Browsing by master's degree program "Nyky-yhteiskunnan tutkimuksen maisteriohjelma"

This master’s thesis contributes to the limited research on gender equality discourses among elite occupational groups in Finland. The objective of the study is to examine how gender (in)equality is discursively constructed in the accounts of women middle managers. More specifically, it investigates which discourses are central in rationalizing gender (in)equality and analyses their implications on the visibility and legitimacy of gender inequalities. Theoretically, the study builds on feminist organizational sociology and especially on Joan Acker’s concept of ‘inequality regimes’. 8 semi-structured interviews with women middle managers form the material for the study. The interviewees work in the field of knowledge work in Finnish-based organizations. The interview data is constructed in interaction, with the researcher asking questions about gender and gender equality at work. Critical discourse analysis is used to understand how the discourses are used to resist or reproduce inequality. A meritocracy discourse and a diversity discourse emerged as central in rationalizing gender (in)equality, along with various postfeminist discursive moves. The meritocracy discourse drew from the rationale that skills and competence should be the basis of wages and advancement. The discourse was utilized to reveal gender-based discrimination or to counter affirmative action measures. The diversity discourse valued different social backgrounds as a business advantage. It was used to speak for the need to recruit people from different backgrounds and to emphasize the diversity of gender beyond a binary concept. The diversity discourse was also utilized to downplay gender equality as less important than other, more modern aspects of diversity. When diversity discourse was used to signify various personal differences, its potential impact on diversity or gender equality was lost. The postfeminist discursive moves, apparent throughout the data, minimized the significance of gender inequality in various ways, such as placing responsibility elsewhere or downplaying the relevance of gender in inequal situations. Overall, the postfeminist moves justified the existing situation. The results indicate how gender inequality is maintained discursively in organizations by legitimizing the status quo and not challenging systemic disadvantages. The role of women middle managers as proponents for gender equality is conflicted, as their position of relative power is constrained by managing gendered disadvantages in their career, the business-oriented logic of private sector organizations and by the difficult task of raising gender inequality as an issue in organizations where it is not deemed relevant. Change is possible if diversity is pursued by concrete actions and gender inequalities are not made light of, but raised as a significant topic in organizations, on its all levels.

Employment is important for the immigrants’ legal stays and subsistence. This research detects the effects of bonding and bridging social capital in achieving immigrants’ job-seeking goals. In this thesis, social capital is defined as resource which are embedded in immigrants’ intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic relationships for immigrants to achieve job-seeking goals. Loosely defined, bonding social capital refers to resource that embedded in within-group connections, while bridging social capital refers to resource that embedded in between-group connections. This group is ethnic immigrant group in this thesis. Further, this thesis observes how the interactions between bonding and bridging social capital impact on immigrants’ accesses to jobs. Moreover, this thesis explores immigrants’ intimacies with social capital through comparing their age and career fields. In-depth interview was adopted to collect data. Data analysis was conducted through line-by-line coding. This research finds out that both bonding and bridging social play the role of broker who link immigrants to the local labour market. However, their roles as the brokers vary by when and how. Bonding social capital makes efficient influences on immigrants’ job-seeking goals at the very early stage of immigration. The unconditional ethnic-based supports from bonding social capital are highly steady. However, compared with the bridging contacts, the quality of job referrals made by bonding contacts are less appreciated. Bridging social capital accelerates the process of immigrants’ job-seeking through helping them earn local work experiences, which are vital for finding the following full-time job. Bonding and bridging social capital impacted each other mutually. When bonding and bridging social capital cooperate, immigrants are likely to attain accesses to richer resources. When bridging contacts witness immigrants becoming estranged with bonding contacts and become close with bridging contacts, immigrants’ bridging social capital tends to be enriched. Younger immigrants are less intimate to vertical bonding social capital, which is embedded in the immigrants’ powerful contacts inside of the immigrant community. Immigrants whose career fields require highly quantifiable career skills tend to have short-term needs of social capital for pursuing jobs.

