Browsing by study line "Yleinen ja aikuiskasvatustiede"

The purpose of this master's thesis is to study experiences and impact of racism in the school environment on Finnish, racialized people who identify themselves as men. The thesis recognizes the impact of sex in experiences of racism, and I was interested in knowing what kind of meaning the interviewees gave to their experiences. The thesis follows the theory of hegemonic masculinity by sociologist Raewyn Connell as well as the theory of racialization by Robert Miles. Earlier studies have shown that the Finnish schooling system entertains discriminating practices and racism. The experiences of racism of immigrant boys in schools and learning institutions have also been studied. It is however important to note that racism affects not only immigrant pupils, but also racialized Finnish students. The study is conducted as a group interview. There were five participants and the group interviews organized via Teams took place in the spring of 2023. Themes discussed in the interviews were identity and its formation, the interviewees experiences of racism at school as well as how it was intervened and what kind of antiracist actions the interviewees recognized from schools and learning institutions. The analysis of the interviews was made with thematic methodology. All of the interviewees had experienced racism at school and described that sex mattered in their experiences of racism. According to my results the experiences of racism shaped the young men's conception of themselves, their identity and their inclusion in Finnish society. Operating in a group of racialized men and identifying themselves as part of it defined what kinds of meanings the interviewees gave to racistic situations in school context as well as how and with whom they verbalized their experiences.

This master’s thesis aimed to identify and analyse the most relevant job resources that support and promote workplace well-being in knowledge work, focusing on the social and organisational aspects as well as their functional prerequisites. Previous studies have shown that job resources help cope with work goals, alleviate job demands and mental and psychological stress, as well as encourage growth and development. This thesis is based on a resource-centred approach by approaching workplace well-being from the view of positive psychology – seeing that workplace well-being forms in the interplay of social and organisational practices as well as the job itself, which the individual interprets from their own perspective. The study utilises the Job Demands Resources Model (JD-R) as well as Perceived Organisational Support Theory. The research material was collected through a semi-structured thematic interview of eight knowledge workers. The interviewees worked as architects, designers, engineers and in HR. The analysis of the interviews was conducted through a theoretically guided content analysis. The most essential social aspects supporting the interviewees’ workplace well-being were organisational culture and work atmosphere as well as workplace communication. The most essential organisational resources were autonomy and perceived organisational support. The most important perquisites for these resources were general attitude, allocated time resources and work community skills. The organisational and social aspects are best able to support the workers’ well-being when the individual’s, work community’s and organisation’s attitudes, action and allocated time meet. The results are in line with previous research and support the JD-R model and Perceived Organisational Support Theory.

Objectives. Parents of preschool children need to consider several questions concerning the children’s use of digital media. Should they limit the screen time strictly or act more freely according to the situation? The existing research on the topic is varied and mostly concerns school aged children and adolescents. The aim of the study was to find out whether parents of preschoolers consider themselves get enough support and information to help in decision making concerning digital media use. Research questions were: What kind of experiences do parents of preschoolers have of their children’s digital media use? What kind of support do parents wish to have and what kinds of wishes do they have? Methodology. The research material was attained through interviewing five parents of preschool children concerning their experiences of children’s digital media use. The material was analyzed through content analysis. Results and conclusions. The parents identified several positive and negative effects that digital media use has on children. They had diverse, well-functioning procedures when it comes to screen time, restrictions and rules. Both the parents applying strict restrictions and the ones who restrict only a little did implement principles of dialogical parenthood. Parents expressed a need to get much more material and support for preschoolers’ media education than they do at present. They wished to get more support both from child welfare clinics and from daycare. Parents of preschoolers could be supported in media education through available material and support at child welfare clinics and at daycare. The effects of this kind of support on the everyday life of families and parents’ experiences of media education could be further researched for example through intervention or case study.

According to the results, female entrepreneurs define their entrepreneurial identity in many ways. Both individual and social factors are part of the negotiation of entrepreneurial identity. In the entrepreneurship of women entrepreneurs, self-listening and realization are meaningful. In addition, societal factors is also a factor of formation of one's own entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial identity. Balance between one's own well-being and self-fulfillment is important in the entrepreneurship. The study supports previous research on women's holistic way of acting as entrepreneurs (see Kyrö 2004). Some of the female entrepreneurs wanted to keep the size of their company small, which supports previous research. However, in this study, there were also female entrepreneurs whose goal was to grow their business, or their business had already expanded internationally, which differs from previous research data. In addition, with this study, it was revealed that for the female entrepreneurs in the study, taking care of their own well-being is an important part of their entrepreneurship.

