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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2019)The experience of working within a school community not only fosters the de-velopment of key knowledge-related skills, but it also develops important social and emotional skills, which are in turn important for, and when, working within other communities. When studying to become a teacher, students have the op-portunity to reflect on the nature and significance of socioemotional interaction skills and their own understandings in respect of these skills, as well as the chance to explore the co-regulation of collective activity when studying in a long-term communal small group. Contemporary society and the perspectives, values and current concerns of science also challenge the students to reflect not only the collaborative insights they achieve but also the flexible and creative application of them. As teachers they will also need skills that will help to secure pupils’ psychological well-being. Ethics, values and morality are concretized and consolidated in collaborative reflection. Such reflection shows the morality of behaviour as a reality that reflects the theoretical, tense principles of ethical views. Furthermore, teacher identity work challenges the students' ability to know, attend to, and negotiate conflicts and contradictions such that the emotional blocking and insecurity that can slow down effective reflection may be reduced. This study examines both challenging and supportive perspectives in the context of a long-term student teacher community-based small group. At the theoretical core of the study is an attentiveness to: the socioconstructivist notion that one of the benefits collaboration affords is the potential for reflection; the need for pedagogical support, scaffolding, and the elements of co-regulation. This is a case study. The data were collected through interviews and also by utilizing the students' reflection on video and audio materials, as well as their readings and a stimulated recall questionnaire. The material has been analysed through qualita-tive content analysis. The results show that the realization of a space for a meaningful negotiation of identity in a group requires both confidence and agency and a capacity to listen to others, especially in conflictual situations, including those situations where there is the threat of a suppressive or reductive consensus. In this study, the contextual supports that enabled student teachers to benefit from conflicts when reflecting were: emotional safety, the lengthy duration of the group process and time for reflection. The processes implicated in the development of a positive communication culture, one that encourages and supports reflection and interthinking, became a central focus for the study. Where there was not evidence of a positive culture of communication, there was evidence of an emotionally disruptive atmosphere and a threatened sense of security. With respect to the scaffolding of the group, an emotionally safe atmosphere was seen to be a pre-requisite for fostering a sense of creativity in within the collaborative community was implicated in the quality of collaboration. In this case, the fading of fear and insecurity made solidarity and mutual recognition of each other's often divergent views possible to accept. Pedagogical conclusions were drawn from the results of the study: intentionality as a space of free will that under-stands the well-being of psychic activity arises as a telos of pedagogical support. Scaffolding metacognitive and metacompetences may open up onward possibilities for supporting group reflection and co-regulation.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2019)The aim of this doctoral thesis was to explore university graduates’ employability and transition to working life. The main aim was to explore graduates’ evaluations of their academic competences and how these evaluations are related to their learning. In addition, the aim was to investigate the relation between work experience, approaches to learning and study success. Follow-up study aimed to explore how graduates’ evaluate their academic competences and career success after three years of graduation, and what kinds of challenges graduates have encountered in working life. This thesis consists of four sub-studies. Study was a longitudinal study and applied a mixed-methods approach. Data included 1023 survey answers and 83 interviews at the time of graduation and 57 follow-up survey answers three years after graduation. The results of Study I showed that graduates varied in evaluations of their academic competences. Most graduates were able to extensively describe their competences, including those that are more demanding such as critical thinking and applying knowledge, as well as more practical competences. However, some graduates described their academic competences quite narrowly, emphasising only practical competences such as communications skills and information technology skills. Moreover, others had difficulties in describing and evaluating their competences at all. The results of Study II revealed that a deep approach to learning, organised studying, and especially putting effort into learn competences, was related to the richness of the evaluations of competences. The results of Study III showed that academic work was related to a deep approach to learning and non-academic work was related to a surface approach to learning and unorganised studying. In addition, own academic work had a direct negative relation to study pace when working more than 20 hours per week as well as doing more 20 hours of non-academic work per week had a negative relation to the thesis grade. Study IV showed that graduates with rich descriptions of their competences at the time of graduation had more often academic work that was related to their study field and had experienced less difficulties related to employment after graduation compared to the graduates with more limited descriptions of their competences. The results showed that significant changes in graduates’ evaluations of academic competences had occurred. After three years of graduation, collaboration and communication competences were evaluated as being less developed than they evaluated at the time of graduation. The results of Study IV also revealed that most of the challenges that graduates reported having encountered in working life were related to a need for more academic competences, especially presentation and social competences. In conclusion, this doctoral thesis provides new information on the factors that are related to employability and it extended previous employability models by adding aspect of learning as a single dimension. This doctoral thesis indicates that the ability to evaluate and describe one’s own competences at the time of graduation is an important factor for employability and career success. This doctoral thesis indicates that a mixed methods approach is needed to explore graduates’ employability and especially competences more profoundly.