Browsing by Author "Kontturi, Janne"

The aim of this study was to find out the meaning family has for a pupil who studies in a special class, or how important family is for the pupil's emotional life, the development of his self-confidence, freetime activities, attitudes on school, plans for further studies and his general social development. The theoretical base of this study was formed by social scientists' theories on postmodern family, which is due to urbanization and urban life style, and theories on family pluralism, the powerful effects that changes in family life have on pupils in special education, the weak self-confidence and low sosioeconomic background among those pupils and the effects of family's sosioeconomic status on pupil's willingness to get education or the theory on the accumulation of education. Study problems were set in the direction determined by these theories and in order to study the accurateness of the theories. The method used in the study was theme interview, which is sometimes also called half-structured interview. The material for the study was collected in October 1998 in a special school in Helsinki. The material contains answers given by pupils in theme interviews and background information about pupils' families, which where collected from the pupils' parents by mail. Content analysis was used to analyze the material. The study showed that it is very important to pupils' attitudes on school and their self-confidence that their families are entire and that the families give them support. The children, whose parents are interested in school education and discuss a lot about things, seem to have positive attitudes on school and good self-confidence, too. The parental support also has an effect on how the pupils spend their free time and on their hobbies, too. Obviously the families have quite an important meaning for pupils in special class, but if the families don't support them, the consequence is problems particularly for the development of self-confidence. The theory on the low sosioeconomic background among students in special education gets support from this study, but nothing can be said about it's effect on further studies. On account of the results it can be suggested that special schools must arrange occasions where the pupils' parents are clearly informed about the important meaning of their support for the pupils' studies and the development of the pupils' self-confidence. The most important sources for the theoretical background were the books written by Jallinoja, Kivinenand Rinne, Moberg, Scanzoni and P. Takala. The most important sources for the method were the books written by Hirsjärvi and Hurme and Pietilä.