Prosodic imitation as a means of receiving and displaying critical stance in classroom interaction

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The role of textbooks in Finnish mother tongue and literature classrooms

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Gender in Finnish school textbooks for basic education

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Äidinkielen ja kirjallisuuden didaktiikka

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The construction of ideal reader in German and Finnish text-books for literacy education

The article compares reading literacy education in Germany and Finland using the following curricula and textbooks intended to ten-year-old pupils as data: Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education and the German Bildungsstandards, as well as of three Finnish and three German textbooks. Our analytical method is critical discourse analysis, which is used for the purpose of the comparison. We identify three important differences in the curricula that also affect the textbooks. In our analysis of the textbooks we focus on identifying their ideal readers, and, as a reflection of the differences between the curricula, find that these ideal readers differ between the German and Finnish data. We illustrate the ideal readers’ characteristics by analyzing extracts from the textbooks. The ideal reader in the Finnish textbooks is presented more as an independent actor who is interested in learning and whose prior knowledge is valuable whereas in the German textbooks the ideal reader is more depend-ent on guidance. According to our limited data, we consider this to be one of the key elements illustrating the differences in German and Finnish educational cultures.Peer reviewe

Finnish Teachers Exploring Gender Bias in School Textbooks

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Interactional organization and pedagogic aims of reading aloud practices in L1 education

The aim of this article is to examine the students’ and teachers’ activities of reading aloud as it occurs in and through interaction in L1-classrooms in the sixth grade with 12-year-old students. Our data consist of video-recorded classroom interaction in Finnish comprehensive schools. The method adopted is conversation analysis. This analysis encompasses read-alouds with reference to genre, source of the text and recipients’ visual access or non-access to the text. According to our analysis, the reading aloud a text is used to create a shared reference point in classrooms in terms of allocating turns, emphasizing the importance of the content or ideology of the text, deepening the knowledge and motivation for learning, fostering writing skills, or merely to enjoy the text or to fill up lesson time. In the discussion we reflect on read-alouds as a pedagogical tool for developing literacy skills in a classroom setting.Peer reviewe

Encouraging participation or restraining teasing? : Teacher responses to uninvited students' answers

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The long mission towards gender equality in teacher education : Reflections from a national project in Finland

Gender equality has since the 1970s been an aim in international educational politics and policies. Also Finland has evidenced a history of hundreds of projects and reports that have repeated the same aims, ideas and practical innovations for promoting equality, many of them with teacher education as one of the foci. However, the actual pace of change has been very slow. In this paper we focus in the impact of a national project on gender awareness in teacher education (2008-2011). We analyze changes in cultures and curricula in relation to gender awareness in teacher education. The data includes documents of the project, curricula of teacher education, answers of the former activists of the project and interviews with teachers in one teacher education unit. We also use auto-ethnographic methodology. We suggest that conceptual problems in issues around gender and involvement in personal lives makes addressing gender difficult in teacher education. We also suggest that the mission of gender awareness is difficult, but not a mission impossible.Peer reviewe

Emotion work and affective stance in the mathematics classroom: the case of IRE sequences in Finnish classroom interaction

Although according to the Finnish curriculum the learning environment in mathematics lessons should promote supportive interaction, Finnish pupils’ attitudes toward and self-beliefs regarding mathematics deteriorate during basic education. This article investigates emotion work in teacher–student interaction in Finnish mathematics classrooms; the aim is to identify and suggest situational sources for the negative affective stances that seem to prevail among Finnish pupils. For the specific topic of analysis, we chose IRE sequences, especially teachers’ responses to pupils’ incorrect answers. Our data consist of ten sixth-grade mathematics lessons. Using conversation analysis as our method, we analyze examples that highlight the participants’ emotion work displayed in verbal and non-verbal practices.We suggest that it is pedagogically important that the teacher practices communicating the message that incorrect answers are appropriate student contributions and that in analyzing interaction in mathematics education it is important to pay attention to the emotional aspects of the interaction.Peer reviewe