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2019)The aim of this dissertation is to study how cross-curricular collaboration (CCC) works, and enables new openings in subject teachers’ teaching practices. The research questions focus on the views and experiences of student teachers, supervising teachers, and principals regarding the obstacles, preconditions, and possibilities of CCC throughout teaching practice and school work in training schools. The dissertation draws on a theoretical background related to the social nature of learning, collective expertise in schools, and CCC as a promoter of the transfer of learned content. This study is a qualitative case-study in which the case is a programme to become a teacher of home economics at one Finnish university. The respondents were student teachers, supervising teachers, and principals (n=65). The data consist of group discussions, interviews, and feedback discussions, and were analyzed following the methods of inductive and qualitative content analysis. The results reveal many barriers for CCC which, in fact, is only rarely practiced during teaching practice. For the most part, the respondents had positive views of CCC, and some of the student teachers also had experiences planning for the approach. However, their plans were only rarely focused on real situations during teaching practice. The main obstacles and preconditions seem to be various administrative factors, and factors related directly to the respondents themselves, as well as the resources available to them. Factors related to the school community were seen as important preconditions of CCC. Even though CCC seems to be challenging, there are possibilities to promote pupils’ learning in a way where CCC supports the transfer of learned content. CCC can also increase the meaningfulness of learning and pupils’ motivation, and support the comprehensive understanding of learned content. CCC was found to provide new angles for teachers’ work as well as to increase well-being at work. However, some of the students comprehended that CCC is not an integral part of a teacher’s work, but is rather voluntary work. Student teachers cannot experience CCC if it is not a natural part of the culture in training schools.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2019)This research examines the subjective dimensions of intra-EU labor mobility among staff working for decentralized EU agencies located in Greece (Cedefop), Ireland (Eurofound) and Italy (European Training Foundation), and the development of their identity, interculturality and career capitals. The qualitative data for this doctoral dissertation were gathered through thematic interviews held individually with a total of 20 interviewees at the above agencies. The results show that the participants seem to have been attracted by the intercultural aspects and career opportunities of the European Union agencies. They addressed their body of knowledge (career capital) more from person-centered than contextual perspectives. So, personal motivation, professional competences and social networks were assets discussed in more depth in relation to their global careers. In general, respondents were constructively critical about how professionalism is expressed in an international work environment, and how interculturality and Europeanness are demonstrated. They occasionally questioned what it means to be intercultural or to feel European. The respondents appeared to be aware of the complexities of identifying themselves as European, even though they feel it is an essential aspect of who they are and what they are supposed to represent in their professional roles. The common characteristic of identity, interculturality and career capitals seems to be their processual, interactional and contextual nature. The results suggest that in an international professional environment the investigated capitals are closely intertwined. They express themselves differently depending on prevailing conditions, and respond to various circumstantial factors usually in a flexible way. Perplexities and uncertainties experienced around interculturality originated usually from the need to have one’s referential frameworks modified and related identifications adapted to living abroad and working at a supranational level. The interviewees seem to have developed their sensitivities towards diversity and their ability to interact in a constantly transforming international environment, but they seem to lack tools, even knowledge for more profoundly understanding how to cope with these capitals.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2019)The approach of disability studies has politicized the mechanisms which prioritize able-bodiedness in culture and society. This dissertation, indebted to such perspectives, theorizes ableism as the multitude of assumptions which homogenize embodiment. The dissertation explores the cultural politics of the idea of swimming skills as civic skills and the cultural notion of human beings as part of the animal world in the articulations of swimming. Through the theory of articulation and through Foucauldian genealogy, this thesis mobilizes the cultural understandings of swimming to theorize ableism in new ways. It analyzes both historical and contemporary cultural texts about swimming, asking how the understandings available in these texts can be theorized in ways that reveal the specific cultural mechanisms of ableism and enable a conceptual critique of ableist imaginaries. From an interdisciplinary perspective which is, in particular, connected to the shared aims of disability and queer studies to politicize conventional embodiment, this dissertation offers an approach that challenges the idealization of able-bodiedness not only in culture but also in theory. It intervenes in ideas that presume that bodies which defy ableist ideals are less valuable. Furthermore, the perspective offered by this thesis enables the consideration of analytic attachments to conventional embodiment in contemporary cultural critique. By putting forward the concept of "able-bodied belonging", the analysis considers cultural mechanisms which reinforce ableism while providing ostensibly inclusive modes of belonging. The dissertation offers a biopolitical analysis of articulations of physical skills introducing an approach to thinking about how our personal relationships to the qualities of our bodies are byproducts of biopolitics/thanatopolitics. The concept of the "repressive hypothesis of the body", introduced in the thesis, enables a consideration of how the assumption of repression normalizes embodiment and prioritizes conventional able-bodiedness. Finally, the formulation of "bodies of latent potential" helps to pay attention to how notions of bodies as moldable and connected to cultural factors have emerged in the intersections of colonialist, ableist and eugenicist understandings.
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(Yliopistopaino Unigrafia, 2019)The research examines how Chinese educational leaders (CEL) perceive transnational educational leadership training (TNELT) programme characteristics, its impact on CEL’ understanding of the Finnish and Chinese education systems and their leadership practices. The focus of the research is people’s perceptions. The overall research problem is: How do CEL perceive TNELT programme characteristics and impact? The main research problem was examined through three research questions: (1) What are CEL’ perceptions of the characteristics of an effective TNELT programme? (Study I) (2) How do CEL perceive the impact of Sino-Finnish TNELT programme on their understanding of Finnish and Chinese education systems? (Study II & Study III) and (3) How do CEL perceive the impact of Sino-Finnish TNELT programme on their leadership practices? (Study II & Study III) The research employed multiple case studies. A qualitative approach was adopted for the research. The data was collected by means of interviews, learning reports and reflection workshops. The thesis comprises three refereed articles and a summary. The findings show that: (1) Perceived programme characteristics consists of content, methods, format and social aspects; (2) Perceived impact on CEL’ understanding of the Finnish and Chinese education systems contains equality and equity, autonomy, physical and social environment, quality and quantity of teachers, and role of decision-makers; (3) Perceived impact on CEL’ leadership practices comprised of a different form of leadership, confidence, and willingness to change. The findings help us to understand: what makes good TNELT programmes for CEL? I argue that ethical issues must be taken into consideration for sustainable Finnish education export to China. The research is relevant for those who work on other contexts of edu-business, especially between Europe and China.