Language teacher education in Finland and the cultural dimension of foreign language teaching – a student teacher perspective

The increasing importance attributed to the cultural dimension of FL education has entailed new demands for teachers and teacher educators. This paper explores the cultural agenda in Finnish language teacher education from a student teacher perspective. The focus is on the students' perceptions regarding how effectively cultural aspects are dealt with in their training, and how these perceptions may be affected by the length of time they have spent abroad. The empirical evidence suggests that both the language studies and the pedagogical studies tend to address cultural aspects to a small or very small extent. The main emphasis is placed on traditional aspects of culture, such as literature and Realia knowledge, and strategies for teaching language seem to overshadow strategies for teaching language and culture in an integrated way. Interestingly, the students' perceptions seem to vary depending on the extent to which they have experienced first‐hand contacts with other cultures.     

Doing,knowing, caring and feeling: exploring relations between nature-oriented teaching and preschool children's learning

Research has shown that early childhood science education is based on education and care, sometimes stressed as a dichotomy. The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the relations between teachers' teaching and children's learning in preschool practice, both in terms of educative processes and nature-oriented content. The ambition is also to develop and present an analysis method that facilitates these investigations. Outdoor nature experiences of preschool children (aged one to three) were video-recorded, transcribed and analysed. The methodology is based on John Dewey's pragmatic philosophy. Here, epistemological move analysis (oriented towards teachers' guiding processes as moves) and substantive learning quality analysis (oriented towards multi-dimensional learning qualities) are developed and used as analysis tools. The analyses show that the relations between teaching and learning processes and nature content are intertwined and include education and care. The teachers guide towards aesthetical, moral, cognitive and physical qualities in learning by challenging, admonishing, instructional, confirming, generative, reorienting and reconstructing moves. The results contribute to nature-oriented teaching practice and nature-oriented preschool research when discussing and investigating teaching and learning processes and nature content.     

The political dimension in ESE: the construction of a political moment model for analyzing bodily anchored political emotions in teaching and learning of the political dimension

This article departures from the understanding of environmental sustainable education (ESE) as a political project that consists of dissonant and conflicting voices. The aim of the article is to understand how affection, i.e. bodily sensations, transform into political emotions in teaching and learning settings. The article offers a philosophical and empirically based model called the ‘political moment model’ for analyzing bodily anchored political emotions in teaching and learning of the political dimension. The model was developed in response to an empirical case study where the data were somewhat confusing. In order understand the empirical data, we used parts of Mouffe’s theory of the political and various scholars’ work on political emotions and placed these aspects in a pragmatist standpoint of experience, emotions and meaning making. The model helped to investigate students’ experiences of the political dimension in situations where they experienced affection, i.e. bodily sensation, and emotions in connection with reflections and discussions about how to handle public issues of sustainable development. The article ends with a theoretical discussion of the findings in order to understand the political dimension in teaching and learning activities and to discern possible directions for future research on political moments in ESE.     

On the need to repoliticise environmental and sustainability education: rethinking the postpolitical consensus

This article draws attention to the possibilities of the ongoing philosophical discussion about cosmopolitan universal values in relation to the normative challenges in environmental and sustainability education (ESE). The purpose of this paper is to clarify the philosophical problems of addressing universally sustainable responsibilities and values in ESE. Our arguments draw inspiration from the work of three poststructuralist scholars: we explore how Butler develops her claim that universal assertion requires a cultural translation, how Mouffe exposes the political in universal claim and how Todd argues that education needs to introduce students to a political language that enables them to critically reflect on their own and other groups’ values and actions. In the concluding part, we suggest the following guidelines for rethinking ESE: unmasking the political dimension, re-politicising education, seeing beyond the relativist and objectivist divide and using passion as a moving force.     

Logics of business education for sustainability

This paper explores various kinds of logics of ‘business education for sustainability’ and how these ‘logics’ position the subject business person, based on eight teachers’ reasoning of their own practices. The concept of logics developed within a discourse theoretical framework is employed to analyse the teachers’ reasoning. The analysis takes its starting point in different approaches to how a business ought to or could take responsibility for sustainable development. Different approaches to business ethical responsibilities, in combination with assumptions about how educational content is legitimised and presupposed purposes of education, are used to construct logics of business education for sustainability. In the paper, the results of this analysis are presented as: the logic of profit-, social- or radical-oriented business education. Our results also show how the different logics position the subject business person differently, as one who adapts to, adds or creates ethical values. The results are first discussed in terms of how environmental and social challenges could be dealt with in the future and secondly, considering the risk of de-subjectification with regard to profit-oriented business education, the implications this may have for the educational quality itself.     

When the child gets in the news? A case study on the national written media in Turkey

The main purpose of this study is to analyze news stories regarding children in the national print media in the last five years using top eight newspapers in terms of circulation and evaluate these news stories based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was issued by the UN and signed by Turkey. The research was undertaken as a case study. The study data were collected from top eight newspapers in terms of circulation between 2010 and 2014 in order to reveal when and how newspapers at national level represent children and the scientific content of impressions in the national media. Results show that children appear in the national media in mostly negative cases. In conclusion, it was observed in this study, children’s rights to life, development, protection, and participation were violated at both national and international levels. In this sense, news reflects the truth about “children’s rights violations”. However, the way that children appear in news and reflection in media constitute a secondary children’s rights violation.     

Algorithmic thinking development through physical computing activities with Arduino in STEM education

Education and Information Technologies - The need to benefit from information technologies in the twenty-first century digital age is increasing in all economies to overcome problems and...     

ENGAGING ELEMENTARY PRESERVICE TEACHERS WITH ACTIVE LEARNING TEACHING METHODOLOGIES

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of active learning on preservice teachers' dignity, energy, self-management, community, and awareness (DESCA) abilities, attitudes toward teaching, and attitudes toward science. Third year preservice teachers (n = 77) from two different classes were involved in the study. One intact class was assigned as the experimental group, whereas the other intact class was assigned as the comparison group. The comparison group students received the instruction by traditional teaching, and the experimental group received instruction through an active learning paradigm. DESCA abilities and attitudes were measured before and after instruction. Results revealed that there was a significant difference favoring the active learning instruction on preservice teachers' DESCA scores; however, there was no significant difference on preservice teachers' attitudes toward teaching and science.     

School climate and psychosomatic health: a multilevel analysis

This study examined the importance of aspects of the school climate for adolescents' psychosomatic health using multilevel modelling. Analyses were based on 18,571 ninth-grade students distributed over 1,026 classes and 284 schools in the greater Stockholm area in 2004 and 2006. Both individual- and contextual-level associations between aspects of the school climate and student health were explored. While most of the aspects of the school climate under study were related to health at the individual level, only 2 of them seemed to convey an additional contextual effect reaching beyond the students who were directly affected. Thus, better health was found in classes where many students reported getting immediate teacher help with their schoolwork, and worse health was found in classes where harassment was more commonly reported. These findings remained when a number of school-contextual characteristics were adjusted for.     

BLACK HAWK DOWN: FILM ZWISCHEN REFLEKTION UND KONSTRUKTION GESELLSCHAFTLICHER WIRKLICHKEIT

International Review of Education - Am Beispiel von Ridley Scotts Kriegsfilm Black Hawk Down (USA 2001) geht dieser Artikel der Frage nach, ob Film in erster Linie eine vorhergehende Wirklichkeit...