it can be seen that children use the language learned in the MindUP™-program. Children also describe their feelings and refer to practical situations in their stories. The answers to the interviews can clearly identify how children's knowledge about brain and behavior changed. In this study the term self-regulation (mielen malttaminen) refers to how the child is able to regulate his / her behavior in the various interaction situations in the daycare centre. Based on children's stories, it can be seen that children think of tools from MindUP™ -program when they are telling about situations which require self-regulation. In a role of a teacher, researcher also saw these things come true in practice.
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(2018)Goals. The objective of this Master´s Thesis was to examine the development of learning to learn and thinking skills of 5th graders with special needs during the school year intervention. Another objective was to examine which thinking and learning to learn skills would develop and which not. The specific interest was to find out differences and similarities between the students with special educational needs and general education students. The theories used in this thesis are Piaget´s and Demetriou´s theories of cognitive development. Thinking and learning to learn skills and development of those have been current topics in studies of behavioural sciences. There have been few intervention studies in Finland too, where the de-velopment of children´s learning to learn skills have been examined during several years. In six-years intervention study showed how the future working life demands thinking and reasoning skills for problem solving, and it can be influenced already at the primary school (Vainikainen, Wüstenberg, Kupiainen, Hotulainen, & Hautamäki, 2015). In the new national core curriculum (2014) the transversal competence is essential and one of the multidisciplinary modules is thinking and learning to learn. (POPS 2014, 20.) Methods. The participants of this study consisted of the 5th graders in the municipalities of Akaa, Lappeenranta and Liperi, who responded to the evaluation study of learning to learn during the school year 2017–2018 (N=245). In this study those students who were in the lowest quarter regarding to tasks of competence were separated as own group. The compaction of data was executed with online tasks of competence and online inquiries related to attitude both in autumn and spring. The data was analysed by using the independent samples t-test. Results and conclusions. There were no significant differences between the experimental and the control group. The only variable which exceeded the significant level, was deduction. In the comparison of the lowest and the highest quartet´s results there were significant changes in the group variables of competence. Instead no significant changes between the beliefs were noticed. Compared to the earlier research, it seems one-year intervention study is too short to show the differences.
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(2017)Goals. The aim of this thesis was to examine how Finnish curriculums of 2004 and 2014 differ from each other in relation to thinking skills, learning to learn and multidisciplinary learning sets. These three themes were selected as subjects for research, as they are an integral part of the concept of broad-based competence introduced in the new curriculum. Broad-based competence is defined as the skills that the learner is expected to need in order to cope with future challenges. The purpose of this thesis was to find out whether these themes are also present in the Finnish curriculum of 2004 and if so, how their discourse may differ from the 2014 curriculum. This type of systematic comparison has not been made between these curricula before and also not with these themes. Thinking skills and learning to learn were studied separately from the multidisciplinary learning sets, as they are areas of broad-based competence, whereas multidisciplinary learning sets are more of its method. Thinking skills and learning to learn were dealt with, in particular, Robert Sternberg's theories of intelligence and its sub-areas. Methods. The data of the thesis are therefore the Finnish curriculums of 2004 and 2014. However, only the general parts were included in this thesis, as the goal was to get a picture of the underlying ideas and perspectives of each curriculum. The study was carried out using two mutually supportive analytical methods. The analysis started with a computer-based, instrumental thematic text analysis, which aims to find references to certain themes from the texts using a dictionary built by the researcher. This method was chosen because it was a clear and simple way to visualize the differences between the references in the texts. Another analytical method was a content analysis in which theory-based and data-based methods were used. Concerning thinking skills and learning to learn, content analysis was made by using the theory-based method with Sternberg's theories as a basis. Data-based analysis was used when studying multidisciplinary learning sets. Results and conclusions. The thinking skills were referred to equally as much in the general parts of the curricula of 2004 and 2014, but the content of the curriculum for 2014 was more comprehensive and could easily be categorized using Sternberg's theories. The same was true of learning to learn, although it was apparent that in relation to the curriculum of 2004, there were more references to learning to learn than in the curriculum of 2014. In the case of multidisciplinary learning sets, the result again indicated that the curriculum of 2014 was broader both in terms of content and text. Based on these results, it can be generally interpreted that although these same themes have been dealt with in the previous curriculum, the new curriculum has really become substantively centralized and sought to find a wide range of these perspectives.