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2019)The aim of this doctoral dissertation is to provide new insights into the dynamics of academic emotions, especially in the socially embedded situations of two cohorts of learners: pupils that are learning at the school and student teachers that are learning for the school. Both invariant and contextual elements of the academic emotions in these two active groups of learners were analysed. This dissertation consists of three original studies. The focus of the first two sub-studies was on analysing the landscape of student teachers’ academic emotions during their studies in different activities provided by teacher education (Study I) and on investigating student teachers’ emotional patterns and their triggers (Study II). Pupils’ socially embedded emotions in teacher-pupil and peer interactions in different learning environments of comprehensive school were investigated in Study III. In the dissertation a mixed methods approach, has been utilised, combining both qualitative and quantitative methods. The student teacher cohort consisted of 19 students who were finishing their studies, from whom the semi-structured interview data with retrospective narration and visualisation were collected. Picture tasks and survey data were collected from146 sixth and eighth graders. The results of Study I showed that student teachers’ emotional landscape is rich and filled with a range of academic emotions. Most commonly, student teachers described positive emotions, from which activating emotions were emphasised. Negative emotions, on the other hand, were typically deactivating. Most of the positive and negative emotions were related to motivational elements. Student teachers’ emotional experiences were more commonly embedded in individual activities than in social activities. Moreover, they were situated in the key activities of student teachers’ professional development: major subject studies and practice. The results of Study II showed that student teachers’ emotional experiences during their studies were constituted from five different emotional patterns (positive, negative, ascending, descending and changing). The patterns were highly motivationally toned and focused on studying and learning. Most of the emotional patterns were positive, filled with experienced enthusiasm and interest, still a fair number of changing patterns were also detected. The patterns were experienced equally in short, medium-length and long episodes, indicating that the negatively-loaded experiences did not accumulate over longer periods of time. The triggers of the patterns were highly task-related and tightly connected to the key elements of studying to become a teacher. The results of Study III showed that the social interactions at school are significant arenas for pupils’ emotions. In particular, the informal learning environment was emphasised in peer related emotions. The results also suggested that emphasising negative emotions in teacher-pupil interaction seems to be related to pupils’ cynicism and decreased the extent of thriving at school. This dissertation contributes to the literature on academic emotions by a) providing new understanding of the dynamic nature of academic emotions, especially in the socially embedded situations; b) providing new insights on the invariant and contextual elements of the academic emotions of two cohorts of active learners; c) by proposing an extension of the concept of academic emotions and d) responding to the need for mixed methods approach.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2019)The dissertation examines how integration policies and practices in education function and participate in the making of immigrant subjectivities. Drawing on two ethnographic studies from a lower secondary school and pre-vocational training for immigrants (MAVA programme) in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland, it asks: how does integration function in education as a form of policy and practice; how do integration policies and practices in education designed to enhance integration of immigrants serve to constitute immigrant subjectivities and with what consequences; and how do gendering and racialising dynamics intersect in integration policies and practices in education. The data produced include interviews with 20 students (named as immigrants by the education system and beyond) and 14 education professionals working with them, observation notes, over 90 policy documents related to immigration, integration and education, and other data, such as teaching and learning materials and media texts. Methodologically, the dissertation both builds on and challenges feminist ethnographic research. Theoretically, it relates to the postcolonial and poststructural theoretisations and utilises the concepts of subjectification and racialisation with intersectional frame. The dissertation arrives at four main findings. The dissertation argues that while the official, well-intentioned aim of integration is to make people named as immigrants active and equal members of Finnish society, to prevent their social exclusion, and decrease their unemployment, integration measures actually reinforce rather than redresses marginalisation and exclusion of people named as immigrants. For example, despite the investment in integration, the employment situation of immigrants remains chronic and racism is a constant part of everyday life of racialised people. Second, the dissertation argues that education officially promotes multiculturalism and tolerance, and aims to achieve equality. In practice, however, education participates in creating racial and gendered segregation both in education and in the labour market. For example, pushing immigrants in general, and young immigrant women in particular, to the care sector regardless of their personal interests, experiences and needs, simply because they are considered to be immigrants (and young and women), is interpreted in the dissertation as exploitative racism. Third, the dissertation shows that while policymakers and the majority population, including education professionals, do not consider the term “immigrant” insulting but a neutral term, simply capturing people from “other cultures”, people named as immigrants interpreted the term as stigmatising and equivalent to inferiority: in oftentimes to be named as an immigrant meant to be worth less than. This injurious naming was resisted, for example, by naming the self and others in the “inner circle” with self-chosen terms in order to escape the racialised subject position as immigrants. Fourth, the dissertation develops a concept of immigrantisation to describe how through integration policies and practices in education a group of people from various backgrounds, experiences, interests and needs become constituted and treated as one, as immigrants. The process of immigrantisation can be, however, resisted and troubled to open ways to act against the expected, “suitable”, gendered and racialised integration routes, and as such, against the racist integration policies and practices.