The significance of family reminiscing for children’s historical consciousness

Ten years ago, I set out to study the ways in which Finnish children encounter the past. Back then, I found that parents and grandparents play an important role as sources of historical knowledge. In early 2020, I duplicated the same interview study with 78 children between 10 and 12years of age. Despite the changes in media culture, looking at photographs and visiting historical sites together with family have retained their relevance as historical activities. Storytelling through family mementos is also commonplace. Although the historical discourse of families revolves around everyday topics, the Finnish wars of 1939–1945 are still strongly present in historical storytelling. Against the backdrop of their parents’ and grandparents’ lives, children perceive history as a progress narrative, which inspires them to believe in their nation’s and their own future success. In this article, I explore the significance of family reminiscing for children’s historical consciousness.Ten years ago, I set out to study the ways in which Finnish children encounter the past. Back then, I found that parents and grandparents play an important role as sources of historical knowledge. In early 2020, I duplicated the same interview study with 78 children between 10 and 12years of age. Despite the changes in media culture, looking at photographs and visiting historical sites together with family have retained their relevance as historical activities. Storytelling through family mementos is also commonplace. Although the historical discourse of families revolves around everyday topics, the Finnish wars of 1939–1945 are still strongly present in historical storytelling. Against the backdrop of their parents’ and grandparents’ lives, children perceive history as a progress narrative, which inspires them to believe in their nation’s and their own future success. In this article, I explore the significance of family reminiscing for children’s historical consciousness.Peer reviewe

Conflicting Views on the Teacher’s Role as Model Citizens in Finland, 1900–1950

The article studies the expectations placed on teachers’ exemplariness in Finland in the first half of the twentieth century. Finnish elementary school teachers have traditionally been described as model citizens, embodying the qualities of loyalty, diligence, impeccability, and piety. Those who lose their model status have been ignored in research. As a consequence, the parameters of permissible teacher conduct have remained unclear. By observing teachers who were guilty of infringements and errors, we are able to define the type of behaviour that the local communities deemed to be unsuitable for teachers. This also shows the parameters of acceptable behaviour, which could be seen as the determinants of model citizenship at the local level. This article reveals how the parameters of model citizens were defined much more strictly on the local level than on the national level.The article studies the expectations placed on teachers' exemplariness in Finland in the first half of the twentieth century. Finnish elementary school teachers have traditionally been described as model citizens, embodying the qualities of loyalty, diligence, impeccability, and piety. Those who lose their model status have been ignored in research. As a consequence, the parameters of permissible teacher conduct have remained unclear. By observing teachers who were guilty of infringements and errors, we are able to define the type of behaviour that the local communities deemed to be unsuitable for teachers. This also shows the parameters of acceptable behaviour, which could be seen as the determinants of model citizenship at the local level. This article reveals how the parameters of model citizens were defined much more strictly on the local level than on the national level.Peer reviewe

Reformi romahduttaisi sokerijuurikkaan viljelyn kannattavuuden

Sokerijuurikastilat ovat viime vuosina menestyneet keskimäärin muita tuotantosuuntia edustavia tiloja paremmin. EU:n sokerireformin toteutuminen suunnitellussa muodossa kuitenkin romahduttaisi sokerijuurikkaan viljelyn kannattavuuden.vo

Assessing Finnish and Californian high school students’ historical literacy through a document-based task

This article presents a study examining the historical literacy skills of Finnish (N=86) and Californian (N=131) high school students. Our goal was to discover how students read and subsequently interpret historical documents. For this purpose we created a document-based task. We analysed the data by surveying how students interpreted the documents and used them in their texts. The students were capable of identifying the content of each document and most crafted coherent conclusions based on the given sources. The most problematic aspect of historical literacy in our study was contextualising documents. However, there were differences in the results for the groups. Among the Finnish high school students, the variation was great. Those students who mastered historical content knowledge also mastered historical literacy; those whose historical content knowledge or Finnish language skills were weak also had weak historical literacy. This polarization was not evident among the Californian students we examined. However, their disciplinary literacy skills were reduced to generic text skills; students took the document-based interpretation task as a reading comprehension task and did not evaluate the authors’ intentions.Peer reviewe

Why Does Changing the Orientation of History Teaching Take So Long? : A Case Study from Finland

