Vanhemmuus ja vanhemmuuden diskurssit työttömyystilanteessa

The aim of the study was to find out, what parents' discourses in a situation of unemployment are like and what kind of parenthood was constructed by these discourses. The data consisted of discourses drawn from group interviews and women's magazines in 1993-1994. The data from the group interviews comprised of 276 pages of transcribed talk. From the women's magazines (Anna, Kodin Kuvalehti, Kotiliesi) 11 articles based on personal interviews and 10 'letters to the editor' were chosen. All the data were analysed by discourse analysis (Potter & Wetherell 1987) utilising the concept of repertoire. Though parenthood in a situation of unemployment seemed versatile, certain discourses were highlighted. In the 'virtuous mother' discourse the mothers created an implicit ideal of motherhood as nurturing, which guided their activities, while simultaneously, presenting themselves as possessing these qualities. Repertoires of fatherhood constructed the 'gender equality' and the 'new father' -discourses. According to the 'new father' discourse, fathers had learnt, grown and developed as persons. In the 'gender equality' discourse the fathers were constructed more as spouses. Through these hegemonic parenting discourses the speakers, who have almost all experienced unemployment, followed the cultural expectations relating to parenting in the home: the mothers' identities approached that of the traditional mother while the identities of the fathers came closer to the identity of the new more-involved father. Those repertoires which rebelled against or contradicted to these hegemonic discourses described situations where speakers desired to separate mothering and fathering from its close ties with the family. In this case the motherhood constructed by the speakers reflected individualistic values and aimed at disengaging motherhood from the home, while fatherhood mirrored the traditional desire of fathers to be breadwinners. This study described both fathers' and mothers' experiences. Mothers as women or as wives talked repeatedly about men who have faced unemployment. In this discourse the jobless man was presented as miserable and incapable at home. However, in particular, the men's own descriptions of their daily life did not bear out this discourse. The combination of a man and unemployment does not necessarily seem to mean failure

Finnish Mothers’ and Fathers’ Constructions of and Emotions in Their Daily Lives

This article focuses on parents’ construction of and emotions in their everyday lives. The study brings into focus the meanings in the foreground of everyday life, while also revealing new insights into cultural beliefs and prejudices. Interviews were conducted with five nuclear and four divorced families, and each participant (N = 18) was interviewed twice. The second interview was a photo-narrative interview, for which each participant took photographs pertaining to their daily life. Content and thematic analysis were applied to the data. Three main categories of everyday life emerged from the data: family daily life, couples’ daily life, and one’s own daily life. The importance of and pleasure derived from one’s own daily life were emphasized as the foundation of well-being for both the individual and the whole family.peerReviewe

Arjen järjestyksistä arjen nautintoihin. Lapsiperheen arki

Johanna Mykkänen ja Marja Leena Böök käyttävät muista kirjan kirjoittajista poikkeavaa aineistoa analysoidessaan 2010-luvun lapsiperheiden jokapäiväistä elämää. Mykkänen ja Böök antoivat lapsiperheiden käyttöön kamerat, joilla heidän tuli kuvata arjen hetkiä, tiloja ja tilanteita perheessä. Syntyneiden kuvien perusteella Böök ja Mykkänen analysoivat perheiden arjen rakentumista. He osoittavat, että valokuvaaminen ja valokuvista keskusteleminen yhdessä tutkittavien kanssa on osallistava menetelmä, jonka avulla arjen käytänteistä, tunteista ja abstrakteistakin asioista voi keskustella konkreettisesti. Tutkijat löysivät aineistostaan esimerkiksi kulttuurisen ideaalin jaetusta ja tasa-arvoisesta vanhemmuudesta, mutta tämä ideaali ei välttämättä konkretisoitunut käytännön arjessa. Valokuvat ja kerronta saattoivat olla eriparisia ja ristiriidassa keskenään. Tämän tuloksen perusteella voikin esittää hedelmällisen kysymyksen jatkotutkimusta varten. Mistä nämä eriparisuudet ja hiljaiset ristiriitaisuudet kertovat? Miten nykypäivänä perheille tarjottavat tuet ja rakenteelliset rajoitteet vaikuttavat (työläis)perheiden arkeen? Millaisia mahdollisuuksia ja toisaalta tapoja ylittää rakenteita perheillä voi olla tulevaisuudessa? Mykkäsen ja Böökin mukaan perheiden arki on parhaimmillaan silloin, kun töissä menee hyvin, ”kotiasiat” ovat kunnossa ja jokaiselle perheenjäsenelle jää myös omaa tilaa ja aikaa. Tämä näyttää olevan eräänlainen normaalin, onnellisen perhe-elämän ideaali. Mutta entä sitten, kun arjen kulku häiriintyy? Kriisitilanteissa ”normaalin” arjen poliittisuus tulee esiin. Millaisia turvaverkkoja tulevaisuuden työläisperheellä on? Sysätäänkö vastuu onnellisuudesta yksinomaan perheelle itselleen vai auttaako yhteiskunta toimivan arjen edellytysten luomisessa