The study concentrates on living spaces and home in the context of labour migration among Estonian construction workers in Finland. Estonians are the biggest group of migrants in Finland (Statistics Finland, 2019), and from the perspective of labour migration a popular country for work, mainly due to financial reasons. The aim of this thesis is to find out how Estonian male construction workers’ living spaces and sense of home is transformed during labour migration and factors influencing it. Migration in the context of home has not been studied as widely as different migration processes in Europe and concepts of home. Liquid migration is one of the key concepts in current migration research in the European context, and it is used to present the migration background for this study. In more detail labour migrants’ reasons for migrating, decisions regarding staying in the host country and family and social aspects are covered. Three definitions of home are presented to cover the home theme. The analysis draws from Friberg’s (2012) framework on migration process and several conceptualizations of home. Data of the study consists of 6 semi-structured interviews carried out with male Estonian construction workers in Finland. The results fit into the framework of migration processes, with different aspects of home being important in every stage. In the initial stage, home stays in Estonia, although the men start to work in Finland. In the transnational commuter stage various characteristics of home become important in Finland, but as family stays in Estonia, home is there, too. For settlement stage, home shifts to Finland, if the decision is taken and family joins the migrant in Finland. In conclusion, various characteristics of home and labour migration processes are connected in different stages.

This study aims to identify diverse masculinities of fatherhood and the subject positions in Japanese news media. In post-war Japan, Japanese men upheld breadwinning masculinity, also called Salaryman masculinity, which positioned the domestic sphere as the domain of women. In contemporary Japan, men are socially expected to play the care roles instead of solo financial provider roles within the household. However, conventional patriarchal ideology has persisted, assigning men as breadwinners and women as primal caregivers as complemental partners. Hybrid masculinity that adopts caring role but upholds the dominating power over women has been also observed. Since masculinity reconstructs patriarchal power relations, this study attempts to investigate the complex discourses of constructed masculinities of fatherhood and the subject positions that men can adopt in contemporary Japan. As this study focuses on the power dynamics of masculinity, this study is situated within the field of critical social psychology and is grounded in social constructionism. This study applies the concept of Hegemonic masculinity developed by Connell (1987). Foucauldian discourse analysis is adopted to approach the discourses and subject positions. The research questions are: RQ1) What kind of masculinities of fatherhood are constructed in Japanese news media? and RQ2) What kind of subject positions are provided for Japanese fathers in the news media? In total, 31 articles, provided by 14 news medias, are collected from Yahoo! News online news platform, of which the range of published date is May 2019 to October 2019. As a result, this study identifies five discourses: Men work discourse, Men are not good at childrearing discourse, Time with family is precious discourse, Men participate in childrearing discourse, and Equal parenthood discourse. The subject positions attached to the discourses are suggested as: Breadwinner, Secondary caregiver, Involved father, In a higher status than women, and Equal partner of women. Whereas breadwinning masculinity still has upheld the domination over women, the masculinity that explicitly rejects the traditional gender role is also identified. In addition to the traditional hegemonic salaryman masculinity, hybrid masculinity that exploits the femininity to maintain the hegemonical power is identified. Within several discourses, emphasized femininity is constructed by women by positioning themselves as primary caregivers. With the help of the analysis framework of Foucauldian discourse analysis developed by Willig (2008), this study illustrates the practices and possible psychological experiences by men. This study proposes to the government and public institutions to constitute gender-neutral discourses within the policies and services. This study contributes to critical social psychology by adding to articulated knowledge of possibilities for making sense of the relation between masculinity and domestic sphere. Furthermore, this study proposes the possible shifts of gender relations towards equality by identifying gender-equal discourse that has not been observed in other current masculinity studies in Japan.

Migrants may find themselves in a vulnerable position after migration due to the new social structure (e.g., labor market opportunities, language problems, migration legislation, or networks in the new country). Since they lose their power in the society at large, this change may also affect power relations in their families. As a result, gender roles at home may also change. While existing studies on migration focus on migrants' socio-economic integration into host societies, their family formation and gender roles at home are not well explored. Rather than attributing these roles solely to 'cultural' reasons, I attempt to find answers through an exploration of the immigration experiences. This study has the potential to fill a gap in the literature on migration and gender studies and to contribute to this field in Finland. In this qualitative study, I attempt to explore how Turkish married migrants experience their gender roles and power relations at home after migration. Through thematic analysis of six interviews with three male and three female Turkish migrants, I identified four themes: "status loss after migration," "status loss and willingness to move back," "loneliness after migration," and "rejection of traditional gender roles." One of the most important findings of the study is that those who moved to Finland through family reunification experience a strong sense of status loss, which lead to marital dissatisfaction or a desire to leave the country. Furthermore, labor market opportunities push Turkish women to more traditional roles, while language barriers and a lack of networks hinder their integration into the country. It is important to note that most of the participants reject traditional gender roles as an ideology. However, there are other factors that contribute to their adherence to these roles.

