Browsing by discipline "Kasvatustiede (yleinen ja aikuiskasvatus)"

The goal of my research was to describe how adult students perceive professional knowledge and know-how, and how these diffuse among a group of students during a continuing education program. The goal was also to research the meaning of shared working life experience in improving the professional know-how of the students. My research is positioned in the field of supporting environments for adult learning with an emphasis on interaction between students in social networks. The participants of my research were 31 adult students taking part in continuing education program at the time of my study. I gathered the research data using quantitative and qualitative research methods. Quantitative network enquiry led me to do 9 theme interviews. I analyzed the data using a network analyzing program and a content analyzing method. I examined the whole community of students, the home groups of four students and the main actors who were central for the community. The analysis focused on the distribution network of professional knowledge and know-how, the distribution network of social support and the network of reciprocal interaction. Professional knowledge and know-how that diffuse between adult students in continuing education, is mostly hands-on tips and occupational experience. The factors that promote the distribution of professional experience and know-how are structural ones and factors that emphasize co-operation relationships. The structural factors are participation in adult education and in home groups and also organizational arrangements of learning. The factors that emphasize co-operation relationships are encouragement and doing learning assignments together. The central distributors of professional know-how are adult students who have long working life experience. The meaning of the diffusion of professional experience and know-how for improving professional know-how of a single adult student is in developing his professional identity and adding his social capital. In the social interaction networks, which I studied, more relations exist inside the home groups than between them, which is congruent with earlier researches. My research can be utilized by using its research methods and emphasizing its results in adult education planning and guidance.

Purpose. The aim of this study was to introduce the perceptions and opinions Finnish teachers have about the supporting and the meeting of bilingual pupil's language identity in the Finnish-Swedish schools in the Helsinki metropolitan area; the intention was to examine how the Finnish teachers describes the Finnish-Swedish schools relation against bilingualism. The intention was also to examine the meaning and purposes Finnish teachers personally give to supporting of a bilingual identity in the Finnish-Swedish schools. The intention was also to examine how Finnish teachers relate to the discussion of the bilingual school. The study contributes to form a view of how the Finnish-Swedish school in the metropolitan area currently meets and works with the progressively increasing bilingualism and to introduce how the Finnish teachers sees the role of the Finnish-Swedish school as an supporter of all its pupils languages and identities. Method. The study is written from the perspective of Finnish teachers and the material is gathered by interviewing seven teachers. The interview method used is the qualitative semi-structured interview. The material was analyzed by using qualitative content analysis. Results. From the results it appears that the meeting of bilingualism in the Finnish-Swedish schools in metropolitan area varies between schools and occurs either in a more or less secluding or integrative way so that bilingualism in some schools appear to be more of a negative and repressed and in some schools more of a positive and accepted phenomenon. Supporting bilingualism in the Finnish-Swedish schools in general are rather scarce and the bilingual identity and the Finnish receive slightly conscious or deliberate attention or place in the school. Finnish teachers advocates for a more active work around bilingualism in the Finnish-Swedish school and opinions that the Finnish-Swedish school should actively strive to improve both the work around and attitude against bilingualism in school. The Finnish teachers relates against the idea of the bilingual school with a certain reservation and do prefer a retention of the monolingual schools, but wants a more active working around bilingualism in the monolingual Swedish-speaking schools. The bilingual schools could not replace the monolingual schools as a national solution, but the bilingual school model is considered to act as an alternative for some language groups in some parts of the country.