The aim of this study was to examine what type of assumptions leaders working in central government agencies and institutions have when it comes to the qualities and abilities of a manager as a coach. The other aim was to observe its effects on well-being capital. The study introduces a current issue because modern organizations are more interested than ever in taking their leadership culture one step further and going into an interactive and individualized working environment. Managerial coaching provides an implement for this need. This study’s qualitative material was collected in the spring of 2021, with the use of theme interviews. The material included interviews of eight leaders, working in central government agencies and institutions. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the dialogical thematic analysis method. It provided the theoretical insights and earlier research results to interact with the collected material as well as with the researcher’s own assumptions. The formed categories (28) were created from the interview material, and the analysis ended up with five themes. These themes described the viewpoints, qualities, and abilities of managerial coaching as well as its impact on competence development and coaching interaction. The well-being capital formed a theme of its own, including the examination of the extended view on the intellectual capital. The results of this study were found through the dialogue of the materials from the interviews and the earlier theory and research findings. The five themes described the viewpoints on the managerial coaching qualities and skills, such as value systems, the importance of feedback and the emotional skills. The competence development was treated as a fundamental part of managerial coaching processes and it was associated with the phenomena of productivity and well-being. Interaction was considered as a special enabler of the managerial coaching processes and it was also attached to the praxes of well-being at work. The factors attached to well-being capital were also recognized both from the study’s material and from the theory context. This study was commissioned by a coaching company so the results of this study can be used in the field of managerial coaching education in the future. It also provides insights to the leadership development of the central government, due to the interviews of the eight leaders working in central government agencies and institutions.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the everyday life of teaching professionals. Induction phase teachers’ commitment to the profession takes place specifically during the first years of their career, which COVID-19 pandemic has been threatened. Previous studies have shown that the professional agency in the classroom is an important part of teachers’ professional identity and commitment to work among induction phase teachers. Work engagement is a concept related to work well-being, which is used to studying well-being through the meaningfulness of the work. Based on the results of previous studies, teachers experience work engagement, also during the COVID-19 pandemic. Work stress, a phenomenon that weakens work engagement, has increased among teachers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers’ work stress has increased. The feeling of inadequacy in the teacher-student interaction is a part of comprehensive work burnout, and based on the results of previous studies it has been found to be negatively related to teachers’ experiences of professional agency in the classroom. The aim of this thesis is to provide information about induction phase teachers’ professional agency in the classroom, work engagement, work stress and feeling of inadequacy in the teacher-student interaction connections during the COVID-19 pandemic. The material used in this study was collected as a part of a wider international research project “Early Career Teachers’ Professional Agency Across Four European Countries” (Soini, Pietarinen, Pyhältö & Toom, 2018-2022). The target group of the research project were elementary school teachers, subject teachers working in middle school and special education teachers in elementary school (grades 1-9). The research material was collected between the years 2020-2021 from Finnish teachers, and 209 teachers responded. The IBM SPSS Statistics 28 -program was used in the analysis of the data. Sum variables were formed (professional agency in the classroom, vigor, dedication, absorption and feeling of inadequacy in the teacher-student interaction). Connections between variables were examined using Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Differences in background variables (gender and teacher group) were examined by using t-tests. The results of this study showed that there were statistically significant connections between the examined variables. Teachers in the induction phase who experience strong professional agency in the classroom reported that they experienced work engagement together with a lesser work stress and feeling of inadequacy in the teacher-student interaction. Those teachers who experience work engagement reported lesser work stress and feeling of inadequacy in the teacher-student interaction. There were no statistically significant results between gender and teacher groups.

The aim of this study was to examine the validity and reliability of the social engagement scale among students at Finnish comprehensive schools. Another aim was to examine the interaction effect of social engagement and introversion on self-esteem, schoolwork engagement and burnout. The purpose of this was to understand how introverts with higher social engagement perform in terms of their self-esteem, schoolwork engagement and burnout in comparison to introverts with lower social engagement. The theory of this study focused on social engagement, which has been suggested the fourth dimension of school engagement. Social interactions help students’ learning, and enhance critical thinking and problem solving. Introversion was selected for this study as introverts are usually stereotypically seen as unsocial and unwilling to work with other people. The data for this study were collected through questionnaires of the Mind the Gap Research Group of the University of Helsinki in 2013–2016. Sample size was 862 students. The analytical methods were confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and hierarchical multiple regression. The results indicated that a two-factor model best fit the social engagement scale. These two dimensions were named the social engagement approach and social engagement avoidance. When examining self-esteem, the interactions between the social engagement approach and introversion were significant. This suggests that introverts with high social engagement have higher self-esteem than introverts with low social engagement. Interaction terms for the social engagement approach and social engagement in terms of schoolwork engagement and burnout were not found.

