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We aimed to identify patterns of explanation that parents applied in order to explain their child's mathematical success and failure and their contribution to parental perceptions of the child's mathematical competence. It was found that the parents with a talent-based explanation or
a combination (both talent and effort) explanation for success had a significantly higher opinion of their child's mathematical competence across the child's compulsory school years than did those parents who had an effort-based explanation for success. Explanation patterns seem to represent
fairly constant interpretation modes which construe parental confidence in the child's competencies, at least in mathematics.

This study examined the gender dependence of conceptions of intelligence: what kinds of gender stereotypes would emerge in identifications and descriptions of target persons, adults and pupils, whom the subjects knew personally and considered to be intelligent. Characteristics of an
intelligent adult were rated by a sample of the general population (N = 152) and characteristics of an intelligent pupil by a group of parents (N = 69). It was found that the image of the intelligent person, whether adult or pupil, consists of many qualities. However, it was
the cognitive one (i.e. problem-solving skills) that is seen as the essence of adult intelligence, whereas school success was regarded as the essential element of pupils intelligence. Traditional gender stereotypes appeared in the images of pupils' intelligence as cognitive skill differences
favoring boys, and in the images of adult intelligence as social skill differences favoring women.

The article explores the conditions of entrepreneurship education in Finnish schools from the perspective of the school's tradition of national and territorial socialization and the new aim of educating European and global citizens. Entrepreneurship education presents a new challenge for the school system with regard to territorial socialization and the construction of the spatial self. The theme is discussed by using data consisting of Finnish pupils' narratives of entrepreneurship which were produced in the essay writing competition Good Enterprise! in 1986–2006. The analysis focuses on the prize-winning narratives which reflect both the pupils' possible selves and the ideals of entrepreneurship education. The article explores what kinds of representations of space, place and possible self young people produce in their narratives and what kinds of representations are favoured by school. Narratives representing entrepreneurship as familiar, domestic, rural and local activity constantly succeeded in the competition whereas the ideal of the global self was not so much appreciated. Moreover, the images of entrepreneurial spaces and places reproduced conventional representations of femininity and masculinity. The competition seemed to construct local and national versions of self and citizenship which were gendered, too.

Background: Major depression is such a prevalent illness worldwide that practically everyone has either direct or indirect experience of it. It is important, then, from both practical and theoretical points of view, to examine this particular experience and related conceptions. Aim: Drawing on the theory of social representations, this research set out to examine the ways in which people define depression in terms of the symptoms they attribute to people they know personally and consider to suffer from depression. Method: A group of adult participants (n = 117) were instructed to think of an individual whom they knew personally and considered to suffer from depression, to indicate the age and gender of the person, and to describe his/her symptoms. Results: A great majority of the female participants thought of a female, while the male participants thought of male and female target persons quite evenly. The symptoms attributed to depression with fair unanimity included fatigue and decreased capacity to work, to concentrate, to make decisions and to take part in hobbies. The descriptions of the depressive person were quite unanimously distinguished from the signal symptoms attaching to schizophrenia. The descriptions varied according to the characteristics of the target individuals, and their gender and age in particular, rather than the characteristics of the participants. Conclusion: People have perceptive personal experiences of depression, which are guided by socially shared interpretative frameworks.

This study addressed children's perceptions and explanations of verbal and cognitive intelligence. A group of primary-school children (N = 119) from the second, the fourth, and the sixth grades were asked to choose the best pupils of their respective classes in their mother
tongue (native language) and mathematics and to give reasons for their choices. In the mother tongue, the children tended to favor their own gender in their choices, and boys and girls were chosen as the best pupils quite evenly. In mathematics, the boys selected only boys from the second
grade on, while the girls started selecting mostly boys from the fourth grade on only. In the mother tongue the consensus was low, and the choices were explained by referring to the pupil's positive classroom behavior and appropriate work habits. But in mathematics the consensus was high,
and the choices were explained by referring to the formal academic recognition that the best pupil had attained and to the speed and correctness of his/her performance. These findings seemed to suggest that mathematical ability is personified as a masculine domain and that our culture's
gender-bound representation of mathematical ability may well be inherent to the routines of the school institution.