According to previous research many preservice teachers are not sufficiently educated for teaching in multicultural classrooms. It is also known that preservice teachers often fail to give adequate definitions of multiculturism and multicultural education and that they lack an understanding of how these aspects could be included in the curriculum. The aim with this study is to explore the understanding of what is meant with cultural diversity in the classroom and multicultural education among preservice teachers. The research questions are: how conscious are the preservice teachers about their own cultural identity and its significance for the interaction with students? How do preservice teachers understand the meaning of cultural diversity in the classroom? What is their understanding of the meaning of multicultural education? What kind of demands do preservice teachers believe that multicultural schools places on them as teachers? The research was conducted as a qualitative interview study. The data was inductively analyzed using content analysis. The study drew on the theoretical framework of critical multicultural education. Data was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with open questions. Thirty informants, both class teacher students and teachers of a special subject were recruited in connections with their Master's thesis seminars. The results of the study clearly indicate that the understandings of the preservice teachers can be characterized by a lack of complexity and critical thinking. Multicultural teaching was commonly associated with immigrant children and knowledge about foreign cultures. There was a strong belief in individualism among the preservice teachers, along with a negation of the impact of social class on the lives of the pupils in school. Religion, language and partly gender were seen as significant aspects of cultural diversity in the classroom. The majority of preservice teachers considered the demands on them in multicultural classrooms as heavier compared to traditional teaching. They also considered their knowledge of how to implement multicultural perspectives in their teaching as insufficient. As a result of the research the study also indicated a lack of awareness of the importance of the personal sociocultural background in the interaction between teachers and students. In order to reach a deeper understanding of multicultural issues, a greater effort on both theory and didactics related to multicultural education should be made in the preservice teacher education. Preservice teachers would also benefit from reflection on personal knowledge constructs and assumptions associated to a pluralistic society and culturally diverse "others".

Since 2002, it has been possible for same-sex couples in Finland to register their partnership. In March 2017, same-sex marriage was legalized. The new law also gave same-sex couples equal parental rights. In the healthcare processes concerning pregnancy and parenthood, previous studies have shown that same-sex couples feel they have a good interaction with healthcare staff, but feel discriminated and offended by the healthcare processes and routines that have no preparedness for other forms of sexuality than heterosexuality. The purpose of this study is to examine how the concept of "family" is presented in the material given to prospective parents, and see whether the material projects an ideal of "family". Of interest is whether there is a heteronormative assumption that excludes all other forms of parenthood as aberrant. Methodologically, the study is based on a discourse-theoretical perspective, and the theoretical ground relates to educational research for social justice, with a link to critical family research and a queer-feminist research field, where the focus is on studying normative processes and power relations. The studied material consists of texts produced by the National Pension Institution (FPA) and the Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) in 2009-2017 and recommended to prospective parents. A total of nine guides, brochures and pamphlets were examined. The material constitutes government interpretations of a phenomena or, in cases where they are produced by other organizations, interpretations of phenomena that are socially approved. When authorities publish and distribute information sheets and pamphlets, they manage what is being presented and from what perspective the matter is discussed. The subject matter is governed by expert and professional perceptions of what is central knowledge and what parents are expected to know. They also strongly contribute to how the concept of family is perceived in the public space. In the material, the family is created in the process of becoming and being a parent. There are clear expectations and demands on parenthood, and heterosexuality is the dominating norm. Families and roles that challenge and break what is presented as normative are viewed as aberrant. Thus, in relation to the theoretical starting points, one can interpret the family by heteronormative processes, and those presented are assigned roles and "the right ones" are those closest to an assumption of a "natural heterosexuality".

Goals In this study, a week-long digital storytelling project was conducted in a labour market training course in adult education. The study problem was: how collaborative learning was present in the groups in the labour market training course and what it contributed to producing digital storytelling videos? The theoretical background in this study is Global Sharing Pedagogy -model and the collaborative learning aspect of it. For collaboration, the theoretical background are the central concepts of Hakkarainen's studies and the productive agency by Schwartz & Lin. Methods This was a case-study. The subjects in this study consisted of two labour market training groups that were united for the purposes of this study and ages of participants were from 20 to 50 years old. They were split into four smaller groups which were used as cases in this study. The smaller groups had members between four and seven. The project lasted for one week and there was from three to six hours of work each day. At the end of week, the digital stories were reviewed together. The data for this study consists of field diary during the working phase, group interviews with the groups and the finished digital stories. Each group was a separate case and the descriptions from both observation and interviews were searched for signs of collaborative learning. Each case was also compared to other cases to find differences and similarities. Results and conclusions The descriptions of learning in groups had clear aspects of collaborative learning. Each group had some aspects but three of four groups, the dedicated, the independents and the supported had significant collaborative learning present in every part of the project while the wanderers had lesser collaborative learning present. The results reveal that digital storytelling is a good tool to use in adult education to promote both collaborative learning and 20th century skills in students.

