Browsing by discipline "Kasvatustiede (yleinen ja aikuiskasvatus)"

Objectives. Research ethics is an essential part of good science and the craftsmanship of trained professionals. However, there are only few studies about teaching and learning research ethics in universities. In the context of Finnish universities, the research is non-existent. The objective of this study was to examine students' research ethics skills and perceptions, and how university appears as a learning environment from the students' perspective. The objective was also to recognise possible developmental needs in education. The concept of ethical sensitivity represented the research ethics skills of students. Methods. The study utilised a mixed methods approach. The population consisted of psychology and educational science students in University of Helsinki. Students (N=87) responded to a questionnaire examining whether students' empathy, organisational and professional socialisation, and experiences on the department's ethical climate have a relationship with their sensitivity in research ethics issues. Three vignettes were composed for measuring sensitivity in research ethics issues. The informants' task was to recognise the ethical issues embedded in the vignettes. Also the relationship between students' age, field of study, progression in studies, and sensitivity in research ethics issues was examined. Six students, who were also respondents of the questionnaire, were interviewed. The frame of the interviews was created on the grounds of the quantitative results. The interviews were analysed thematically. Results and conclusions. According to principal component analysis, the measure of socialisation did not consist of the same dimensions than the original measure (organisational socialisation and professional socialisation). The Finnish data produced two new components: socialisation to the values of the field and the department, and socialisation to the practices of the field and the department. The latter component predicted sensitivity to ethical issues in research (?=.287, p=.023, R2=.09) in the regression model. Other variables did not have the same relation. The six students interviewed represented two different student clusters based on their socialisation in cluster analysis. Those students who reported a high level of socialisation to the values and the practices of the field and the department emphasised research ethics as certain practices, whereas those students who did not report a high level of socialisation emphasised the relativity of values and the importance of questioning existing norms. The findings suggest that in order for students to commit themselves to ethical research practices, they need to figure out the value basis of those practices. For teaching research ethics this implies that practical guidelines and realistic examples will have to be underpinned with thorough discussions about the underlying values and their consequences. This way the development of the students to responsible and ethical subjects can be assisted successfully.

Besides the knowledge-based learning, the school plays a central role in students' identity formation. The study aims to analyze girls' appearance and style related options in the ninth grade in a Swedish-speaking high school, and to examine how this is connected with identity formation. The research questions are: How do girls use clothing and style related choices in shaping their own identity? What aspects of appearance do the girls perceive as important in school? What affects one's own style? The study was ethnographic, the collection of data began in the autumn of 2010 and lasted until spring 2011. The core of the material for this study consists of a diary project conducted with 12 girls in grade nine. Semi-structured interviews were carried out based on the diaries. A thirteenth girl further contributed in an interview, though lacking the diary. The material has been analyzed with the use of thematic analysis, as well as content analysis regarding the images in the diaries, and partly also discourse analysis. The theoretical perspectives set out for the study examines issues concerning the perception of girls' roles, positions and importance in girlhood studies, youth studies and in the public discourse. The issue of different interpretations and definitions of girlhood is also outlined in the study. The matter of status groups' influences in schools in terms of inclusion and exclusion for the yet accurate and vague, but unspoken rules existing within the school creates a framework for this study. This set of codes often takes place beyond the actual teaching. The identity in relation to clothing and style in both the school and the students' private life, is seen as a complex network, where social class, gender, friends, media, popular culture and status group membership, all have an impact on the individual. Identity is created and shaped through interplay with others. When the individuality and uniqueness are compounded with the social mechanisms of fashion, the individual faces a struggle of standing out or fitting in. The classic sociologically orientated ideas of fashion and taste are of great importance in this study, since social class plays a significant role in terms of clothes, style and identity. The result of the study clearly shows that the school has a central role in girls' identity making, where questions about self-identification, group identity and alienation constantly are present. The girls' construction of style took place in an interaction between the school and other elements, such as friends, family, home and spare time activities. One of the key findings in the study is the dualism which prevailed in the matter of the girls balancing between fitting in with the crowd and the urge to be unique, constantly confronted with the peer pressure that was present in school. As their biggest source of inspiration for their own style the girls' mentioned fashion blogs, music, magazines, television shows, friends and oneself. The diaries functioned as a space where the girls could reflect upon different notions about girlhood through literary and visual expression. The diaries conveyed opportunities in showing the contrasts and the complexity in being a girl. Also, the study exhorts for further discussion according to the use of creative and multidisciplinary approaches to the field for educational research. The girls' use of clothing and style as means of expression embodied meanings, dreams, fantasies, and worked as extensions of their identity. This study shows that there is a certain style among the girls that is considered typical for Swedish-speaking Finns. The style has been influenced by upper class style, with roots in the more exclusive sports and recreational activities such as golf and sailing. The style influenced by the upper class, were considered worth striving for. The girls willingly bought certain garments and accessories, which can be seen as a form of symbolic capital. The need for conformity was vital and few students differed radically with regard to their appearances in the school. The study seeks to demonstrate the importance of the identity formation processes taking place in schools. The identity formation processes are essential in the lives of young people. Therefore, it would be important to consider both the problems and opportunities that exist in these identity making processes, and also to include them to a larger extent to the everyday life in schools.

