Browsing by Subject "opettajan rooli"

Objectives. In the research, I study class teacher students’ views on controversial and difficult topics in teaching. In addition, I study their views on how the teacher should act in relation to the content of this teaching. This research sees controversial and difficult topics as naturally present in everyday school life, as part of everyday hectic situations, and to some extent they are also unconscious. The teaching of controversial topics requires the teacher to understand complex phenomena that divide society, and in difficult topics the subjective experience of the person is emphasized. I study the teacher's activities in relation to the subjects from the perspectives of the teacher's role descriptions, the teacher's own opinions, and the concept of influence. Methods. I interviewed nine master’s student class teachers and with the help of theme interviews, I found the focal points for this study in the wide field of teaching controversial and difficult subjects. With the help of a phenomenological-hermeneutic research strategy, I aim to understand and interpret the content of the teaching and the role of the teacher and to make what is known known. With the help of thematization, I got structured and described material, and the quotes from the interviewees served to support understanding in the research. I have analyzed the material with a theory-driven content analysis in such a way that the theory has functioned as a support for the analysis. However, I have started the analysis based on the data by classifying the topics and highlighting the influence-related dimension in the review of the role. The topics do not correspond to the theoretical reviews of the background chapters but analyzing them as controversial and difficult topics binds the analysis to a theoretical framework. I analyzed the teacher's activity and role using Kelly's (1986) four roles, which I applied based on the analysis. Results and conclusions. In the first part of the analysis, I formed five themes from the controversial and difficult topics: current topics, topics related to sexuality and gender education, topics related to multiculturalism and pluralism, topics related to the contents of the subjects and other topics related to teaching. For some topics, it was not possible for me to fully know whether the interviewee meant the topic to be controversial or rather difficult. Therefore, as part of the analysis, I considered the difference between a controversial and a difficult topic. In the second part of the analysis, a picture was formed of the teacher's actions as a promoter of listening to different views and as a presenter of one's own opinions with certain boundary conditions. The teacher's role was positioned to the left of the axis list, i.e. the roles of permissive neutral and permissive committed. The influence of the teacher had different meanings and not all descriptions of the role fit into the axis list, which made us think about the role beyond the axis list.

The purpose of this thesis was to understand early childhood education teachers' perceptions of their roles as parenting supporters, as well as the factors influencing the formation of these roles. Previous studies show that cooperation with parents is important, but supporting parenting as part of the early childhood education teacher's work has received little attention. However, in light of the statistics, there is a need for parenting support, but especially the function of early childhood education as a provider of support would need a more precise definition. The background theory of the research was the role theory used in the social sciences, according to which human social behavior is guided by models adopted based on expectations, roles. The research material was gathered through an electric survey, which was answered by 42 teachers. The data was analyzed using research methods of qualitative research content analysis. The analysis showed that the early childhood education teachers' views on the amount and quality of parenting support vary notably between individual teachers. The expectations placed on teachers and thus also their roles as parenting supporters are diverse. Through analysis and classification, eight parenting supporter roles were found in the material; (1) educational partner, (2) delimiter, (3) listener, (4) speaker, (5) guide, (6) expert, (7) reinforcer and (8) problem solver. Each of these is built on role expectations, that were percieved by the teachers to be set either by the children's parents or by colleagues working in the early childhood education context with the teacher. The roles also represent the teachers' own role experiences, which combines personal views, experiences and individual personality. The experiential factor that most affects the role of parenting supporter was the teachers' possible personal experience of parenthood. Based on the results of the study, it can be stated that early childhood education teachers fulfill their task of parenting support through a variety of roles. Based on the teachers' answers, the combined effect of an inadequate definition of parenting support and conflicting role expectations creates a high risk of role conflict and role ambiguity. The effects of these on performance at work and well-being at work should be considered. In the light of the results, the creation of parenting supporting structures and operating models, as well as bringing them into the everyday life of early childhood education, can be seen as essential in terms of clarifying the role of the parenting supporter.