Aim. The aim of this Thesis was to find out what kind of needs for well-being the working-age Finns have and how they experience work-engagement. The Research problem was that even though the well-being need have been proved to be universal it is motivated to study the connection between well-being and work-engagement out of a subjective perspective on needs. The Classical Well-being model the Subjective Well-being Theory, SWB and Self-Determination Theory, SDT were used as the Theoretical Reference frame of this Thesis. Methods. The study was conducted in a qualitative manner. Eight people took part in this study and were interviewed. The respondents were interviewed and filled in a questionnaire regarding their background information. The interviews were conducted using a half-structured theme interview. The data was coded with the Atlas.ti programme and analyzed with the theory bound content analysis method. Results. The results confirmed that the pursuit of well-being is a value of great meaning to the respondents in this study. The results showed that well-being according to the respondents consists mainly of the satisfaction of basic needs like nurture and rest - but also of satisfying the higher level needs like self-fulfillment. Part of the basic needs were seen even as important as the higher-level needs hence, diet and working out were given a lot of attention. Work engagement was mostly affected by how one sees oneself or how other people see oneself. The results even showed that most of the working-aged people have experienced exhaustion or burnout at some point of their lives.

The penetration of digital media has had a big impact on life in modern society. The new national core curriculums for the Finnish basic education and general upper secondary education (from year 2014 and 2015) are therefore emphasizing the importance of media literacy for practicing one's citizenship. On the basis of John Dewey, social scientist and pedagogue, the aim of this study is to examine a group of Swedish speaking teachers' perception of the media education responsibility of schools. Furthermore, the aim is to review these teachers' experiences of taking part in the media education project Yle Nyhetsskolan. The research questions are: How do the teachers understand the media literacy responsibility of the schools? Besides Yle Nyhetsskolan, how do the teachers conduct media education and what are the challenges? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the project Yle Nyhetsskolan? Eight teachers, from five different basic or general upper secondary schools in the Swedish speaking part of Finland, participated in the study. All teachers had taken part in the project Yle Nyhetsskolan during year 2014. They were interviewed, based on a semi-structured model and open questions. A phenomenological approach was applied and the answers were transcribed and analyzed in three stages. The answers were categorized in order to describe the essence of the teachers' reflections. The teachers had an evident engagement for media literacy and an understanding of the importance of developed media skills in the digital society of today. The teachers found it challenging to define and integrate media literacy education and they urged for more time and shared responsibilities among colleagues. The lack of time, pedagogical tools and technical skills form the main challenges for media literacy education. There is a need for teachers training, especially focusing on pedagogical methods for integrating media literacy in the education. The teachers found the project Yle Nyhetsskolan to be authentic, exciting and rewarding. Taking part in the project was, on the other hand, challenging because projects do not always fit into the non-flexible school day and because news as a genre is difficult, to both teachers and students. Yle Nyhetsskolan should be developed into a project with an even lower threshold concerning both timescale and desired result.