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(2015)Purpose of the study. The purpose of this study was to describe 6th graders as media consumers, especially what comes to news media. By interviewing 6th graders the target was to find out what kind of news early-teens follow and whether they make any comparisons between news sources when selecting and reading the news. Furthermore, the purpose was to find out from the interviewees what kind of support the school has provided in developing their media literacy and how critical media literacy show in their behaviour as media consumers. Earlier studies on this subject have indicated that children and youth as "digi natives" are experienced and skilful media consumers. Lot of knowledge is shared between friends and media skills are developed for a large part outside school life. At the same time there exists concern on the dangers of media and on how children are able to interpret the media. From beginning of next year the new national curriculum emphasizes media literacy as part of multi literacy. The target of this study is to get more information needed for the development of the media education. Methods. The study was performed by interviewing 6th graders in November 2014 in a capital area school. Nine interviewees were selected from a communication orientated class with consent from their parents. Interviews were conducted following a semi-structured interview plan in the form of pair and group interviews. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, grouped and compiled to conclusions. Findings and conclusions. The findings suggest that 6th graders follow news follow the news infrequently and comparisons between different news sources are made almost solely to secure the validity of the information. Media skills are learnt from friends, whilst at the same time an early-teen is still strongly influenced by the family. The students deemed media education at school insufficient and "old fashioned". Schools should connect the taught subjects to real life and give students a chance to find solutions to problems together with classmates. Consequently critical reading skills are in everyday use and not just a blurry concept, which one does not know how to take; with thought, with anger or with a straight face.
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(2018)A goal of this study was to find out what motivates children and youth to take part on participation activities. Interviews of this study based on active members of school council and a supervising teacher from fairly large comprehensive school in Helsinki. The goal of this study was to find out how participation of active members comes true and interviewees motivation on participation actions in school. Lack of motivation on participation around youth and children are widely known and there’s also some research about passive youth. However, there are quite few studies about active youth and children on participation context. According to studies Finnish youth have great resources about how to participate and influence but most of them react passive on participation. It seems that there are many different places to practice participation for example school and youth councils but only few children want to take part of an action. This study explained what has motivated active school council’s members to take a part on influencing actions. Research material was collected by interviewing five highly motivated pupils from elementary and junior high school and the school council’s supervising teacher. The interviews were transcribed and content were analyzed with classification of different themes which were decoded and interpret findings. The pupils were part of a highly motivated group of the school council so hypothesis was that they would be active and interested about participation which was certified by the interviews. The group of motivated pupils on school council seemed to have high participation levels. When the participation level rises it comes with responsibility and a representing nature of the action emphasizes. The highly motivated group operating gave stability for projects and for the whole operations but at the same it took piece of the idea of democracy with it. The interviews revealed that pupils experience influencing on participation actions important. The pupils felt generating common good, appreciation of others and an access to information motivates them to take an action. The significance of being a part of school council was explained by learning new skills as well. An effort on information makes it possible to cut misconceptions around the operations. The school council should take notice of pupils’ point of interests and offer them positive experience on influence actions.
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(2016)Objectives. Teachers' perceptions of sustainable development has been studied in the past and showed mediocre results. But primary school students' perceptions and experiences of sustainable development has been studied only marginally. The aim of this study was to identify the primary school students' perceptions and experiences of sustainable development. And additionally to provide insight to dimensions, differences and similarities of sustainable development in school and home activities. Methods. The study questionnaire was developed for this study. The research method used in this study was the mixed methods testing procedures. The quantitative research survey data was analyzed by statistical methods and the open questions questionnaire data was analyzed using content analysis method. The study is a comparative case study and was conducted in spring 2016 at two Espoo-based primary schools. A total of 53 students in fourth grade participated in this survey. An additional method that was used in this study was a questionnaire, completed by two research schools teachers in autumn 2016. Results and conclusions. The outcome revealed individual as well as school specific differences in the definition of sustainable development. Although that the students' definitions of sustainable development at school varied, the definition of sustainable development at home did not show any significant differences. The differences between both research schools can be explained by differences in school culture that impacts to adopted values and attitudes of students. From the students' responses it can be concluded that sustainable development is perceived to be normative, anthropocentric, ecocentric as well as influencing human activities and changing ways of thinking. In addition some of the students connected sustainable development with intangible values. A third of the students pointed out the global aspects of sustainable development and its impact throughout the world. The majority of the students had a perception of sustainable development and recognized sustainable development as necessity.
