Browsing by Author "Uusitalo, Terhi"

It is disclosed in the curriculum that came in the effect autumn 2016 that schools are more than before obliged to teach emotion and interaction skills to the pupils. The aim has been to support the introduction of the curriculum with many different kinds of interventions that have an influence of individual's or group's behavior. The benefit of the intervention is not always equivalent to the goals defined. When viewing the previous study it looks like even the interventions have been discovered efficient, they don't necessarily bring the final results wanted in normal operational environments. In this study the aim is to get deeper understanding of how the skills of emotion and interaction interventions' are integrated outside the intervension classes. Concerning the changes of the current pedagogical context and the changes of the new curriculum the aim was to examine what are the requirements needed so that the knowledge of emotion and interaction intervensions are integrated as a part of pupils' and school's every day life. The study was made by interviewing six pupils and two teachers of a primary school in the southern Finland by using halfstructured theme interview. The aspect was systemic to pursue the wideness of the phenomenon. The material of the interviews was analysed with material based content analysis method by examining the material on the whole. The aspiration was to understand the culture and dynamics between different matters in the school environment. The results offer a general view of the things in the school environment and the interrelationships that have an influence on adapting emotion and interaction skills in practice. The results show how an adult appears to the pupils not only as an expert of the content but above all as a role model about the things learned. Also the existing group dynamics between the pupils, roles and status in the class appears to have a big role creating circumstances where either the learned skills merge away. Even the skills would be educated in separate classes the pupils will not necessarily be aware of the goal of the action which weakens the application of the skills. In addition of the transparency an important thing when studying the material seems to be bringing the learned skills as a systematic part of different actions during the school day. Often the efficiency of the interventions is only being examined by contents and procedures. The results of this study however show that this is not enough. Teacher's own action and the social relationships in the class creates circumstances that either supports or complicates the functionality of interventions. In order the intervension to reach its goals more efficiently one must first pinpoint possible conflicts in the existing culture in the class. The results of the study offer critical point of view for the study of intervensions and conseptual tools for improving interventions in school environment.