The research task of this master's thesis is to describe shared expertise in a distributed team during the corona pandemic. The thesis is based on the theory of distributed work. It is examined from the perspective of shared expertise, taking into account the impact of the corona pandemic on the work of experts. The research questions of the thesis are 1) how has the corona pandemic affected experts' experiences of working in a distributed team and 2) which factors support shared expertise in a distributed team? The thesis focuses on experts' experiences of the phenomenon. The material for the thesis was collected through semi-structured thematic interviews of six experts. The interviewees worked in the HR team of a large corporation, which has operated distributed work before the corona pandemic. The analysis of the data was carried out using a theory-driven content analysis. The results of the study showed that the corona pandemic has affected the work of an already distributed team. The work became even more distributed and this seemed to increase the efficiency of work, task-orientedness and independence. In distributed work, the versatile use of communication technology supports team cooperation and reduces experiences of the challenges brought by physical distance. Shared roles and the competence based on them, as well as jointly shared operating methods and communication practices, increased interaction and cooperation in a distributed team and promoted shared expertise. However, in a distributed team, spontaneous ideation and sharing tacit knowledge was perceived as challenging, so sufficient time must be arranged for this. Good team spirit and trust also emerged as important factors for the success of the work.

Background and objectives. The aim of this study was to clarify the usage of the concept of continuous learning. Another aim was to understand what conditions or expectations were set for continuous learning in different settings. These questions were examined by reviewing scientific research and reviews to identify themes in which the concept of continuous learning was used. Continuous learning is in the centre of Finnish government programme with expectation to correspond to the needs of changing working life and to enable longer careers for individuals. Corporates are also leaning on continuous learning to minimize business risk and enhance profitability by offering training or job rotation for employees. Bonding the concept of continuous learning to specific models or targets creates a contradiction to fundamentals of learning which is continuous regardless of context. Based on this setting the concept of continuous learning is reviewed from the angles of lifelong learning, political aspiration, and financial interests, for example the enhancement or change of working life. Methods. This research was conducted as a systematic literature review. This method was recognized to be the most informative when investigating the usage of the concept of continuous learning as previous meta-analysis brings out the different angles and context in which the concept was used. Data was collected from three databases and sixteen articles or reviews were included in this research. Results and conclusions. The concept of continuous learning was connected to theoretical framework of this study which included lifelong learning, political discussion, and financial interests. Especially remarks considering working life and its demands stood out from the data. These were tightly connected with political and financial interests from individual as well as societal perspectives. Continuous learning can be viewed a necessity to prosper in working life and life in general. This perception narrows down the fundamental meaning of learning as a continuous process.

This research is focused on the schooling experiences of non-binary transgender people. The aim of the study is to produce information on how gender variation has been taken into consideration while the 1994 and 2004 reforms of the Finnish national core curriculums for basic education were in effect. Based on these data, the aim is to speculate how gender variation is considered in schools today. The analysis was focused on how interviewees created subjectivity in their narratives and how (gender normative forms of) the hidden curriculum appears in these narratives. The results can be used to help develop the school institution into a more sensitive direction, and to be aware of different genders and the dynamics between them. The theoretical base examines the concepts of non-binary transgender and gender variation. Secondly it provides an overview of the power of gender norms. Thirdly the theoretical base introduces some of the relevant topics of the Finnish national core curriculums for basic education established in the years 1994 and 2004. It then offers some information on the invisible power of the hidden curriculum. The final section of the theoreti-cal base addresses discourses, discursive practices and subjectivities, which are essential in the analysis of gender norms, the hidden curriculum and the interviews. The research was conducted by interviewing seven non-binary transgender adults. They had attended basic education while the 1994 and/or 2004 Finnish national core curriculums were in effect. The interviews were conducted using an adaptation of the autobiographical narrative interview method. The data were analyzed with a data-based discourse analysis. The results were construed using a critical feminist perspective. The analysis produced three hegemonic discourses: outsider, gender normative school, and non-normative gender. Based on these discourses, the results showed six strong subjectivity positions: an outsider and different, an illegitimate woman or a man, nonexistent, agender or feminine-masculine, an agonist against norms, and a victim. The presence of the (gender normative) hidden curriculum occurred especially when the interviewees spoke about the support and safety of school, school control and teaching/learning situations, students’ responsibilities, and school environmental issues. The findings of this research indicate that non-binary transgender people must form a self-image mostly with-out any existing discourses. They become positioned as oppressed or as agonists against oppression. The control of the hidden curriculum was proved strong and very gender normative. Based on that, there is a major paradox between actual school policies and the national core curriculums. The findings would imply that the situation may not be any better nowadays despite the core curriculum reforms. The knowledge of gender variations and gender sensitivity must increase in the future. It is also necessary to offer teachers support and information on how they should meet and treat students of any gender.