Substantial research has been conducted on recruitment processes within companies, as personnel are such an important component of a company's success. Prior research shows that the recruitment process isn't conducted in a reliable and objective way. Since recruiters trust their intuition throughout the recruitment process, they are in danger of making unfair and biased decisions. Recruiters are therefore being critiqued for not managing the process as recommended, in regards to the objective and fair treatment of all applicants. Yet there is scarce qualitative research that examines the recruitment process from the recruiters' point of view. Thus the aim of this study is to understand what recruiters perceive as challenging within the role, how they approach the requirement to be objective in relation to whether true objectivity is indeed realistic, and what role they give intuition in the recruitment process. This study aims to understand recruitment from the recruiters' perspective in order to gain a better understanding of the issues involved. The research data was gathered in interviews with 16 recruiters from 9 different recruitment consultancy agencies in Helsinki and Tampere, Finland. The interviews were grouped in to themes that addressed challenges, decision-making and intuition. The transcribed interviews were analyzed inductively from a hermeneutic phenomenological scientific standpoint. The study shows that recruiters don't regard the recruitment process as objective. Because the process is partly social, it inherently makes room for subjective interpretation. Also, recruiters believe that the information accumulated from social interaction brings added value to the recruitment process. Hence the study shows that intuition has great significance in the recruitment process, as the majority of recruiters use it regularly. Prior research on intuition shows that it can be a source of wisdom and expertise, if used correctly. The recruiters tried to carry out the recruitment process in an as objective and transparent manner as possible. By reflecting, questioning and critically reviewing their own thoughts, opinions and feelings, they aimed to avoid making decisions and judgments based on feelings. Taking the recruiters' point of view in to account gives new insight in to the recruitment process and the issues therein.

My purpose in this study was to critically examine global education that is carried out by civic organizations and linked with the objectives of the national school curriculum. The study was based on feminist postcolonial and poststructural theories. The previous studies have shown that despite the complexity of the historical and political perspectives included in globalization, in global education these perspectives are often ignored. This may lead to constricted content of global education, as the focus remains on learning about "the distant Others" and learning to appreciate "our" privileged position. The focus of my study was in the above-mentioned problematics of global education. The context of my study was a collaboration project connecting 5th and 6th graders from Finland and from Uganda. The project was carried out by development co-operation organizations Plan Finland and Plan Uganda. My aim in this study is to examine how the representation of Uganda and of other developing countries is constructed during the first collaboration year of the project and what it is like. My aim is also to examine what kind of differences are produced during the first collaboration year and how. In my study I applied a discourse analytical approach. I was involved in the project both as an employee and as a researcher. My study was limited to the first collaboration year of the two-year project. My research data mainly consisted of the observation data that I produced during the project, especially concerning the child rights lessons given by the child rights ambassadors from Plan Finland. According to my study, during the child rights lessons a subject position of Western privilege was constructed. From such position it was possible to criticize other cultures and groups of people. By categorizing the developing countries to countries of traditional culture where "they are still learning things" and where the prevailing way of thinking should be transformed by "us", a colonial difference was produced. The Western resources of interpretation concerning the developing countries defined the ways in which the developing countries were talked about and the ways in which the representation was constructed. For instance, the girls in the developing countries were categorized as victims of the hierarchical gender system. In order to achieve the goal of global equity in global education, I suggest that, "our" position as a subject of Western benevolence with the responsibility to help the underprivileged Other "the idea of the global responsibility" should be questioned. In the corresponding North-South school partnerships the questions of power should not be left in the shade of collaboration.

