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Browsing by Subject "kestävyysmurros"

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  • Dunkel, Eveliina (2023)
    Urban areas have a central role in human’s impacts on the planet. A persistent, fundamental and systemic transformation of urban areas to be more sustainable is a widely recognized pursuit. Involving a variety of stakeholders in decision-making and discussing how, why, and to whose benefit urban areas should be changed is central for governing urban transformations. The study elaborates which features and negotiations key stakeholders relate to sustainable urban transformation. This is done through a frame analysis, and a serious game is used in data collection to facilitate discussion between participants. The results of this study show how urban sustainability and transformation can be framed in many ways that highlight different aspects. Role of private businesses, a competitive setting between cities, trust between different groups and accountability to citizens are elaborated in the negotiations on sustainable urban areas. Urban transformation is discussed especially related to low-carbon traffic, greening urban areas, preventing climate-change related flooding, adding possibilities to participate decision-making and more adaptive city planning. The study concludes that open communication between stakeholders of urban transformation is crucial to build trust and understanding between groups, but demand for openness may contradict with the interest for urban areas to appear in good light to and desirable for businesses and new residents.
  • Venäläinen, Lassi Waltteri (2022)
    Veganism and vegan alternatives to food have attracted increasing consumer interest in recent years. Veganism has been interpreted in previous research as a highly politicized practice, often motivated by animal ethical and environmental reasons, but at the same time hedonistic and healthy meanings have also been found to attract more and more people to try out vegan eating. For my part, I want to shed more light on the factors that contribute to staying in veganism after a dietary transition. The examination happens in the light of practice theory, in terms of meanings, materials and competencies. The practices are social, so I will also look at how the social environment affects veganism and how it is practiced in relation to the practice elements mentioned above. The study uses semi-structured interviews collected from ten people who follow a predominantly vegan diet. The contact details of seven of the participants are from the responses to the Vegan Challenge questionnaire from 2016, and the remaining three participants are acquaintances of the interviewer. The material collected by the interview was analyzed using a theory-guided content analysis method, in which practice theory guides the division and interpretation of the material. The results show that the factors that facilitate the transition to and adherence to a vegan diet have been emphasized in Finland between 2016 and 2021 in terms of materials, competences and meanings. Vegan food is becoming more available and easier to prepare than before, although the price of new vegan products is still relatively high and traditional products are more difficult to prepare. Increasingly emphasized hedonistic meanings are believed to attract to try the diet, but on the other hand, the overemphasis on healthy meanings is seen as a disincentive to transition. Communities of practice and communality support the transition to and adherence to diet, but the social environment also makes it difficult to practice. However, practitioners seek to get along in the midst of an animal food culture by developing social strategies and influencing prevailing meanings.
  • Kettunen, Paavo (2023)
    Education for sustainability has come to be seen as an important part of achieving the sustainability goals, also in universities. However, the challenge for sustainability education is that sustainability is an ever-changing and highly complex concept. One theoretical approach for studying the learning of such complex concepts and phenomena is the conceptual change research tradition. The theory of conceptual change stems from the constructivist approach to learning, according to which learning takes place by modifying and completing existing knowledge structures. Sometimes these prior knowledge structures of the learner conflict with scientific knowledge, and in order to reach a new understanding, the learner has to change and reorganize their existing conceptions. With a new conception comes a whole new way of understanding a phenomenon, as related concepts take on new meanings. The process described above is called conceptual change. This thesis studied what kind of conceptions university students had about sustainability before the University of Helsinki's Sustainability Course (SUST-001, 3 cr) in autumn 2021, and how these conceptions had changed after the course. In addition, we investigated whether there were differences between students in human and natural science-oriented disciplines in the above-mentioned aspects. Conceptions were investigated using a baseline and endline measurement design. The study sample was students enrolled in a sustainability course at the University of Helsinki (N = 109). The data was analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Based on the results, the students' perceptions were quite narrow at the beginning of the course, although the responses showed that most students came to the course with some prior knowledge of sustainability. In addition, three narrow conceptions similar to misconceptions of the conceptual change were identified from the initial survey: ecology-limited, anthropocentric and weak sustainability conceptions. In the final measurement, students' perceptions of sustainability improved and, in particular, students' understanding of the different dimensions of sustainability, the interlinkages between them and the complex nature of sustainability in general increased. About half of the narrow conceptions also changed, although the anthropocentric conception was slightly more persistent. In the cross-disciplinary analysis, attention was drawn to the tendency of students in natural science-oriented disciplines to change their narrow view in comparison to students in human science-oriented disciplines. Based on the results, the Sustainability course can be seen as successful in teaching many of the key contents of the concept of sustainability. There were also indications of conceptual change. However, there is a need to further develop the course and to integrate sustainability more broadly into the different educational programs. Furthermore, it is very important to continue to study the success of this integration and of sustainability education also in the future.