Browsing by Author "Taipale, Nora"

This master’s thesis focuses on the support for learning and well-being in Finnish general upper secondary education. In Finland, the reform of general upper secondary education started in 2017. Under the new Act on General Upper Secondary Education (714/2018), students are entitled to receive special needs education and other support for learning, when The National Core Curriculum for General Upper Secondary Schools (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2019) will come into force in the autumn of 2021. Special education will be given by special education teachers (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2019). However, many Finnish upper secondary schools do not yet have a special education teacher, and practices in special education are still lacking (Greus et al., 2019). The main aim of this study is to structure a general view of support for learning and well-being in general upper secondary education. In addition, the purpose is to analyse factors that enable or challenge support being fulfilled in school and to examine visions of special education teachers job description in the future. The aim of this study is also to act as a tool for developing support in Finnish general upper secondary schools. This study is carried out as a qualitative case study. The data is produced in one general upper secondary school by interviewing subject teachers, the principal, the guidance counsellor, the psychologist, the school social worker and the school nurse. The support in general upper secondary school appeared multidimensional and layered. In relation to the student, three layers were found: individual support, support in group and support in the structures of the school. The best situation with support measures was in individual student welfare services, whereas in instruction individual support was rarely actualized. The main factor that challenged the support being fulfilled in instruction was the fact that subject teachers did not know the students. In student welfare services the main challenge for support was the lack of time. The job of special education teachers in the future was met with confusion and optimism.