This study examined how work orientation is carried out at the workplace for workers with immigrant background, how immigrants have integrated to the chosen workplaces and how they see their future work related development. Immigration to Finland has expanded during the last decades and many immigrants are of working age, which makes the multicultural issues relevant in working life. Research in Finland has focused on how well immigrants get into the labour market. Studies have also been carried out in multicultural work environments, including nursing, expert and customer service occupations. Studies exploring cultural differences between working cultures have been popular on an international level and in business life, but they have not answered the question how differences of working cultures are visible and influence in the multicultural work environment. Research with a more critical view has been carried out at multicultural workplaces. In this study challenges and good practices, which have developed in work orientation and integration of immigrant workers, are being explored. Fifteen workers with immigrant background and five immediate superiors in two organizations in the metropolitan area were interviewed for the study. Two immediate superiors have immigrant backgrounds. Organizations that employ workers for duties which do not require former education and that already for a longer period of time have employed immigrant workers were chosen for the study. The interviews proceeded according to the semi structured interview guide. Many of the challenges for both work orientation and integration that the organizations, work communities and workers with immigrant backgrounds face turned out be connected to language skills. Moreover in relation to differences in working culture the significance of personality was often stressed. Certain phenomena related to different background and working culture emerged and require accommodation to the Finnish workplaces. To overcome the challenges of language skills and working culture different methods were used for job familiarization and work orientation. Four informants had though moved to Finland as children and did neither face language nor cultural challenges. The study helps to understand how it is to take part in the Finnish working life as an immigrant and how multifaceted the concept immigrant is at the workplace. It also shows that rather than placing the focus on finding cultural differences it would be more beneficial to study what their actual significance is in the multicultural work environment and how the immigrants' language skills develop in the Finnish working life.

The aim of the study. Voluntary work can be defined in many different ways, but mainly it is seen as unpaid voluntary based work. The voluntary work mutually offers different kind of experimental moments to volunteers. The starting point of this qualitative study was an interest to these experiences of the voluntary workers. The aim of the study was to understand and describe the experiences of the voluntary workers of the Finnish Seamen's Mission working abroad. The study sought answers to the following questions: What kind of experiences do the volunteers have working for one year at the Finnish Seamen's Mission churches abroad? What is the significance of the volunteer-year for Finnish Seamen's Mission's one year-volunteers? Methods. The approach of the study was phenomenological. The research data was gathered by interviewing seven volunteers who worked in the Finnish Seamen's Mission's foreign churches. The interviews were individual open interviews. The research data was analyzed applying the method developed by Amedeo Giorgi and also Juha Perttula's variation of it. The method of the analysis was applied for this study. Individual meaning networks and general meaning network describing the phenomenon were formed based on the analysis and included in the results of the study. Results and conclusions. As a result of the study, four volunteer experience content areas were created: the ethos of the voluntary work, the social dimension, the year of the opportunities, and the personal growth. The results of the study show, that the voluntary work was multifaceted and educational. Working as a volunteer was not seen only as altruistic, but volunteering was also associated with having something for yourself in return. Volunteering shows as a dialogue between giving and having, where you also try to reach something meaningful for yourself. The social relationships, cohesion, and community of the workers of the Finnish Seamen's Mission were emphasized. Peer support and feedback of the workplace were considered important. Good relationships with the members of the workplace, enough support and the experience of own significance influence to the managing, motivation and satisfaction of the volunteer. The volunteer year was a year of opportunities for the volunteers. It offered for example possibilities for self-realization, travelling, to reflect one's own plans for the future and self-examination. As an experience the year as a volunteer promotes personal growth.

Teamwork as a method is very common among employees. Working together and achieving goals craves a lot of communication and knowledge sharing among colleagues. When working with people, it is fact that there are many different personalities and communication habits. Purpose of this study was to examine how knowledge is created in teamwork. The process of the knowledge creation was examined through communication and knowledge sharing among team members. Purpose of this study was to bring up the problem points in this team and through that develop knowledge sharing and make teamwork more effective. The theoretical framework of this study concentrates to examine Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) theory of knowledge creation through knowledge conversion, but phenomenon is examined also through other researchers point of view. Results are viewed through this knowledge conversion model. The data was collected from one company's team in October-November 2015. Team members answered to a questionnaire and wrote down memories about their knowledge sharing. I also interviewed eight team members and observed two team meetings. In this team they are communicating a lot, but still there are problems with the knowledge sharing. Team is split in to two different teams, where only one half gets all the information and also shares it. Part of the team members feels that they cannot openly communicate with other team members and cannot bring up development ideas, which affects to knowledge creation. The results show that there is problem with the knowledge sharing between researcher and some research assistants.