”Yhteisvanhemmuus – sehän olisi aivan mahtavaa, jos se toimisi!” : Eronneiden isien ja äitien puhetta yhteistyöstä ja vanhemmuudesta

•Yhteisvanhemmuudella tarkoitetaan kahden tai useamman aikuisen vastuunjakoa ja sitoutumista lapsen hoivaan ja kasvatukseen. •Eron jälkeistä yhteisvanhemmuutta on tutkittu toistaiseksi Suomessa vähän. •Tutkimus selvitti, millaisia toimijuuksia ja positioita vanhemmat ottavat puhuessaan yhteisvanhemmuudesta. Yhteistä kaikille oli puhe lapsen parhaasta sekä vanhemman ja lapsen suhteen tärkeydestä. •Yhteistyökykyisessä yhteisvanhemmuudessa korostuvat luottamus, kunnioitus ja toimiva ­vuorovaikutus sekä yhteinen ymmärrys lapsen edusta. •Tutkimuksen tulokset auttavat perheammattilaisia ymmärtämään yhteisvanhemmuuden esteitä ja mahdollisuuksia sekä löytämään perheiden tarpeista lähteviä tuen muotojapeerReviewe

Yhteistyövanhemmuus eron jälkeen : mitä, miksi ja miten?

Eron jälkeinen yhteistyövanhemmuus on moniulotteinen ilmiö. Yhteistyövanhem- muutta toteuttaessaan aikuiset joutuvat pohtimaan uudella tapaa niin arvojaan, asen- teitaan kuin arkeaan. Eronneet vanhemmat tai muut lapselle läheiset aikuiset tarvitse- vat usein monenlaista tukea yhteistyövanhemmuudessaan.nonPeerReviewe

Photo-narrative processes with children and young people

This article focuses on the photo-narrative research process with children and young people. The photo-narrative method invites children and young people to answer research questions by first taking photographs and then talking to the researcher about them. We reflect critically on our own photo-narrative study by asking such questions as: In what ways can the photo-narrative method be seen as a participative method? How were the various power relations between the child and the researcher actualized? What methodological and ethical challenges did we encounter during the research process? The study data were photographs and narratives by eight children and young people (aged 4 to 15 years), who were each interviewed twice. In the first interview, each participant was given a disposable camera and they were asked to take photographs of things and situations, persons, objects, and feelings relating to their everyday lives during one week. The second interview was a narrative interview where each participant could select the photographs he or she wanted to talk about. In this approach, interpretation of the photographs was primarily in the hands of the children and young people, while interpretation of the narratives was the responsibility of the researcher.peerReviewe

Searching for the Self : Adult International Adoptees’ Narratives of Their Search for and Reunion With Their Birth Families

In this case study, five international adoptees from Finland were interviewed about their search and reunion experiences to find out what meanings they ascribed to their identities and family relations. The thematic analysis yielded three themes: search and reunion in significant periods of life, meaning of reunion for identity, and belonging and relatedness within family. The first theme was characterized by the changing interest in birth family from the inability in childhood to fully understand the meaning of adoption and the growing interest in adolescence to adulthood where participants’ own parenthood intensified their interest. The second theme was characterized by the sense of coherence and sense of continuity that the adoptees, despite the conflicting emotions of reunion, felt they had achieved through reunion. In the third theme, reunion with their birth family appeared significant, even though belonging to a family was interpreted more as an outcome of attachment and nurture than biology. Particular for all themes was the meaning of communicating about adoption-related issues for the adoptee–adoptive parent relationship. Future research is needed to concentrate in more detail on the broad themes and to investigate how the meanings of the birth family for adoptive identity change over life courses.peerReviewe

Finnish teacher-students’ views on home-school cooperation

This study focused on the views on home-school cooperation of teacher-students who are in the process of becoming professionals. The data were gathered from five focus-group interviews of 19 Finnish teacher-students. The data were analysed thematically. Better learning results were not the general aim of cooperation; instead, the aim was the child’s well-being. All parties benefited when cooperation functioned well. Yet, factors related to parents and teachers’ lack of time hinder cooperation. The views of home-school cooperation were a combination of the participants’ childhood memories, stories they had heard from their friends and colleagues and, less saliently, ideas originating from teacher education.peerReviewe