Styr styrdokument? : En innehållsanalys av läroböcker i samhällslära före och efter revidering av grunderna för läroplanen 2014

I avhandlingen undersöks vilken syn på medborgarskap som överförs till elever i årskurs nio via läroböckerna i samhällslära samt om revidering av grunderna för läroplanen 2014 har medfört en förändring av den bilden. Analysmaterialet består av nio stycken läroböcker i samhällslära av vilka fyra följer grunderna för läroplanen från år 2004 och fem följer de förnyade grunderna för läroplanen från år 2014. Två böcker i båda grupperna är svenskspråkiga och resten finskspråkiga. Forskningsfrågan är vilken syn på medborgarskap läroböckerna i samhällslära förmedlar och om den genomförda revideringen av grunderna för läroplanen har ändrat situationen. I avhandlingen tillämpas en kvantitativ innehållsanalys som metod. Alla nio läroböcker har analyserats och kodats enligt ett kodningssystem som är utarbetat utgående från Russell J. Daltons teori om medborgarnormer. Dalton menar att det går att skilja två olika medborgarideal utifrån vad människorna anser utgör gott medborgarskap. Dessa två olika synsätt på medborgarskap har översatts i avhandlingen som pliktinriktat medborgarskap och medvetet medborgarskap. Innehållet i böckerna har analyserats mening för mening och kodats stycke för stycke beroende på synen på medborgarskap som antingen neutral, pliktinriktad eller medveten. Hypotesen grundar sig på Daltons teori, och antar att eftersom unga generationer tenderar ha en mera medveten syn på medborgarskap och läroböckerna riktar sig till en yngre publik att synen på medborgarskap i läroböckerna ha utvecklats åt ett mera medvetet håll. Avhandlingen visar att andelen neutralt innehåll har minskat över tid, men största delen av innehållet har förblivit neutralt också efter revideringen. Resultaten visar också att framför allt innehåll där samhället behandlas, som till exempel kapitel där säkerhet, välfärdssamhället, invånare i Finland och domstolarna behandlas, har blivit mer värdeladdade. Resultaten förkastar hypotesen eftersom pliktinriktat innehåll även i de nyare böckerna är vanligare än medvetet innehåll. Istället för att innehållet skulle ha blivit mera medvetet, så har andelen medvetet innehåll stigit med 5,5% medan andelen pliktinriktat innehåll har ökat med 7,6% över tid. Revideringen har påverkat har endast i liten grad påverkat de böcker som förlaget har valt att uppdatera efter revideringen. Böcker som har publicerats efter revideringen visar tydligare tecken på en förändring

Constructing social Europe through European cultural heritage

The political and economic crises of the recent decades as well as the new changes brought on by globalization and digitalization have contributed to exacerbate social inequalities and injustice and revealed different social realities in Europe. The EU increasingly deals with social issues in its cultural and heritage policy. In this article, we explore the construction of this social dimension and advance the concept of 'social Europe' by exploring its cultural aspect based on our analysis of a recent EU heritage action, the European Heritage Label. In this action, the narrations of the European past and the attempts to foster common cultural heritage in Europe function as building blocks to create Europe as an intertwined cultural and social entity and to socialize a new generation of European citizens. We scrutinize the European Heritage Label and its notion of heritage from two perspectives. First, we analyse how the selection reports of these heritage sites construct a notion of social Europe. Second, we examine how visitors to these sites construct social Europe in their qualitative interviews. Key elements in this construction are narratives related to various values, mobility, and diversity.Peer reviewe

The green view dataset for the capital of Finland, Helsinki

Recent studies have incorporated human perspective methods like making use of street view images and measuring green view in addition to more traditional ways of mapping city greenery [1]. Green view describes the relative amount of green vegetation visible at street level and is often measured with the green view index (GVI), which describes the percentage of green vegetation in a street view image or images of a certain location [2]. The green view dataset of Helsinki was created as part of the master's thesis of Akseli Toikka at the University of Helsinki [3]. We calculated the GVI values for a set of locations on the streets of Helsinki using Google Street View (GSV) 360° panorama images from summer months (May through September) between 2009 and 2017. From the available images, a total of 94 454 matched the selection criteria. These were downloaded using the Google application programming interface (API). We calculated the GVI values from the panoramas based on the spectral characteristics of green vegetation in RGB images. The result was a set of points along the street network with GVI values. By combining the point data with the street network data of the area, we generated a dataset for GVI values along the street centre lines. Streets with GVI points within a threshold distance of 30 meters were given the average of the GVI values of the points. For the streets with no points in the vicinity (∼67%), the land cover data from the area was used to estimate the GVI, as suggested in the thesis [3]. The point and street-wise data are stored in georeferenced tables that can be utilized for further analyses with geographical information systems.Peer reviewe

A teacher-led vicarious contact intervention in culturally mixed classrooms with in- and outgroup role models of intergroup friendship