There is an assumption of self-evident difference between people with a Roma background and others. The difference is seen as natural and apolitical. Once the difference is seen as natural it makes the phenomena related to the schooling of pupils with Roma background, such as dropping out, absences or the low number of applications for secondary education, seem natural. In the Finnish discourse of multiculturalism these phenomena tend to be explained with cultures and cultural differences. The inequalities produced in the social structures are left aside. In this master's thesis I study the ways in which teaching assistants with a Roma background organize and outline differences in their speech. I conducted five ethnographic interviews and two thematic interviews. The ethnographic interviews took place over the workdays of the interviewees in the period of 16 days. I analyzed the interviews by drawing from discursive studies and theories. I explored the interview talk as constituted in the available discourses. I studied the ways in which the interviewees talked, and asked how the narration is constituted in discourses. I explored contradictions in their talk and their ways to resist discourses and the ways to negotiate with and within them. In my analysis I asked how the subjectification becomes possible in the existing discourses and what kind of talk and understanding becomes possible in them. With this analysis I was able to understand how the discourse of difference works in everyday life of schools. The difference constituted in schools seemed fixed. Meanings given for the difference were drawn from racializing discourses and they formed conditions of possibilities for my interviewees to become subjects. In school, the interviewees had a position of the tolerated ones. Therein, they were obliged to deal with prejudices and to deconstruct them. Discourses of culturalism, cultural difference and categorization were strongly present in schools and my interviewees both challenged and used them in their work. They negotiated about the difference and for the conditions of becoming subjects by using racializing humour and by emphasizing similarities. Being visibly Roma was seen self-evidently problematic in school settings: the more visibly Roma one was, more likely one was to meet prejudices and racism. The understanding that schools are self-evidently places of prejudices and racism legitimates them as such. By analyzing the discourses of difference in schools, it becomes possible to study the positions constituted there for people with a Roma background.

The aim if this master's thesis was to examine discourses about disability in Helsingin Sanomat and to observe how a positive, heroic, stereotype about disability occurs. The background of this was influenced by disability stereotypes and social disability studies' view about disability as social construct. A social disability model was mainly used as a tool to perceive disability. Impression behind heroic stereotype exploration was a view of stigmatizing positive stereotypes. Research problems were: What kind of disability discourses do appear in Helsingin Sanomat? and What kind of discourses do appear about heroic disability? The purpose of this study was to challenge perceptions about disability and offer a new perspective to explore disability. My research material consisted of writings about disabled persons in Helsingin Sanomat in 2008-2013, which accumulated altogether 107 articles, altogether 117 pages. The analysis was based on French discourse analysis tradition, where the attention is focused on cultural products that construct reality. With the help of discourse analysis, it was explained what kind of discourses were built and what do they tell about attitudes toward disability. There appeared quite different discourses about disability, but the most noticeable was the tragic discourse. This was however challenged through opposing discourses, in which the problems focus was centered to society instead of focusing the problems toward individual. Difference discourse was striven to be emphasize the differences related to disability, but it was protested by similarity discourse. Heroic disability was constructed through opposing discourse to tragic discourse about disability and overplayed skills and persistence. This study shows that disabled are still in the marginal, though attitudes seem to be changing. Positive stereotypes are stigmatizing and uphold attitudes where skills are interpreted as an exception. At the same time disabled people may be seen as somehow magical creatures. This study highlights attitudes toward disability which can be seen as a tool to challenge prejudice and normative attitudes about disability.

When adolescents graduate from upper secondary school they face a turning-point when they shall make an occupational choice. The occupational choice can be problematic and an alternative is then to study at a folk high-school. The education programmes at the Finnish folk high-schools usually last one year and offer optional, educative and vocational education. The aim of this qualitative Master's Thesis is to investigate folk high-school students' occupational choice behaviour and their experiences of the process of the occupational choice. The aim of this is to clarify the importance of the folk high-school for adolescents' process of occupational choice. The scientific approach of this study is phenomenological, which means that the study aims to describe the informants' subjective experiences and descriptions regarding the research topic. Eleven students from Västra Nylands folkhögskola were interviewed in this study, and the collected data were analysed using theoretical interpretation. The interviews were conducted as theme interviews. The results of this study demonstrate that the reasons behind applying for the folk high-school were a need of a year off, career goals, will to become independent, pragmatically rational thinking and emotions, socialisation, and the education as a second-hand choice. Several of the informants experienced stress facing the occupational choice, but the year at the folk high-school helped them with the process as well as developed them knowledge-wise, personally and socially.