The aim of this study was to investigate student teachers' agency in their identity negotiations as first-year students on a path towards becoming teachers. A narrative inquiry approach was employed in the analysis of the interviews conducted with 16 Finnish student teachers. One master narrative and two counter-narratives were identified in which…

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…

Today, digital games are considered important tools for learning, but using them in early childhood education and care (ECEC) has raised the question of educators' roles when children play an educational digital game. The aim of this study was to explore how ECEC educators differed in their attitudes and perceptions toward and ways of supporting…

This study investigated associations between need-supportive teaching and student and teacher emotions using mixed methods. Quantitative data were gathered from the self-reports of 326 lower-secondary school students from 22 classes in Finland. Qualitative data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with four teachers. The student ratings…

Finnish queer teachers work in an esteemed profession but also belong to a marginalized minority group. This article analyses interview data focusing on non-heterosexual teachers' understanding of their language use in schools, drawing from sociolinguistic research with queer linguistics. Methodologically, Critical Discourse Analysis is applied to…

The existing literature on early childhood education (ECE) quality is predominantly from the US or other developed countries. In low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs), systematic research on ECE quality, however, is very limited. In the present study, we explore variation in structural and process indicators of ECE quality in two Eastern…

Studies have shown that gender inequality in higher music education is maintained through unreflective actions. Efforts to address the issue have been made and gender-equality programmes have been instigated in several European countries. This study takes a sociological approach to music education, with the goal of revealing constructions of…

Over the last two decades, the prevention of violent radicalisation, extremism and terrorism has become a major policy issue in Europe, and educational institutions' central role in it has become widely acknowledged. However, what has rarely been addressed is that living in today's media-centred world, in which terrorism receives much dramatic…

In this study, we explore teachers' professional space as an alternative to, and/or expansion of earlier conceptualizations of teacher autonomy. Professional space is here understood both as an objective space with e.g., physical, juridical, economic features, and as the teachers' subjective negotiation of this objective space, where teachers are…

This study reports results from cross-cultural comparisons of (a) the frequency of university students' experiences of bullying victimization and perpetration between students, (b) students' experiences of bullying victimization by university personnel, and (c) the breakdown of victimization by the forms of bullying students have experienced.…

Despite multiculturalism being discussed in teacher education, teachers still often feel insecure in the classroom around developing meaningful practices. This might be due to several issues about how preservice teachers are taught. In this article, modelling culturally responsive pedagogy is demonstrated as a promising strategy in shaping…

It has been proposed that well-being or lack of it can spread within tightly knit communities, including classrooms. Yet, to our knowledge, no studies have explored the crossover of burnout between the teachers and the students. In this study, we explored the relationship between teacher exhaustion and students' study burnout symptoms. We…

This study examines social representations of teachership based on students' and teachers' drawings. Fifty-nine students and thirty-nine teachers in upper-secondary education in Finland participated in the research, drawing a picture of a typical teacher and commenting on their drawings verbally. The study focuses on what kinds of social…

Although studies highlight the role of education in sustainable Food Waste (FW) behaviors, few studies examine basic education pedagogies concerning FW. The present research explores Finnish comprehensive schoolteachers' food and FW attitudes, personal FW practices, and FW pedagogy--educational approach, learning environment, classroom actions,…

This comparative study focuses on the prevalence, nature, and manifestations of experienced bullying among faculty personnel, that is, both academic and management staff of universities in Estonia and Finland. A total of 1,191 respondents from Estonia (n = 864) and Finland (n = 327) responded to identical questionnaires. The results show that 27…