Existing prejudice-reduction interventions in schools mainly target majority students and are mostly conducted by researchers, which limits their use for anti-discriminatory practices in culturally mixed schools. We tested a teacher-led intervention aiming at prejudice-reduction among both minority and majority adolescents through vicarious contact. The effects of indirect vicarious contact rest on observed ingroup role models of intergroup contact who have positive attitudes towards the outgroup, and vice versa. However, the specific impact of vicarious contact exerted by outgroup role models in comparison with ingroup role models has never been studied in interventions conducted in naturalistic school settings. To fill these gaps, a field experiment was conducted among secondary school students in Finland (N-majority = 437; N-minority = 146). The experiment consisted of two stages, between which the ethnic status of the role models (majority vs minority) in stories read during the intervention sessions was changed. This was done to explore the impact of the in- and outgroup role models after the first stage, and to test the overall effect of the intervention on out-group attitudes and perceived in- and outgroup norms after participants were presented with both majority and minority storytellers after the second stage. The intervention affected the perceived outgroup norms among the minority participants as they perceived norms prevailing in the majority group to be more positive after the intervention. However, the ethnic status of the role models made no difference for any outcome variable. Ways to implement scientific knowledge into practice by providing research-based tools for multicultural education are discussed.Peer reviewe

Europe from Below : Notions of Europe and the European among Participants in EU Cultural Initiatives

Peer reviewe

Extreme Female Promiscuity in a Non-Social Invertebrate Species

Background: While males usually benefit from as many matings as possible, females often evolve various methods of resistance to matings. The prevalent explanation for this is that the cost of additional matings exceeds the benefits of receiving sperm from a large number of males. Here we demonstrate, however, a strongly deviating pattern of polyandry. Methodology/Principal Findings: We analysed paternity in the marine snail Littorina saxatilis by genotyping large clutches (53–79) of offspring from four females sampled in their natural habitats. We found evidence of extreme promiscuity with 15–23 males having sired the offspring of each female within the same mating period. Conclusions/Significance: Such a high level of promiscuity has previously only been observed in a few species of social insects. We argue that genetic bet-hedging (as has been suggested earlier) is unlikely to explain such extreme polyandry. Instead we propose that these high levels are examples of convenience polyandry: females accept high numbers of mating

Tiedon käyttö palvelujärjestelmän arvioinnissa : THL:n arviointitoiminto ja Tietoikkuna

Työpaperissa tarkastellaan THL:n sote-arviointiyksikössä tehtävää palvelujärjestelmän arviointitoimintaa ja sen indikaattoreista muodostuvaa tietopohjaa. Lisäksi tarkastellaan verkkopalvelu Tietoikkunaa, joka tukee tietopohjan ajantasaisuutta, avoimuutta ja hyödynnettävyyttä

Planetary well-being

Tensions between the well-being of present humans, future humans, and nonhuman nature manifest in social protests and political and academic debates over the future of Earth. The increasing consumption of natural resources no longer increases, let alone equalises, human well-being, but has led to the current ecological crisis and harms both human and nonhuman well-being. While the crisis has been acknowledged, the existing conceptual frameworks are in some respects ill-equipped to address the crisis in a way that would link the resolving of the crisis with the pivotal aim of promoting equal well-being. The shortcomings of the existing concepts in this respect relate to anthropocentric normative orientation, methodological individualism that disregards process dynamics and precludes integrating the considerations of human and nonhuman well-being, and the lack of multiscalar considerations of well-being. This work derives and proposes the concept of planetary well-being to address the aforementioned conceptual issues, to recognise the moral considerability of both human and nonhuman well-being, and to promote transdisciplinary, cross-cultural discourse for addressing the crisis and for promoting societal and cultural transformation. Conceptually, planetary well-being shifts focus on well-being from individuals to processes, Earth system and ecosystem processes, that underlie all well-being. Planetary well-being is a state where the integrity of Earth system and ecosystem processes remains unimpaired to a degree that species and populations can persist to the future and organisms have the opportunity to achieve well-being. After grounding and introducing planetary well-being, this work shortly discusses how the concept can be operationalised and reflects upon its potential as a bridging concept between different worldviews.</p

Glacial History of the North Atlantic Marine Snail, Littorina saxatilis, Inferred from Distribution of Mitochondrial DNA Lineages

The North Atlantic intertidal gastropod, Littorina saxatilis (Olivi, 1792), exhibits extreme morphological variation between and within geographic regions and has become a model for studies of local adaptation; yet a comprehensive analysis of the species' phylogeography is lacking. Here, we examine phylogeographic patterns of the species' populations in the North Atlantic and one remote Mediterranean population using sequence variation in a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene (607 bp). We found that, as opposed to many other rocky intertidal species, L. saxatilis has likely had a long and continuous history in the Northwest Atlantic, including survival during the last glacial maximum (LGM), possibly in two refugia. In the Northeast Atlantic, several areas likely harboured refugial populations that recolonized different parts of this region after glacial retreat, resulting in strong population structure. However, the outlying monomorphic Venetian population is likely a recent anthropogenic introduction from northern Europe and not a remnant of an earlier wider distribution in the Mediterranean Sea. Overall, our detailed phylogeography of L. saxatilis adds an important piece to the understanding of Pleistocene history in North Atlantic marine biota as well as being the first study to describe the species' evolutionary history in its natural range. The latter contribution is noteworthy because the snail has recently become an important model species for understanding evolutionary processes of speciation; thus our work provides integral information for such endeavours