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)This dissertation focuses on doctoral school knowledge capitalism management, and is framed within the higher education policy discussion. Knowledge capita-lism management means more effective financial control over knowledge and science, as well as researchers and knowing. The research focuses on the consequences of knowledge capitalism management from the aspects of researcher agency, doctoral students, knowledge and knowing. The aim is to analyse how doctoral students’ agency is formed in the field of knowledge capitalism management, and what kind of knowledge production and knowledge management is possible through doctoral school. The study is framed within the structural change in national doctoral education following the new University Act. The dissertation includes four articles and a summary chapter. The research data consist of 28 interviews with doctoral students, as well as academic policy documents. The study’s methodological approach is discursive reading. The results suggest that knowledge capitalism management appears to be economical in terms of demanding efficiency and productivity in doctoral school, research and knowledge production. Especially in the field of research funding, knowledge capitalism management is particularly evident. Article I shows that research funding regulates academic projects and related dissertations, and more deeply, researchers' economy. Article II highlights the vagueness of university administration's actions in the transformation of graduate school and the consequences of knowledge capitalism management that affect the agency of researc-hers. Article III examines publishing policy as part of knowledge capitalism ma-nagement that regulates the knowledge and understanding of researchers. The article demonstrates an appreciation of the differences between a monograph and article dissertation. Article IV discusses the social impact of knowledge, in which knowledge capitalism aims to produce useful research data. This is reflected in the research choices made by researchers, the kind of information that is produced, and how research data is communicated. The study’s main finding is that a doctoral student must act according to knowledge capitalism management, maintain an economic approach and negotiate with knowledge capitalism management to achieve a doctoral degree. In researcher training, there are power relations and vague practices concerning knowledge production as well as being a researcher. The consequences of knowledge capitalism management have an influence on agency mainly in terms of management practices, such as uncertain research funding. On the other hand, knowledge capitalism management offers the researcher opportunities for 'right management' and success, as well as challenge management, which may allow for various possibilities to do things differently.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)This doctoral dissertation examines how Indigenous knowledge is recognized and incorporated into a teacher education programme targeted at Amazonian Indigenous Shuar, Achuar and Kichwa students. It is based on an ethnographic field study in an intercultural bilingual teacher education (IBTE) institute in the Amazonian region of Ecuador. This study leans on theory and concepts deriving from critical studies in education, including critical pedagogy, culturally relevant pedagogy, critical race theory, and decolonizing studies on Indigenous education. Moreover, based on postcolonial and decolonial research literature, this study discusses the global epistemic power relations. The ethnographic field study at the teacher education institute involved data production through participant observation, individual and group interviews with teacher education students, teacher educators and elementary school teachers. In addition, the study employed a participatory photography method that involved teacher education students taking photographs, about which they were later interviewed. This study showed that the Shuar, Achuar and Kichwa teacher education students conceptualized knowledge and learning primarily through their everyday domestic life, and that schooling seemed to play a secondary role. Both the students and the teacher educators were concerned about the amount of theory-oriented education in schools, and believed that learning through observation and practice, hands-on activities and manipulative educational materials was culturally pertinent for the Indigenous students. The interview data show that many of the Kichwa, Shuar and non-Indigenous teacher educators were committed to reasserting and supporting the revival of Indigenous knowledge. Furthermore, these educators perceived Indigenous knowledge as an important resource in terms of confirming Indigenous identity. The interviews and observations showed that the educators promoted Indigenous knowledge in their instruction by bringing students’ knowledge into the classroom, using culturally relevant instruction methods and connecting with the Indigenous community. The non-Indigenous. The observation data also showed some examples of educators furthering dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledges, which offered opportunities to regenerate Indigenous knowledge by creating knowledge in between diverse epistemologies. The study indicates that more effort is needed to develop instructional practices that would better reflect Indigenous epistemologies. The data showed that the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge into instruction forms a challenge for educators because of the lack of adequate educational materials, insufficient or lacking initial or in-service education related to Indigenous students and intercultural bilingual education (IBE), and the lack of the educators’ understanding of epistemological diversity and Indigenous knowledges. Furthermore, IBE teacher educators’ cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds vary, as does their commitment to IBE and their preparedness and willingness to break with the epistemological hierarchy and strive for epistemological justice by promoting Indigenous and alternative knowledges, ways of thinking and instruction practices.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)Eating habits are linked to the growth and development of children and young people as well as wellbeing in childhood and adulthood. The development of positive, sustainable eating habits can be promoted with the help of food education. Food education is especially important in modern society, as a wide range of food-related information is spread quickly through the social media channels. There have been hardly any studies on the subject of free-time food education and the foodscapes of young people. The objective of this research study is to understand how young people’s food-related choices and learning can be guided by food education and foodscapes and how young people learn food-related skills and knowledge during their leisure activities. In particular, the role of youth centres as food educators is examined. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative research is used to explore young people’s views on the healthiness of their own eating habits and how they cope with everyday food preparation. The quantitative data were gathered as part of the Youth Barometer 2015 survey. It was answered by 1894 people aged 15–29 years. The data were analysed with SPSS using different statistics, cross-tabulation, factor analysis and logistic regression analysis. Food education is linked to many different foodscapes. The concept of the foodscape helps us understand the diversity of food in children’s lives. The qualitative research improves the understanding of young people’s perceptions of youth centres as foodscapes and learning environments. The qualitative data were gathered at four youth centres in the city of Helsinki. 