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(2015)The aim of this study was to explore visual representations of the countryside made by children aged 9–10 years and living in urban and rural environments. The study investigates the children's images of the countryside: its natural and built environment, the people living there, its location in the children's opinion and the potential things to do there. In this study I also try to explain from where these images of the countryside have originated. In addition to this, the study explores the influence of the children's living area to their image of rural environments. Previous studies show that among adults the image of rural environments is usually positive. The image consists of a clean environment, peace and nature. Rural landscape is often thought to be either an agricultural or a cottage landscape. There are also idyllic images of the countryside where children are playing outside in the nature. There are no previous studies to be found on representations of rural environments concerning children from 9 to 10 years. The results of this study were based on 61 drawings and questionnaires collected from 3rd to 4th grade pupils during one lesson at their school in the spring of 2015. Out of these 61, there were 27 pupils living in rural area and 34 pupils living in urban area. This research is qualitative and executed with visual methods. The pupils were asked to draw a picture of the countryside and answer a semi-structured questionnaire. The drawings were then analysed by the visual content analysis and the questionnaires with the content analysis. Based on the results of this research, it was found that most of the representations of rural environments, regardless of the place of living of the drawer, described a summer day at the farm. Mostly there was a house, some animals, a field, the sun and a tree in the picture. The atmosphere of the countryside seemed to be considered positive because of the smiling people, the sun in the sky and the calm events drawn in the picture. The built environment of the countryside consisted of houses and animal shelters whereas the natural environment consisted of animals, trees and fields. Animals and people were understood to be the residents of the rural environments. The activities in the countryside were considered to take place outside and were related to animals or agriculture. Most of the pupils living in the city did not know or could not tell where the countryside is situated. Some of the pupils living in the rural environment did not perceive themselves living in the countryside. The images of the rural environments were mostly based on the personal experiences which 80 per cent of the pupils had and on the knowledge they have learned from the relatives. The personal experience of the countryside as a living environment was shown in detailed drawings portraying everyday actions in the pictures.
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(2015)The different dimensions of moral education reflect the ideals of the pedagogical thinking and the dominant ideology of a certain age. Religious studies and secular ethics have a special role in the moral education of schools. Especially secular ethics has been considered to be very closely related to the overall goals of the curriculum. Anthropological research has demonstrated that moral choices are made in reference to culturally determined moral frameworks. The purpose of this study is to investigate what kind of moral model the secular ethics textbooks transmit to pupils. The hypothesis is that, despite its commitment to an individualist and constructivist pedagogy, which in moral education translates into a promise of an individual moral philosophy for each student, the school can't avoid transmitting a certain moral model to its pupils. The research data came from the four textbooks of the Miina and Ville series, published by The Ministry of Education. The method of the study was content analysis. The textbooks of secular ethics present a very precise model about what they consider to be an ideal human being. According to the textbooks, the ideal human being is socially and interactionally competent, has a realistic self-image and aspires to be aware of his strengths and weaknesses, and works to develop himself in relation to his strengths and weaknesses through a process of constant self-reflection. He has internalized the scientific worldview and can form his own moral views, but at the same time he has also internalized different moral principles derived from humanistic ethics and human rights, and from Finnish cultural habits and rules. The textbooks present pupils with a clearly defined model of a good student, a cooperative team player and an active citizen of a democratic society. They are expected to follow the rules and expectations of authorities and institutions. They are being persuaded into this by representing it as their own advantage, but at the end they are not given a choice, because a well-functioning society requires conformity and, according to the textbooks, a democratic society has the right to demand obedience.