In this chapter, we outline the shifts in curricula and teaching orientation within the basic and upper secondary school levels in Finland throughout the past decades as well as how teachers have dealt with these changes. We also describe the results of the survey of history teachers’ contentment with the latest curricula. Our survey reveals that the change of the teaching orientation is starting to pay off. At the end of the chapter, we discuss and give some explanations for the question—why did changing the orientation of history teaching take so long?Peer reviewe

Historical thinking skills : Finnish History teachers' contentment with their new curriculum

The new Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education emphasizes the acquisition of historical thinking skills. In this article, we present teachers’perceptions about the objectives, content descriptions and assessment criteria expressed in the curriculum. We focus our study on teachers’responses to the open-ended questions in an online survey carried out among history teachers in 2017. We studied the quantitative data by those respondents who provided written feedback to see if their responses differed from those who did not provide written feedback. Only one-third of the respondents provided responses to the open-ended questions and those who did gave relatively short but overall negative remarks. According to respondents’answers to the Likert scale statements, however, those who did not give written feedback had a more positive attitude towards the curriculum. In that respect, our study exposes Finnish teachers’relative contentment with it. The written feedback reveals that few respondents complained about teaching historical thinking skills as the key objective in the curriculum.Peer reviewe

Ehdotukset työeläkelaitosten kilpailusta. Selvitysmiehen raportti

Selvitysmiestehtävän loppuraportti sisältää toimeksiantonsa mukaisesti lakisääteisen työeläkejärjestelmän kilpailutyöryhmän esittämään jatkovalmisteluun siirrettyjä asioita koskevat ehdotukset. Ehdotukset koskevat mm. laskuperustekoron määrittämistä, päättyneisiin vakuutuksiin liityvien sijoitustuottojen käyttöä, asiakashyvitysten määräytymistä tilanteessa, jossa päättyneen vakuutuksen rahasto-osuus ei siirry eläkelaitosta vaihdettaessa, eräille vastuuvelan erille hyvitettävän koron tasoa ja eläkesäätiön toimintapääoman kartuttamismahdollisuuden parantamista. Selvitysmies ehdottaa laskuperustekorkokäsitteen korvaamista termillä eläkerahastojen täydennyskerroin ja kertoimen määräytymistä kaavasta, joka perustuu eläkelaitosten keskimääräiseen vakavaraisuusasemaan. Lisäksi selvitysmies ehdottaa päättyneiden vakuutusten rahastojen säilyttämistä kunkin eläkelaitoksen vastuulla ja päättyneiden vakuutusten rahasto-osuuksille entisestä eläkelaitoksesta annettavien asiakashyvitysten maksamista kolmen vuoden ajan eläkelaitoksen vaihtamisessa. Selvitysmies ehdottaa myös kaikille vastuuvelan erille hyvitettäväksi samaa korkoa ja toimintapääoman kartuttamismahdollisuuden laajentamista eläkesäätiössä silloin kun säätiön tarkoituksena on siirtyä aiempaa riskipitoisempaan sijoitusjakau

The Reflection of a Warlike Historical Culture in the Attitudes of Finnish Youths

Two school shootings took place in Finland in 2007–2008, in which 20 people lost their lives. After the shootings, foreign journalists used the violent culture of Finnish men as an explanation for the tragedies. Of the old EU countries, the highest rate of capital crimes is found in Finland. The country has for a long time debated where the violence comes from. One explanation is that the historical culture in Finland glorifies war. The wars that were fought against the Soviet Union (1939–1944) have been elevated in Finland to become key elements of the national psyche, manifested in celebrations, anniversaries and through family narratives. According to this explanation, a Finn already learns as a child to accept violence which is considered to be legitimate and to behave in accordance with warlike ideals. This article examines the warlike historical culture in Finland and clarifies why war has remained a popular theme of Finnish historical culture. Further, it discusses the impact that a warlike historical culture has on the attitudes of young people

Esiselvitys yksityisen sektorin työeläkevarojen sijoitustuottojen kohentamismahdollisuuksista

Esiselvityksessä kuvataan mahdollisuuksia kohentaa yksityisen sektorin työeläkevarojen sijoitustuottoja. Selvityksessä esitetään kolme suositusta tarkemman tutkimisen kohteiksi. Kaksi näistä koskee jouston lisäämistä eläkkeiden rahastointisäännöksiin ja kolmas vakavaraisuussäännösten tekemistä dynaamisiksi, sijoitusmarkkinoiden suhdannevaiheen huomioon ottaviksi