Suchergebnisse

In this article, we examine Finnish class teachers as citizenship educators. Over the last ten years, the autonomous position of the Finnish teacher has become a symbol of the world-famous education system, and this study aims to illustrate how this freedom comes true in the framework of teacher as a citizenship educator. A prior study shows that teachers mostly share the same universal values, emphasizing altruism rather than individualism. Socially, teachers are more focused on maintaining the status quo and continuity of society than changing it radically. This article aims to answer the question how teachers define their role between society and individual learners and how they prioritize their social educational objectives. We collected our empirical data from teachers and conceptualized it using the framework of three kinds of citizens by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne. This study demonstrates that the level of understanding and interest towards social and societal issues does not easily develop into preparedness or willingness to participate or act. This is a concern worth noticing in teacher education and studies regarding teacher profession in general.

In this article, we examine Finnish class teachers as citizenship educators. Over the last ten years, the autonomous position of the Finnish teacher has become a symbol of the world-famous education system, and this study aims to illustrate how this freedom comes true in the framework of teacher as a citizenship educator. A prior study shows that teachers mostly share the same universal values, emphasizing altruism rather than individualism. Socially, teachers are more focused on maintaining the status quo and continuity of society than changing it radically. This article aims to answer the question how teachers define their role between society and individual learners and how they prioritize their social educational objectives. We collected our empirical data from teachers and conceptualized it using the framework of three kinds of citizens by Joel Westheimer and Joseph Kahne. This study demonstrates that the level of understanding and interest towards social and societal issues does not easily develop into preparedness or willingness to participate or act. This is a concern worth noticing in teacher education and studies regarding teacher profession in general. ; peerReviewed

Finland is considered to be among the most democratic countries in the world according to various international surveys. However, the level of student participation in Finnish schools is below average compared to other European Union countries even though national curricula for comprehensive education have been emphasising values of democracy since the1970s. In this chapter, we analyse how Finnish teacher education contributes to the development of education for democracy. We do this by analysing how education for democracy has been developed in teacher education in Finland, and what kind of ideals form the foundation for education for democracy in Finnish teacher education. The findings are analysed in relation to the Competences for Democratic Culture produced by the Council of Europe. ; peerReviewed

In this article, we studied how well teacher education in Finland is able to answer the changing needs of the contemporary world. More precisely, we focussed on the question of how well an alternative teacher education model guides teacher students' agency towards a transformational view of the teaching profession, making it possible for schools to enable social change. This question was studied in the framework of critical social pedagogy. The data for this article was collected ethnographically by observing meetings in the Critical Integrative Teacher Education (CITE) programme at the University of Jyväskylä in 2015–2017.
The analysis is based on a theoretical background in which we outline two different discourses on the concept of teachers' agency. The first promotes schools' role in conservation; teachers are expected to educate obedient and uncritical citizens to maintain steady economic growth. The second discourse is defined as critical and emancipatory, where the education pursues transformation in students' underlying attitudes and a deeper understanding of education and society.
The results showed that the CITE model fosters teacher students' critical self-reflection and understanding of group phenomena considering education. The students' ability to understand schools in a social context also develops. However, CITE seems to struggle in transforming the students' thinking and understanding into actions. According to the data, feelings of inability, cynicism and a lacklustre ability to understand concretely how teachers can have an impact on society through their profession prevent a more complete transformation in the students' everyday modes of action. A stronger community perspective, collaboration with institutions outside teacher education, the enabling of group-oriented action and the provision of real-life experiences regarding the transformation could better help to develop future teachers' agency towards transformational views.