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(2016)Objectives. The purpose of this Master's thesis is to study how the elementary school teachers of Koulumestari school in Espoo, Finland are making use of Fronter, a data based learning platform, as part of their work. This case study investigates how the users of Fronter, the Koulumestari school's teachers, make use of the platform and what problems they have encountered while using it. Methods. The data for this qualitative case study was collected using questionnaires and theme-centered interviews. During the interviews, teachers were also videotaped while demonstrating, on a computer screen, how they use Fronter learning platform in their work. A total of 18 elementary school teachers took part in the questionnaire, while 8 of them were chosen to be interviewed based on their use of Fronter in their work. The theme-centered interviews were transcribed, followed by their analysis using conventional content analysis. The goal was to find, within the content of the interviews, the answers to the following two questions: In which ways do teachers make use of Fronter data based learning platform? And, what problems are included in the use of Fronter data based learning platform? Results and conclusions. The study shows that the teachers of Koulumestari school make use of Fronter learning platform in three different ways: pedagogical use, communicating information and uses within the school. The problems that made the use of Fronter challenging were described as technical problems, administrative problems and problems related to motivation. In the discussion section, the pedagogical use of Fronter learning platform was mirrored to attributes of meaningful learning, which are presented in the theory section of this study. Attributes of meaningful learning are active, constructive, intentional, collaborative, contextualized, conversational, reflective and transfer. All eight of these attributes were linked to pedagogical use, which the teachers of Koulumestari school followed in their day to day activities. This Master's thesis could also be continued in order to study elementary school teachers, as information and communications technology users, more broadly.
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(2013)The purpose of this study was to discover primary teachers' conceptions about singing and vocal control education and student assessment. The study was aimed to find out what kind of a role and status singing and vocal control education has in general and in relation to music education. In addition, the study examines what the teachers consider singing and vocal control education and what kind of teaching methods they used in their teaching. Furthermore, the study explores to the teachers' experiences with the teaching of singing and vocal control education. Finally, the study aims to map the student assessment methods teachers used and the challenges and opportunities these methods brings with them. The data were collected trough an Internet questionnaire. The study involved 31 primary school teachers from 15 different schools in Espoo, all of which had their own class. 87 % of the examinees were 30 years or older and 77 % had worked as a teacher for at least 6 years. 14 examinees did not teach music during the research and five of the examinees did not have any kind of music related hobbies. The research was a qualitative survey. The analysis was theory-driven content analysis. The study revealed, that half of the teachers would increase the amount of time spent on the teaching of singing and vocal control, and the other half would retain the present situation. In the teachers' opinions, the singing and vocal control education should begin in early childhood or primary education, at latest in the 3. Class. Only half of the teachers were able to explain how the singing and vocal control education was taken into account in their school's policy. The teachers mentioned 17 contents of singing and vocal control education, and teacher-led methods of teaching. Singing and vocal control education also appears in the native language lessons and in everyday school life. The teachers taught music because of their own enthusiasm and specialization on music education, and because of the principal's order. Half of the teachers felt that they had not received enough training to teach singing and vocal control. Methods for assessment of singing have been replaced by students' personal singing tests and observation. The student assessment is a challenge because of the large numbers of students in the groups. Teachers wish to receive a coherent student assessment criteria.
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(2017)Objective. The aim of this research was to examine primary school teachers' conceptions of gender and sexuality, and how they explain the sexual education they teach to the students. It has been shown that sexuality and gender are very complex phenomenon, and they can be divided to several areas. I focus on the physical, mental and social areas on both sexuality and gender. Research showed that sexuality and gender are a vital part of humans' life. Both are present through the whole life, and their development should be supported. In this research I examine if the teachers' conceptions of gender, sexuality and sexual education are equivalent to other research and curriculum. Methods. The research frame of this research is case study to a single primary school from Helsinki, and the research material consists of eleven teachers. I sent a questionnaire to every teacher in the school and invited four teachers to separate interviews afterwards. The questionnaire consisted of multiple choice questions and some open questions. The interviews were based on the questionnaire and they were meant to just give some more insight to the themes of the questionnaire. I divided the answers into sentences or words, and divided them under certain themes and groups. Some of the themes were based on the research theory and some on the material. Results. The teachers experienced many difficulties considering sexual education. They could name and specify the areas of sexuality, but their knowledge about gender was inferior. The teachers explained that they teach the suitable contents for each age group. The subject of the research was considered sensitive. The teachers emphasized the role of everyday situations as a vital material in sexual education. The contents of sexual education in curriculum were not clear to the teachers, and teachers were not at one about the contents. The teachers need more information of gender and sexual education, and this can be achieved with guide books, education or with changes in the teacher education system.
