Browsing by Author "Hyppönen, Lotta"

The main purpose of this qualitative study is to identify home economics teachers’ perceptions and experiences of the integration of special needs students into home economics education. The research questions are: 1) How do home economics teachers experience the effects of integration of special needs students in their teaching? 2) What factors have teachers determined lead to the perception of integration either as a positive or negative result? This research topic is largely understudied in the area of home economics science. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to raise awareness of home economics teachers' views on integration and the lasting effects in the classroom. Six home economics teachers from the Helsinki metropolitan area participated in this study. The qualitative data were collected through a semi-structured thematic interview. The data were analyzed using the methods of qualitative content analysis. In the analysis, answers to the research questions were sought through five different themes: quality of support for the integrated students, quality of teaching, teacher’s ability to meet the demand of a special needs student, means of differentiation, and teacher's own well-being. The main results demonstrate that home economics teachers perceived the differentiation of teaching for special needs students challenging. This had a negative impact on special needs students as well as general education students. The increase in workload was perceived as the most significant factor and weakened the overall well-being of teachers. An increase in students’ tolerance and acceptance of difference was perceived as a positive factor. The special needs students in the heterogeneous teaching group who exhibited underdeveloped attention spans negatively affected the teachers’ conscience.