21 young people (13–17 years of age) took part in focus group discussions. The data were supplemented by observation of the activities and interviews with youth workers. The qualitative data were analysed by qualitative content analysis. Peers and opportunities to have an influence are important factors affecting young people’s food preparation in their free time. The concept of food sense emphasises agency, subjectivity and social meaning. The quantitative and qualitative research results are studied in parallel in terms of food sense to understand youth centres’ opportunities to improve the food choices of young people. The findings of this research indicate that youth centres and guided leisure activities have the opportunity to support the food-related learning of young people and develop their food preparation skills alongside and in addition to what they learn at school and home. The work performed by different food educators should be made more visible and different organisations should cooperate so that young people can identify connections between what they learn in different environments and thus make better use of what they learn.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)This study focuses on the potential of objects in craftwork activities, specifically in wooden boat building. The monograph addresses two polar trends in scientific conceptualisations of craftwork: eliminating objects from skill-focused analyses of crafts and eliminating the cultural and historical potential of objects in craftwork. This study aims to move beyond general interpretations of craft revival using cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), with the core principle of the approach being a focus on concrete activities, specifically object-orientedness. The notion of an object of activity helps to ground motivation in the objective world and facilitates an understanding of why people do things. In this study, the notion of an object is used as an entity for anchoring crafts — as a way to understand concrete cases of craft revival. CHAT was enriched with the approaches of actor-network theory and the epistemic approach proposed by Karin Knorr Cetina. The ethnographic data for the study come from three wooden shipyards in Finland, Russia and India, collected between 2012 and 2014. All the shipyards were producing similar usable wooden vessels at the time. The potential of the object in craft is that the object of activity instantiates differently in various concrete cultural and historical circumstances, specifically through cultural and historical features accumulated across time and space. Study of the object of activity offers the possibility to compress human efforts into a certain point of time and cultural moment, and thus, to expand activities across temporal and cultural boundaries. The unifying factor of the object in craft resides precisely in its diversity, in its cultural and historical features or differences, formed by specific local circumstances. The primary contradiction in the craft of wooden boat building is the movement between adhering to old ways (following the ancient craft or even replicating history) and responding to new practices (building a boat that satisfies market demands). This constant back-and-forth movement becomes visible in the everyday work of craftsmen as certain tensions and struggles arise. Wooden boats mediate the relationships both within and across communities of craft workers. They are a way to make history and culture tangible and alive, transferring it further into the future.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)This dissertation explored higher education teachers’ experiences in developing their professional practices and how change can be achieved successfully. The pedagogical development process in one university of applied sciences was the context of three sub-studies, which investigated teachers’ experiences utilizing strength-focused theoretical constructs, following the positive approach. This study also served the development of competence-based higher education, and the more specific focuses for the sub-studies were driven from the field. The data for this qualitative and practice-based study were collected using interviews and questionnaires. Study 1 investigated the socio-psychological wellbeing for learning constructed in teacher-student relationship. Fifteen experienced teachers were interviewed when developing their guidance practices. The focus was on teachers’ optimal pedagogical practices facilitating socio-psychological wellbeing in terms of building students’ feelings of relatedness, competence and autonomy. The findings describe teachers’ holistic approach to guidance and how they consciously facilitated students’ socio-psychological wellbeing by attuning their pedagogical practices according to the needs of students. The teachers also felt that this had an impact on their own wellbeing. Study 2 focused on teachers’ needs for successful change in the phase of educational innovation in integrating research, development and innovation (RDI) activities into learning. Altogether 46 teacher-developers’ experiences related to the sources of enthusiasm and interest as well as the support needed were studied using a questionnaire. The main source of interest and enthusiasm for teachers was social interaction and networking, but rigid structures and traditional practices made collaboration difficult to organize. The findings also indicated that the teachers’ changing and challenging environment offers opportunities to learn and develop, but simultaneously the facilitation of the teachers’ feelings of relatedness, competence and autonomy is needed. In Study 3 the implementation of traditional courses and subjects were transformed to integrated competence-based learning entities and teachers were organized to work as teams. To deepen the understanding of how teachers can find successful ways to work and manage in the change, the perspective was broadened to a group level by exploring teacher teams’ experiences about their collective efficacy and resilience in developing new collaborative practices. Five teacher teams’ experiences were collected using team interviews and individual follow-up questionnaires. The findings indicated that increased teacher collaboration had a positive impact on managing the change. The teacher teams experienced trust in overcoming challenges as well as collective agility and flexibility; this supported collective efficacy and resilience within the team. Students’ motivation and engagement encouraged teachers to craft their professional practices, but time management and workload made it more difficult. The challenges in creating new practices created an opportunity for teacher teams to overcome and develop together. The findings of this study suggested that the successful change in the higher education teachers’ professional practices is based on their capacity to craft their job. Teachers can learn new practices while developing them. They can improve the fit between their own personal way of working and the continuously evolving environment by crafting their work in a flexible and creative way. They can build new kinds of relationships with their students and colleagues based on trust, relatedness and connectedness. They can find new focuses on what tasks in their work are the most essential ones and what tasks need to be put aside as time-management is a challenge. They also need to change the way they think about their job, relying on collaboration and networking. To embrace this change, teachers need to be considered as learners themselves and the ownership of development must be in their own hands to sustain engagement. Teachers with a variety of competences can collaboratively craft their work to be meaningful, but the organizational frame must prevent fragmentation and give value to innovativeness and creativity. Keywords: Higher education, universities of applied sciences, teacher learning, pedagogical change, educational innovation, practice-based research