Elokapina (Extinction Rebellion Finland) has been active since late 2018 and has become one of the most prominent actors in the Finnish civil society. It represents the more radical wing of the environmental movement and has caused much societal discussion over its action tactics, most notably using civil disobedience. By late 2023, its demands to the Finnish government have not been attained, raising questions about the movement’s effectiveness in achieving the desired outcomes. This thesis looks at movement outcomes and movement-party interaction in the Finnish environmental movement through the case of Elokapina. This work is a holistic view of strategic interactionism, which analyses the movement’s interactions through a lens of movement consequences and the dilemma framework developed by James M. Jasper. To gain a holistic view of the perceived effectiveness of Elokapina’s approaches, the study includes the perspective of politicians in addition to the activists themselves. The research questions are: 1) How effective do activists and politicians perceive Elokapina to be in attaining its goals? 2) How do activists and politicians perceive Elokapina’s strategic choices? and 3) How do activists and politicians view the influence of movement-party relationships on Elokapina? The thesis is qualitative in nature, and the data consists of interview data. Semi-structured interviews with six activists from Elokapina and six Members of the Finnish Parliament were conducted at the beginning of 2023. Based on the analysis, Elokapina is considered more effective from the activist’s point of view. Still, politicians also recognised the movement’s significant role in keeping the climate and environmental crisis on the societal agenda and creating political pressure. Both activists and politicians brought out a multitude of movement outcomes that exemplified Elokapina’s effectiveness despite the official demands not being reached. Interviewees evaluated Elokapina’s strategic choices with a large variety of opinions, which were, at times, contradictory to each other. The most prominent dilemmas that the movement seems to face are about shifting goals, choosing targets, being “naughty” or “nice”, and dilemmas concerning the political arena. The findings show that Elokapina’s direct influence on the political parties is secondary, and the political pressure is created indirectly through the media and by strengthening the climate emergency discourse. The movement-party relationships are diverse, and other prominent players in the arena are the media and police. The analysis concludes that Elokapina is considered an effective actor in the environmental movement, and its consequences are diverse. The movement’s strategy is a constant process with no clear answers, and movement-party interaction is secondary in attaining Elokapina’s goals.

The thesis looks at how people with immigrant backgrounds experience Finnish nature, focusing on East Helsinki. It shows the “patchiness” of Finnish nature, which means that it is perceived and experienced in many ways, being much richer and more complicated than the popular discourses and understandings of what Finnish nature is like, and how people relate to nature, as is pictured by the authorities and held by many people, including immigrants and “Finns”. The thesis shows that establishing a rigid representational image of Finnish nature and making “living close to nature as a distinctly Finnish way of living” a norm is problematic, because it is a demarcation of belonging and not belonging, of citizenship and alienness that could bear implicit racism, even though immigrants may not be aware of the existence of this cultural evaluation of them, or not actively trying to become Finnish. Nature gives rise to different social practices that make and undo boundaries of social relations in people's relating to others and understanding differences. People make differences and communicate across differences. By doing so, they make and cross multiple boundaries, in terms of ethnicity, culture, race, language, nationality and so on. Immigrants’ self-imposed boundaries and boundaries imposed by others on them are different. Decolonizing Finnish nature is needed, and it is implied in the patchiness of human-nature relations. The thesis also suggests that anti-racism requires an understanding of racism based on spatial locations. Conceptually, the binary opposition between nature and culture is unravelled by the research results. It requires understanding nature- culture articulations on the ground, namely how people make differences and communicate across differences, recognizing the need to retain self-made boundaries and break the ones imposed by others, and understanding that underneath the appearance of rigidity is actually considerable flexibility, a constantly changing set of conditions that is made to appear timeless and rigid, but is actually not so. Politically, it requires keeping “nature” as a concept separate from a “culture of nature” that is tied to Finnish national character. Nature should facilitate boundary crossings by cultivating mutual understanding and recognizing that “others” are in the right place, instead of being a boundary itself.

This study analyses the refugees’ activity during the integration period in Finland within the framework of acts of citizenship proposed by the British theorist Engin Isin. The purpose is to investigate what acts of citizenship refugees perform to constitute themselves as citizens and what factors prevent them from pursuing acts of citizenship as well as to examine the influence of moving to the Capital region on constituting refugees as citizens. The method of qualitative interview is used for this study. Thirteen interviews, including two paired ones, were conducted between June and October 2019. The interviewees were selected among the clients of the Immigrant Services of the city of Espoo on the criterion of moving to this city after living in another municipality outside the Capital Region of Finland. The results show that during their integration process, refugees are focused on performing the following acts that enable them to constitute themselves as citizens: Finnish language learning, job search, political activity and establishment of social relations. The analysis also shows that the lack of integration conditions outside the Finnish Capital Region and difficulties in obtaining available social services prevent refugees from constituting themselves as citizens during their integration. This research points to the differences in integration conditions in different regions of Finland and brings to the conclusion that although there are organizations providing guidance on access to the Finnish social security system, the understanding of Finnish bureaucracy among the refugee population remains a big challenge. The study also demonstrates that refugees are not passive, but rather put an effort to improve their situation, take the initiative, and thus change the common perception of a refugee.