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(2016)Objective of the study: According to previous studies on teachers, violence and threatening situations are common in schools and occur on daily basis. Physical school violence has not broadly been studied in Finland as the term school violence is often confused with school bullying. Physical school violence causes both physical and mental damage, creates lack of security, weakens the atmosphere in schools and distracts the learning environment. There are many different causes to pupils' violent behaviour. The objective of this study was to discover the nature of school violence situations, causes of violent behaviour, the effects of school violence and ways to prevent it in schools. The purpose is also to raise awareness of school violence and create safe and positive environment in schools. Methods: This study was carried out as a qualitative study using phenomenological approach. The data was collected interviewing six elementary school teachers in February 2016 and analysed by using qualitative content analysis. Conclusions: According to the respondents, violence is common in elementary schools and it has many negative effects in everyday school life. In addition to physical damage school violence causes lack of security, distracts teaching and affects both pupils' and teachers' contentedness in school. Most of the violence occurs between pupils as a result of a conflict. Teachers concluded that pupils' violent behaviour is often caused by difficulties of controlling aggressions and solving disagreements. Pupils like these are reactively aggressive. However, schools seem to have many different ways to prevent school violence including practising social and emotional skills and appropriate ways to deal with aggression.
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(2016)Aims and objectives. The purpose of this study is to define what primary school teachers find important in food education and how it is present in school and in class. As well as the aforementioned the aim of this study is to, based on the teachers' experience, find out what kind of support and added value primary school teachers get from the Ruuan reitti -learning material, published by Ruokatieto Yhdistys and how the material could be developed further. The theoretical context of this study is compounded of home economics education, the curriculum of home economics education, examination of the learning environment and materials as well as the multidimensionality food education. The research questions are: 1. a) What subjects within food education are important from primary school teachers' point of view? b) How food education is present in their school and in their class? 2. How the Ruuan reitti -learning material supports food education in primary school and what added value does it bring? 3. How would primary school teachers want to change or develop the contents and methods within the learning material? Methods. The nature of this study is qualitative research, which conforms to the principles of case study. The material was compiled using questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and observation. Nine primary school teachers from three different schools in the Uusimaa region took part in the study. Analysis of the dataset was executed as a meta-combination of context analysis and systemic textual analysis. Results and conclusions. According to the interviewees the most important aspects of food education are healthiness, food behaviour, environment and day-to-day life of a child. In schools food education is present during school meals, within the curriculum and in class. In class teachers mainly effectuate the themes they themselves find important. According to the results the learning material is a valuable asset and it applies well in to teaching. As the main development proposal teachers were hoping for more complete material and various electric applications like games, tests and videos.