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)Finns have been able to get acquainted with Estonia's history through new fiction, performances and films. Sofi Oksanen has been one player in the process through her play and novel Purge. Purge tells about the fates of the sisters of an Estonian family during 1930's to 1950's and after restoration of independence. Two adaptations based on novel Purge were produced in 2012, an opera and a film. In its various forms of expression, Purge has thus told about Estonia's history and brought forward a new viewpoint, the fates of Estonian women, to it. In the discussions of Purge, one theme has, however, been disregarded, i.e. the aesthetic and skills-based activity of Estonians, which was carried out to preserve the national identity and culture during the Soviet era. This activity manifested itself also through dress. Purge reflects the theme as its story is built through descriptions of the appearance, skills, action, fates and clothing of the characters. The objective of the study was to examine 1) the role of these descriptions and of the knowledge of Estonians' sartorial history for the makers, performers and audiences of the premieres of play, opera and film Purge and 2) how the characters of Purge were constructed, represented and interpreted through costumes in the adaptations. The data consists of written, visual and audio-visual materials, interviews and audience inquiries. The costumes were studied as a continuum from Oksanen's Purge to the construction, representation and interpretation of the adaptations. The costumes of the adaptations balanced between the human level and the contextual level attached to Estonia as well as between realism and dramaturgical use of costumes. The sartorial history of the Estonians was not closely known among the adapters. The costumes placed the adaptations to the periods and expressed the characters. In case of film and opera, this was based on the descriptions of novel Purge. Film and opera costumes also highlighted the connection between goodness and beauty. The novel's view on the role of dress and aesthetics in the preservation of Estonian identity and culture could thus come out indirectly through them. The views of the spectators on costumes and characters were rather similar to those of the makers and performers of the adaptations. Interpretation of the costumes could be different among Estonians, which refers to contextuality of costumes and dress. All in all, the costumes served Finnish spectators by telling about the characters of Purge as a story connected to Estonia and as a human story that spectators could identify with. Through examination of dress, literary descriptions of dress and costumes the relation between a historical performance or film and a past era can deepen in an interesting way. Examination of costumes should thus be an integral part of study of historical performances and films.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)In this study, I analyse the education of subject teacher candidates and the rhetoric of committee and evaluation texts that have regulated and guided teacher education in Finland from the 1970s to the present day. The data of this research consist of degree requirements of teacher education, committee and evaluation texts and surveys. In investigating committee and evaluation texts I use rhetorical analysis, which is a quite rarely used method in the field of education. The need for a historical view of subject teacher education is emphasized by many studies about the history of class teacher education. During the last four decades, the theoretical content of studies in subject teacher education has increased and the amount of practically oriented studies have decreased. Despite this shift in emphasis, subject teacher education is characterized by strong historical continuity and stability. At the same period, the education of class teacher teachers has changed significantly. This highlights the stability of subject teacher education. During the period analysed in this study, the aims given to teacher education and teachers have significantly increased. In policy texts, teachers have become educational experts who are expected to be able to do independent research based on their own teaching. Based on rhetorical and historical analyses there seems to be a discrepancy between committee and evaluation texts and the historical stability of the subject teacher’s studies. These texts are interpreted as epideictic speech, which aims to persuade its audience of the benefits of research-based teacher education. The analysis reveals that the argumentation of evaluation texts is selective. The stated proposals are expressed as being inevitable. These results challenge the claim that Finnish teacher education has re-solved the demanding relationship between theory and practice. In my interpretation, the rhetoric of policy texts and the disciplinary developments in subject teacher education embody efforts to raise the academic status of teacher education. Keywords: Teacher Education, teacher training, subject teachers, rhetorical analysis
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)My research takes three embodied perspectives on collaborative design. In this research, collaborative design represents a specific type of knowledge creation oriented toward artefact creation, and a context for pedagogical practices in higher education. The three perspectives grew out of a continuum of research on the features and challenges of learning collaborative design in higher education, a multidisciplinary research project on forms of embodiment in design, and four identified gaps in the research literature. The first of the three perspectives is sketching, an acknowledged discipline-specific practice in design. The second perspective is gesturing. Gesturing is frequently characterised as spontaneous communicative behaviour, as opposed to practice. The third perspective entails a practice not always included in design discourses: material explorations that bridge designing and making. Despite their obvious differences, not to mention different treatments that these perspectives have received from design researchers, a common grounding feature emerges when they are examined through the lens of embodiment: they are all body-based channels through which individuals’ personal knowledge and experiences diffuse in two directions. To emphasise that they utilise capabilities shaped and developed by individuals’ developmental and experiential histories, that they have an embodied base, I coin them embodied resources. When these embodied resources provide significant input and advance designing, they have an epistemically meaningful role in the process. This is what I call embodied creation of knowledge. The theoretical part of my research consolidates prior key results on sketching, gestures and material explorations as well as ideation in design, and complements these with an extensive display of gesture research approaches and results. Together, they highlight the identified mechanisms behind idea generation and how the use of embodied resources could facilitate designing. In turn, this facilitation could yield embodied creation of knowledge, where the knowledge is relevant at least at the local level, for that particular design task. Juxtapositioning the three perspectives deepen our understanding of their current uses and their possibilities for embodied creation of knowledge in the context of collaborative design in higher education. Accordingly, my three main research questions focus on the epistemic role of sketching and gesturing in collaborative designing and the characteristics of collaborative creation