Goals: The purpose of the study was to describe and analyse the content of online discussions and shared experiences among parents of children who suffer from epilepsy as well as parents' experiences with online peer support and its development. The goal was to deepen understanding of online peer support and the experiences of parents, and to develop the online activities of the Finnish Epilepsy Foundation based on the information gained. Previous studies about peer support have included group manifestations, personal experiences and peer support in community discussions. More and more peer support is available online, which has been seen in peer support studies from 2000 2009. Online peer support has been reported as both supporting and hindering empowering experiences. Previous studies have highlighted the significance of personal experiences. In this study, the concept of "experience" is defined from the standpoint of Dewey. Peer support is approached in the framework of empowerment. The study addresses four research questions. 1) What do parents of children with epilepsy write in online discussions? 2) What kind of experiences do they share in it? 3) What kind of experiences have parents had with online peer support, and which experiences further parents' empowerment? 4) How should online discussions be developed among parents? Methods: Study data was drawn from online discussions written by parents of children with epilepsy (the first message posted and the following message chain) and interviews with six (N = 6) parents who agreed to theme interviews. Web materials were written 15 June 13 December 2012. Data from theme interviews were gathered in February 2013 by interviewing parents by phone or in person. Web postings and interview content were handled using abductive content analysis, such that high rankings in the analysis utilised concepts of Siitonen's empowerment model (1999). Results and conclusions: The Internet offered parents of ill children an opportunity to share their experiences with other parents in similar life situations. In online discussions, parents shared their experiences about their children becoming ill, epilepsy treatments, support they had experienced as well as their emotions and mental images of the future. The significance of experiential data was highlighted in what parents wrote. Parents experienced the discussion environment as friendly, open, matter-of-fact and empathetic. From the standpoint of empowerment, it was significant that parents had the strength to support one another even in very difficult everyday life situations. The significance of experiences was affected by the environment of the online discussion, its content, parents' pre-conceived expectations as well as sharing emotional experiences and mental images of the future. Factors in the development of online discussions were related to briefing of the service, improved availability as well as active facilitation.

Ageing and the old age is often associated with health related problems as dementia, functional problems and social challenges as loneliness. In modern society where the life expectancy has increased also elderly are more active and healthier than they used to be. Therefore it is important to understand the needs of the modern elderly in order to plan more effective social services but also to be able to capture the inner potential that this group of modern old embrace. I have analysed data that the Institution of health and welfare gathered in connection with a project where one of the main objectives was to gain a deeper understanding of what the key elements that build up a good ageing are from the point of view of Pohjanmaa elderly. I have used Erik Allardt's theory of the welfare dimensions: having, loving, being in order to find out which of the dimensions have the most powerful connection to good ageing.The results show that the dimension being has the most powerful connection to good ageing. To increase and obtain being- resources one need to have enough of having- and loving- resources. Further it seems that the more you have of having- and loving resources the more you will have of being- resources which bode in turn more of good ageing. The connection ground between the dimensions is activity.

The Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2014 stresses the role of formative assessment in student assessment in basic education. The national curriculum offers some guidelines for how to work with formative assessment, but a lot is left unsaid. The aim of this thesis was to describe how teachers in secondary school view formative assessment and how they experience working with it. The research questions were; 1. What kind of profit do subject teachers feel the formative assessment has? 2. Which methods do subject teachers use in working with formative assessment and how do they experience this work? 3. Which challenges do subject teachers experience in connection to formative assessment? A qualitative research approach was used in this study and the data material was collected through semi-structured research interviews with eight subject teachers working in secondary school. The data sample was a selective one, consisting of teachers that felt that they were to some level working with formative assessment, even if the new national curriculum was not yet put in to effect in secondary school when the material was collected (spring 2017). The data material was analyzed trough content analysis. The results showed that subject teachers considered the profit of formative assessment to have various aspects, they felt that formative assessment functioned as a support tool for instruction and as a way to motivate and activate students. Formative assessment functioned as a support for instruction in providing the teacher with information about the students' progress and offering the students more feedback and there for helping them perform better. Working with formative assessment was also seen as a chance to motivate students by steering the instruction towards their interest and skills and making sure that everybody received some sort of positive feedback. The teachers also felt that one aim for formative assessment was to activate students and make them understand and take responsibility for their learning. All teachers had worked with self- and peer assessment as methods for formative assessment. They considered peer assessment to be easier to work with because it was easier for the students to give feedback on somebody else's work than to evaluate their own. Both self- and peer assessment required that the students had some sort of understanding of the criteria for the task they were supposed to give feedback on. The teachers had also worked on making learning intensions and criteria more explicit. This work was appreciated by both teachers and students but the challenge was to find enough time, especially when this required planning together with colleagues. Another method for working with formative assessment was discussing with the students, the discussions could be between teacher and student or a classroom dialog. The teachers experienced general challenges in working with formative assessment to be a lack of time and the need to flexible as a teacher.