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(2018)Aims. This Master of Education thesis investigates the learning materials primary school teachers use in their daily work. The aim is to understand what kind of learning materials are being used in the Finnish primary school environment as well as to find out if are there any school subject related differences in which materials are being utilised in teaching. Currently there are very limited previous research into the prevalence of learning materials being used in the Finnish primary school environment. Methods. This research is based on the research data of the Lukuklaani -research project. The aim of the project is to promote leisure reading of primary school students as well as to develop school libraries. In the research project an online survey was developed and used to survey the current state of literacy education in Finnish primary schools. The survey was answered in November-December 2017. Data were gathered from 885 teachers working in 310 different schools. There were in total of 58 questions in the survey, including both closed- and open-ended questions. The current research is based on the closed-ended question of which considered the learning materials used in different school subjects. The question was: “In the following school subjects, the learning material being used is:”. The answer options were: 1. Printed textbook with supplementary material, 2. Digital ready-made learning material, 3. Other material, 4. I do not teach the topical subject. The teachers were asked to report the used learning material by school subjects. If the teacher responded using other material, they were asked to describe what other material was used and in which subjects through an open-ended question. All in all, 701 teacher responses were gathered from this section of the survey. The answers to this part of the questionnaire formed the research data of the present research and were analysed quantitatively. Answers to the open-ended question were categorised and themed, as well as analysed with quantitative content analysis. Results and conclusions. The printed textbook with supplementary material is still the most significant material used by teachers in their daily work. In teaching many school subjects, the printed text- books with their supplementary materials are reported as the only learning material being used. About half of the teachers reported using digital learning material in their teaching. The results suggest, however, that digital learning materials still have a role as supplementing textbooks rather than being used independently. Utilising textbooks and digital learning material was most frequent in the subjects of mathematics and Finnish language and literature. Many teachers also use other material in their teaching, especially material they have made themselves or sourced from the Internet. The study concludes that professionally-made learning materials, especially the printed textbook, are in touch with many teachers’ daily work. Nevertheless, how and how often the textbook is used in the classroom cannot be deducted from this data and is a task for future research. According to the present study it is clear however, that the role of textbooks as an institutional influencer should not be dismissed.
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(2015)Finnish elementary school has been the solid foundation for Finnish education for decades. While the elementary school's name has stayed the same it has still been in a continuous process of change. Our elementary school is a time-related institution that changes and evolves together with the curriculum, teachers and pupils, and the prevailing culture. The environment and the people living in it are always interacting with each other and together they create a social or relational space. The school building and its surroundings are a special social space. The relation between people and the school makes the building a school and turns the people into teachers and pupils. Despite the fact that the school is an important social institution that has been created especially for children and their learning, there have been few studies about school from the children's perspective. This study aims to find out what is the social space of school like for pupils. How do the pupils display physical or social space in their photographs and texts? How does power divide between teachers and pupils? What kinds of feelings do the pupils attach to the photographs and texts they produced? The study involved seven sixth-grade pupils. They photographed their own school days for four consecutive days. After each photograph the pupils filled out a questionnaire in which they reported things regarding the photograph such as who was in charge at the time and how did the pupil feel at the moment. The study consisted of 122 photographs and texts related to the photographs. The material was analysed with the Collier & Collier visual content analysis. The study showed that the pupils photographed the school's physical rather than social space. Most pupils took photographs of different teaching aids such as text books on their desks. Social space was displayed in photographs taken during recesses when the pupils were playing with their friends. The pupils took very few photographs of the teachers. The most common answer to the questionnaire's question about who is in charge was "the teacher" though in many cases said question was left unanswered. This means that the pupils did not really pay attention to the teachers' use of power. The most common feelings of pupils during school hours were joy and tiredness.
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(2012)The object of this study was to examine how children described being disturbed and how much it included bullying. Second, how much participation and unclear orientations were differing from each other when it comes to disturbing situations in day care. Third, they wanted to find associations between children's age and disturbing orientations in this study. The aim of this study is that day care educators could become more aware, understanding and responsive to disturbing behaviour and exercise of power between children. The study was based on a large and international Early Childhood Education research and development project, called Source of Orientation. The data was collected in spring 2010 from different kinds of day care centres and 8 Councils of Eastern-Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. There were 816 children who took part the project. The data was collected in multi-methodical methods: children's interview, observation and learning environment assessment. The data was mainly used as quantitative data in the project in this study. The qualitative data was based on children's agentive perception created by Jyrki Reunamo (2007b) from Helsinki University. According to the results, most of the children orientated participate when they became disturbed. Also, they understood that disturbing behaviour included bullying. That showed that bullying and disturbing were the same thing for the children. In addition, the study showed individual and developmental differences between children in daily situations in day care. It seemed that the youngest children (2-3 years old) orientated more unclearly than the oldest ones. The oldest children (4-7 years old) orientated participate more often. On the other hand, different kind of disturbing orientations were found in every age group. That indicated that disturbing orientations were not only based on age, but also for example individual settings. In conclusion, strong educators are needed with pedagogical views for young children in peer groups dealing with deterrents, interferences, and disturbing situations. Children orientating in disturbing situations highlighted the importance of child observation, especially when it comes to withdrawn and unclear orientated children.
