Browsing by Subject "monikulttuurinen oppilas"

This master's thesis describes the activities a pupil welfare group at one primary school from a multidisciplinary aspect in order to assess immigrant pupils' need of support and its organisation. My interest in this study arose from my own work with immigrant pupils during a number of years. The assessment of an immigrant pupil and the organisation of support should always take into account the previous school background and growth environment of the child. In light of previous research, a multi-professional team sees the need for support in different ways, based on the members' own educational backgrounds. This can lead to a situation where all members of the group are not aware of what various experts can do or know. The study seeks to develop the school's student welfare work and highlight development ideas related to the assessment of immigrant pupils' learning difficulties. Research on immigrant pupils' need of support and its organisation is a topical issue in Finland owing to the new Student Welfare Act. The act introduced the rapid organisation of support, which was also mentioned by the interviewees. The study is qualitative, and the material was collected by interviewing the school's pupil welfare team members. After the interview, the material was transcribed, classified, analysed and interpreted. The data were analysed using content analysis. The main reference framework of the interviews was multi-cultural students and their support needs, as well as the organisation of support at a multi-professional level. Pupils were selected to the study based on their various cultural backgrounds in order to get as versatile views from the interviewees as possible. The aim was to develop the working group's student welfare activities both in terms of the allocation of time and communications. As a rule, the group was satisfied with the members' strong professional competence and good cooperation. The aspects that were highlighted in the results were the language problems of immigrant pupils, which deteriorated the pupils' social interaction. Social relationships were seen as the main driver of the pupils' school well-being. In addition, the families' lack of knowledge of the Finnish school system and the implementation of assistance hampered the organisation. Thus, the implementation of support slowed down, which hindered the pupils' integration to Finland. The results emphasised the importance of the pupil's own mother tongue in identifying learning difficulties. This study showed that the pupil's native language is not utilised efficiently enough. The study can be used for developing the assessment of immigrant pupils and the school's pupil welfare work.