Browsing by Subject "gender"
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(2024)It has been found by multiple research projects that subjective and objective measurements of greenery often do not match when measured for the same area. Some even say that this is due to these measurements considering different attributes of the greenery. However, one important factor to consider in this equation is the impact of personal characteristics of the people providing subjective greenery measurements. Factors such as age, gender, worldview and education level have been found to have an impact on how and how much people perceive greenery. As there seem to be very few studies regarding this topic which focus on people with a higher education, the participants of this study are all university students from four of the largest cities or areas in Finland: the Helsinki Capital Region, Tampere, Oulu and Turku. One of the objectives of this study are to see whether participants perceive the same amount of urban greenery as the objective amount, calculated using the “normalized difference vegetation index”. Another objective is to research whether subjective perception is dependent on whether the participant is a resident of the city, for which they are estimating the urban greenery percentage. This study also looks into whether there is a correlation between age and urban greenery perception or difference between genders regarding the perception of urban greenery. The results show that the participants tend to overestimate the amount of greenery, and that residents always perceive their home city to be greener than at least some non-residents. No significant connections were found in the tests concerning age and gender. This highlights the importance of considering personal characteristics and perceptions of people when developing new green spaces.
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(2024)The Finnish National Core Curriculum for Primary and Lower Secondary Education mandates equal treatment of all students and emphasizes the importance of increasing visibility for the appreciation of sex, gender, and sexual diversity. Despite the growing discourse on the mental health of Finnish adolescents, less attention has been paid to gender and sexual minorities, who face more bullying, loneliness, and school exhaustion than their peers, resulting in even poorer mental health. This has largely been explained by the prejudices and heteronormativity that remain widely prevalent, even within schools. Science subjects have been criticized for enforcing these heteronormative narratives through their practices. However, studies suggest that science subjects, especially biology, have the potential to challenge these narratives and foster a more inclusive and safer space for sex, gender, and sexual minorities. In this study, I aim to explore the experiences of lower secondary school students regarding the teaching of sex, gender, and sexual diversity in biology classes. Despite that the educational material used in science subjects has been fairly well studied, there is a gap in previous research regarding the actual experiences of students about these issues, and there are no studies done on this in Finland. Employing a mixed methods approach, this study integrated both semi-structured interviews, an online questionnaire, and observation of lessons. The results indicate that the perceived coverage of sex, gender, and sexual diversity is minimal or brief. Student engagement during lessons where these topics could be discussed was also shown to be minimal, and students raised several wishes for improving the teaching of these topics in biology. These findings highlight the unused potential that remains in the teaching of biology and present students’ wishes for change in the ways diversity issues could be covered in biology to create more inclusive science classrooms.
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