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(2015)Many researchers suggested that home-school collaboration has a positive impact on immigrant children's integration into new country. In this thesis conceptions and experiences of collaboration with immigrant parents were studied from classroom teacher's perspective following the Epstein's theory of educational responsibility. Epstein's framework of six types of involvement was used to define the quality of home-school partnership and the school's role in home-school collaboration. Eight first and second grade classroom teachers were interviewed based on the hypothesis that the parents and teachers collaborate most closely at that stage of children's education. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and the results were analysed using phenomenography method. The results indicate that the teachers see home-school collaboration as a target-oriented partnership based on equality, that relies on interaction with the parents, and that is coordinated by the teacher. The teachers understood that they educate a child beside parents but emphasized different educational responsibilities of school and parents. Their main expectations towards immigrant parents was support for both the child and the teacher and openness towards Finnish culture, while the main challenges were language barrier, religion, differences in cultural values and fear of Finnish culture. The teachers engaged in diverse types of home-school collaboration, but there were very few targeted directly at the immigrant parents.
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(2018)Clothes play an important role in development of person’s identity. Children’s clothes build identi-ties of both children and their parents’. Clothes are one way of communication. Brand clothes might have different message than clothes that you can buy in any store. Some might think that the price and quality go together. Recycling brings another view to cloth’s qualities; how ethical and ecological clothes are. Internet allows people to recycle and interact in any time and place. Children’s clothing, especially branded, might invoke some discussion and opinions amongst par-ents. Children’s brand clothes are fascinating and at the same time those might make you irritat-ed. There are lots of researches about children’s clothing, branding of children’s clothing and par-ents’ consumption to children; conspicuous consumption. Most of the previous studies have been conducted as qualitative interview studies. This study investigates who are recycling children’s brand clothes, what kind of opinions parents have about children’s brand clothes and why they are recycling children’s brand clothes in the internet. This study is a quantitative internet survey. Study method was selected in order to find out how bigger amount of responses reflect the results of previous qualitative studies. Study was made in the tide of 2017 and 2018. Quantitative data was total of 566 answers from which 557 were includ-ed and analyzed with statistical software SPSS 25. In addition to quantitative questions survey had some open questions which gave deeper insight to the results. Results of this study give an insight of how parents, especially mothers are very interested and highly informed about children’s brand clothes. Usage and recycling of children’s brand clothes is seen as an ethical and ecological choice. Parents say that they recycle children’s brand clothes based on their children’s needs. When parents think about usage of brand clothes on other par-ents’ children they think it might be only because they want to be seen.
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(2016)The main subject of this Master Thesis is to study the importance created by the expat parents towards schools which operate abroad and serve Finnish language studies for expat children. This research is strongly theory based, where parenthood, Finnish-expats and the dimensions of Finnish-schools operating abroad is studied. The main goal has been to understand the meaning of Finnish-schools abroad to expat-families. There is only limited amount of previous studies concerning Finnish-schools abroad, so there has been a clear research gap. The topic was investigated by electronic surveys, where parents could freely tell about their experiences and feelings about the Finnish-schools abroad, under the guidance of the researcher. This research is qualitative in nature and the research method has been hermeneutic. Data was collected from 11 parents, whose children study at Amsterdam's Finnish School during the spring 2016. On top of that, researcher has been present in Amsterdam's Finnish School in order to understand the topic better. The results from the study are in with the research questions. Parents felt that the importance of Finnish School is mainly social, for both themselves and for the children. Finnish School was seen as a social environment, from which it was possible to find Finnish-speaking friends and also to communicate in Finnish. Cultural and linguistic education was also part of the results but it was seen less important than the social-aspect. It was also found that parents do a lot of voluntary work for Finnish School and everyone wanted to participate to these activities. It can be seen from the results that the importance of Finnish School to parents is very high. Through the Finnish School the Finnish-culture and language could be maintained through the whole family and the school also provided peer support. These were also aspects, which help Finnish-expats to maintain their mother-tongue and to cherish their cultural identity, within both children and adults. Finally, it could be concluded that investing to Finnish Schools and maintaining those schools is very important part of supporting the Finnish expats.
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