of material knowledge through exploration. Identifying the epistemic roles, i.e. the characteristic uses that bring significant input and advance designing, required analysis of the collaborative processes. For the empirical part of my research, process data from two collaborative design and make projects in higher education were collected. The primary data from designing was in video format. The data from making included textual diary entries with attached photographs. To tackle the well-known challenges introduced by transcribing, i.e. producing linguistic translations to describe the use of embodied resources, I developed a video-based qualitative content analysis method. This method permitted me to identify and examine design- relevant meanings fed by embodied resources. It was a rigorous micro-level analysis method that rendered not only the meaning but also the frequency of parallel channels of communication and thinking. According to my research results, sketching was especially strong for studying complicated structures that required precision and memory. Even if the uses for sketching were not completely related to structures, gestures had more versatile uses. Gestures were preferred for dynamic, spatio-motoric aspects, haptic meanings and embodied experiences, but were also used for less complicated structures. Research on material explorations showed that explorations were frequently used but the created material knowledge was treated as a vehicle to address challenges in making rather than a source of inspiration. My research has several implications for design and gesture research. The active and rich use of embodied resources can turn collaborative designing into the drafting of a series of two-, three- and/or our-dimensional depictions. It is central for designing that in these depictions, potentially essential features of the solution and the problem emerge as the indigenous characters of each resource guide and restrict the production of the depictions. Equally important is that the drafting/production of the depictions implicitly tests those emergent features visually, spatio-motorically and/or kinaesthetically. Moreover, the use of the embodied resources along with the linguistic resources is related to patterns of collaboration and immediacy of sharing, and thus the unfolding of the working processes and collaborative creativity. When combined with active perception, they can turn interaction into inspiraction, i.e. interaction that sparks inspiration in oneself and in others. To conclude, the epistemic role of the studied resources is not necessarily limited to communication and thinking, but could entail the ability to elicit more ideas. This yields to a new approach for gesture research; gestures in the context of creative processes.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)This doctoral thesis focuses on international master’s programs and develops an analytic typology of normative ideas, planning, and practices for understanding gaps in internationalization. The study sees internationalization as an empty term that acquires meaning in context. As a socially constructed phenomenon, it emerges through a variety of competing perspectives. The macro-planning of internationalization relies on economic and political conditions; it envisions a broad societal impact. This context gives little room for university agency in developing internationalization for academic purposes. Internationalization implementation at the institutional level adds complexity to everyday functioning, rather than offering solutions to new challenges. Critiques of internationalization often use references to the university system of the Middle Ages, where institutional functioning was not tied to the market. Despite the inconsistency of this metaphor, it raises a useful discussion about expectations regarding institutions of higher education. Currently, the university is aligned with the state economically and politically, while the individual dimension of internationalization is overlooked. Ideas of reacting to globalization and remaining competitive dominate those of transforming knowledge sources and rethinking curricula. This study conducts an analysis of four English-medium master’s programs at three universities in Finland. These programs exemplify long-term internationalization. Along with the macro context of development revealed through document analysis, research elicits individual perspectives on internationalization through interviews with students and teachers, revealing individuals’ inclusion in higher education processes. Use of discourse analysis also brings attention to omissions and inconsistencies in the representations of internationalization. Inquiry suggests that despite academic and planning discussion turning towards “holistic” and long-term internationalization, in the way it is operationalized in documents and individual responses it is still featured as an external characteristic. It is a separate university activity in terms of administrative efforts, managing content and viewing results. The framework of ‘internationalization at home’ is not overcoming the isolation of international students and master’s programs within the university. Arguments in the discussion about internationalization gaps point towards a lack of cohesion between normative ideas, planning and practices. Economic and political rationales prevail in the macro discourse, and further dimensions of internationalization appear in the analysis of everyday implementation and individual perspectives. Current planning and indicators do not track the emergent processes in education, where internationalization acquires a situational value. Meanwhile, due to a lack of agency, the university often fails to develop and sustain internationalization for academic purposes.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)This dissertation belongs to the field of home economics science. The background of the study includes a family work development project called Arki haltuun (AH -project), which Väestöliitto (The Family Federation of Finland) conducted from 2007–2010. This study focuses on the everyday activities of the families in the context of social work via a new tool called a sequence map. The aim of this research is to analyze what kind of activity the sequence map will produce during both family workers’ home visits and in the everyday lives of families. This research is theoretically based on the cultural-historical activity theory. In this frame of reference, the introduction of the sequence map represents cultural re-tooling, which creates possibilities for the development of new family work practices. This study, in which a zone of proximal development is the central concept, analyzes the mastery of the everyday life during family work home visits. The research data originates from the AH -project and consists of audio recordings from home visits and the written diaries of family workers. The data covers an approximately three-month working period in each family and the follow-up visits at both six months and one year after the work has ended. A total of 30 families participated in the project, and 7 families were chosen for the study. Regarding the analysis, the dynamic and contextual natures of activities were considered. The analysis focused on both interaction and activity settings between family workers and the family during home visits. The first phase of the analysis examined the development of a client process during the AH -project and the second phase focused on the objects of the everyday life within the families as well as related working processes. Use of the sequence map was essential to both phases of the analysis. The third phase conceptualized the possessions of everyday life, based on a previous analysis. The main findings of the research correlate the role of the sequence map as a mediator between family workers and the family. The sequence map integrates the client process in both social work and practical work within families. The findings concerning the mastering of everyday life can be summarized into two points: (1) the essential meaning of the human mediator while working with the sequence map and (2) the twofold meaning of routines in everyday settings. The results show that, when developing everyday activities in families, it is not enough to merely concentrate on new practices; rather families must systematically unlearn old habits at the same time.
