Browsing by Author "Kokko, Katri"

Objectives. The equality act was reformed in 2015. With the reform of the law, the obligation of equality planning and the prohibition of discrimination and harassment based on sexuality and gender were extended to educational institutions providing basic education. The purpose of my research is to find out what the first equality plans written by primary schools are like. I study the processes of forming equality plans, described by schools in their plans, the objectives set for the promotion of equality and non-discrimination, and the concrete measures that schools intend to take to achieve these objectives. This fall, the National Board of Education has published a nationwide report on equality and non-discrimination planning in basic education institutions. The results of the report are in many respects consistent with this study. The equality plans have not always been formulated on a school-by-school basis and based on an assessment of the school’s equality situation as required by the equality act. Regarding to nationwide SetStop project, the equality plans of the City of Oulu’s primary schools have also recently been evaluated. Methods. The material of this study consists of a total of 14 equality plans. The material includes municipal educational institutions that provide basic education in Finnish. Seven are primary schools, four upper schools and three comprehensive schools. The material was analysed by qualitative content analysis methods. In addition, the analysis has been influenced by the perception of language in the discourse studies as a context-bound, reality-constructing phenomenon. This study is a continuation of my bachelor’s thesis completed as a literature review in March 2020. Results and conclusions. Only about 71% of the schools in my material had made a plan as required by the equality act. One of the most significant areas for development was the offensive name-calling experienced by the students. Typically, name-calling focuses on appearance and includes suggestions related to gender or sexuality. Most of the inappropriate treatment experienced by students does not come to the attention to the attention of adults. To address these grievances, it was decided in the plans to increase the opportunities for interaction between students and teachers in order to lower the threshold for reporting harassment to an adult. Interventions and exercises for student interaction were also presented in many plans. The formation of teaching groups as mixed groups and the so-called unisex toilets were already being implemented in several schools to promote gender equality.