The United States has been built on centuries of oppression of incarcerated people alongside systemic racism toward minorities. Once again these inequities entered the public discourse following a pandemic, rising unemployment, political uncertainty, and several high-profile police killings of unarmed Black people. Millions of Americans protested in the streets and called attention to the necessary criminal justice reforms on social media. Suddenly, terms like prison abolition, defund the police, #BlackLivesMatter, and police brutality entered everyday conversations. The American criminal justice system was built in the aftermath of the Civil War to disenfranchise and oppress Black Americans, and later other racial minorities, as well. Racist media and political campaigns furthered the myth of Black criminality resulting in widespread support for harsh criminal penalties. This led to the United States having the highest incarceration rate in addition to one of the highest recidivism rates in the world. The question remains, “How should systemic racism in the American criminal justice system be addressed?” Finland, with its focus on rehabilitating offenders and establishing a strong welfare state, serves as a point of inspiration. The hypothesis of this study was that the reasoning behind Finnish people’s support of a rehabilitative approach was that incarceration status was less stigmatized in Finland. Interviews with formerly incarcerated people in Finland appeared to indicate that this is the case. However, studies with more participants and greater diversity are needed to add to this research. Moving forward, America should institute reforms to reduce the stigma attached to incarceration like automatically expunging criminal records for those eligible or establishing employment programs that begin upon release from prison.

This thesis explores social representations of nature and happiness in nature among Finnish youth. Even though the concepts of happiness and nature are common in daily exchanges, they remain difficult to define, and little is known of their usage among laypeople. Similarly, nature’s effects on well-being are well documented, but how happiness occurs in nature has not been examined through social representations. Finland is an interesting country to study these phenomena, as Finland is often portrayed through its unique nature, and has been ranked as the happiest country in the world for three consecutive years. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how Finnish youth discuss happiness in nature, and whether there are distinctive shared social representations. The study used Moscovici’s Social Representations Theory as a theoretical framework. The theory’s purpose is to explore laypeople’s conceptions of everyday phenomena, making it suitable for this research. The research was part of a bigger LUODE-project, funded by the European Social Fund. LUODE aims to develop multidisciplinary collaboration and service innovations for youth. University of Helsinki’s role was to better understand the everyday lives of the youth and this research contributes to the latter aim. The participants consisted of 15-16-year-old Lahti 9th graders (n=355). They first saw a marketing video of Finland aimed at foreign visitors, in which the main theme was the experience of happiness in nature. They were then asked to write their responses to a paper questionnaire, with questions like “What does the video say about happiness in your opinion? Discuss, whether nature makes you happy? Why yes? Why not?”. Responses varied in length from one word to lists, and from sarcastic comments to personal, even poetic, descriptions of happiness in nature. This research will focus on their personal accounts, and when combined, these created shared social representations. The research questions were: What are the shared ideas the youth have about nature, and of happiness in nature? How are these social representations objectified or anchored? Do the youth have shared social representations about nature, and more specifically about happiness in nature? As a result of the research questions, the analysis identified two main themes. First, nature was defined through shared lay perceptions, and nature in the societal context of Finland. It was clear that there was not just one simplistic definition of nature among the youth. Instead, their descriptions varied from common objectifications of nature, like cleanliness, forests, and summer cabins, to societal issues including the national welfare system, and global issues like climate change. Second, happiness in nature was experienced in a holistic manner: nature was a place for peace of mind, for activities, and for sensory engagement. These representations of happiness revealed holistic, and multisensory experiences of happiness when spending time in nature. The results show that Finnish youth go to nature to relax, be active, and be mindful and that their experiences in nature involve multisensory approaches, which all contributed to their experiences of happiness. Multisensory experiences as social representations may offer new insights for future research. These representations explicate how detailed and varying the everyday terms of happiness and nature are. Nature served as an important milieu for daily moments of happiness among the youth. Finnish youth also criticized the claims in the video and discussed the influence of the Finnish welfare system as well as climate change in their responses. The current study proposes that these holistic and multisensory methods to experience happiness in nature should be taken into account when planning well-being interventions, city planning, and nature preservation.