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)Year 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of Finland’s independence. Over the course of independence, along with the construction of narratives of Finnishness, education has been among the many social and political projects harnessed to support Finland’s emergence as a viable nation-state. Finland built an educational system that has gained global attention for its excellence in outcomes. While much of both national and international public, educational, and political discourses operate around the notion of Finnishness, infused with egalitarian values, inclusivity, and ethos of excellence, there are alarming signs of realities conflicting with certain imaginaries of education and social wellbeing in the Nordic country. This interdisciplinary doctoral thesis, situated across education, and, amongst others, philosophy, sociology, and literary studies, sets out to problematize what is currently happening at the intersection of myth and reality of Finnish education, and asks: 1) How does the notion of Finnishness inform different educational actors, perspectives, and contexts?, and 2) How can Finnishness in education be deconstructed, critically examined, and reconstructed? The thesis examines the way Finnishness is found to inform perceptions on interculturality and diversity in the teaching profession, and how the notion is involved in mechanism of Othering. This work also applies and demonstrates the use of an intertextual method as a pedagogical tool to deconstruct, critically examine, and reconstruct national narratives, here Finnishness. Finally, the work describes critical and reflexive interculturality (Dervin 2016), and conceptualizes and advocates a theoretical shift in the general perception of interculturality in education towards the direction of intercultural ethics. Research data comprises ten Finnish teacher interviews and 85 open comments, two intertextual case studies with pre-service teachers, but also two commercial products on Finnish education, and Finnish ABC books (a selection 1900–2013). The thesis uses several (dialogical) qualitative methods and operates from critical and reflexive interculturality as the philosophical and theoretical lens. The results suggest Finnishness set in the realms of the nostalgic and mystified, and discourses on equality/equity and social justice in education embellished and ambiguous. While the intertextual method revealed hidden contestations challenging hegemonies and taken-for-granted ideologies, Finnishness was also found to inform mechanisms that Other those not fitting the norm. Furthermore, notion itself, Finnishness, was found to be Othered and slightly contested. Ethnocentric tendencies and essentialist biases were also found in perspectives on interculturality and diversity among teachers. The positive indications of teachers’ ethically caring, fair and just ways of promoting wellbeing and social justice were used to conceptualize and advocate intercultural ethics. With critical and reflexive interculturality as the base, I suggest that intercultural ethics can be used as a tool for meta-level thinking e.g. teacher education and training. I also argue that the proposed intertextual method can serve as a pedagogical tool across disciplines e.g. in phenomenon-based learning. Keywords: Finnishness, Finnish education, critical and reflexive interculturality, intercultural ethics, equality/equity, social justice, intertextuality
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(Helsingin yliopisto, 2018)This research explores construction of hierarchies and possibilities to unravel hierarchies in two lower-secondary schools located in socio-economically diverse areas. This performative ethnography is focused on a chiasm of cultural policy, pedagogy and artistic practices. In the beginning of the research I focused on what kind of hierarchies are constructed in a connection to new mechanisms of governance such as school choice policy and emphasized classes, quality assurance and school evaluation, and reward salary systems: What happens, when the new mechanisms of governance and schools' everyday life confronts? In the schools I was surprised by creativity and everyday possibilities the actors had. I was re-oriented to analyse as well what kind of possibilities there are in the schools to unravel hierarchies first, attached to visuality and visual arts, second, schools' emotional dynamics, third, pedagogical practices, and finally performative practices. Unravelling does not mean that a form of hierarchy would be completely unraveled. It can be a small action or a way processing it. Performative ethnographic data consists of observational data (418 pages), 34 interviews consisting teachers' and head teachers' interviews and teachers' answers to a qualitative questionary. In addition, the data includes school magazines, paintings, photographs and drawings from the school spaces. In the research schools we produced this data during a school year length period in 2009 and 2010. During the observation period, I participated in teachers' meetings, evenings for parents, evaluation meetings and schools' artistic situations, when I was invited by some of the teachers. In addition, a third complementary school participated to this research for three months period. In one of the research schools emphasized classes seemed to become classes mainly of girls with background of majority population. Teacher reward system seemed to create feelings of inequality and hierarchy. Especially head teachers felt atmosphere of competition between schools. Anyhow, there where immediate ways to unravel hierarchical effects or at least adapt them in the schools while confronting the new policy. These practices where rooted with teachers' deep understanding of their everyday life, their creativity and reflexive playfulness. Hierarchies do not seem to be fixed on cement. Hierarchies are in the movement. This research locates possibilities to unravel school hierarchies and hierarchies attached especially to students' socio-economic background and ethnicity as well. I formulate possibilities to unravel hierarchies. The possibilities actualized in the schools can be characterized through six forms of practices such as (1.) becoming conscious of new mechanisms of governance and hierarchies and challenging them; (2.) affecting directly to the decision making; (3.) creation of new resources especially for the people in lower positions in hierarchies; (4.) creating new possibility-fulfilled ways of action; (5.) new forms of recognition and ways of appreciation on the contrary to the prevailing ones; (6.) affecting to the mechanisms in the background of the hierarchies. These possibilities are actualized in the schools through their emotional dynamics, ethically supportable visual and artistic practices, performative practices such as dance and finally pedagogical courage. While creative will and latitude of movement exist, even a small action can be meaningful. It can open up new possibilities and positive circles for the young people and the schools.
