This paper discusses citizenship in Finnish religious education (RE) in relation to human security. It traces the characteristics of human security that connect citizenship, religion, and education in Finnish policy documents. The article focuses on basic education (grades 7-9). Its data were analyzed employing qualitative content analysis (QCA). The findings indicate that citizenship in Finnish RE entails personal security concerns dealing with psychological and human rights issues. These are found to be essentially human security as conceptualized by the United Nations (UN). However, Finnish policy documents sparingly utilize human security in explicit terms. Finland rather emphasizes the practical applications of human security. Incorporation of explicit global citizen and human rights issues into RE in the new Finnish curriculum seems to project critical global citizenship. This is found to promote human security. Following Finland's bid for practical application of human security, we recommend (but cautiously) that human security be explicitly integrated into the Finnish RE curriculum.
Martin Heidegger (1989-1976 was convinced that we can learn something about the way we inhabit the world by turning attention to our fundamental moods. It was one important theme of his fundamental ontology in the 1920s. There is, according to Heidegger, an intricate connection between awakening our moods and developing a reflexive stance. He provides us with a rich phenomenological description of different forms of boredom. In this article I approach Heidegger's conception of boredom from an educational point of view. I am suggesting a reading where the experience of boredom has transformative potentialities that also can illuminate our cultural situation as a whole. By turning away from boredom there is always a possibility of turning away from ourselves.Keywords Boredom Á Martin Heidegger Á Ontological education Á AuthenticityIn the educational realm there is much ado about learning. Everybody seems to agree that a good learning environment requires that people get involved, perhaps even interested and engaged. We have a concept for a mental state when a person is fully immersed in her activities-''flow'' as a feeling of wholeness and full involvement (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). But little do we speak about the opposite, the uneasy feeling of boredom and emptiness that overwhelms us when things turn out to be uninspired.What happens to us when we become bored? One way of putting it could be to say that boredom signifies an experience where we become indifferent and lack interest. To be bored seems to imply a kind of detachment where things appear as detached and meaningless to us whereas the experience of intense motivation rather refers to a passionate unity with the object of our attention. In this respect it seems that both boredom and interest are like coincidentia oppositorium that play an important role in the descriptions of our attitudes toward our everyday practices. They describe, in an evaluative way, how I am grateful to Gunilla Holm for reading a previous version of this paper and for commenting on both philosophical argument and language.
According to educational research, pedagogical documentation, utilised in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings in several countries around the world, can enhance participation and quality. However, the use of pedagogical documentation does not have an unequivocal meaning and the impact depends on the context and how pedagogical documentation is implemented and adopted. This study investigated how pedagogical documentation was used and adopted among professionals in Finnish ECEC in the wake of a new normative curriculum in 2016 that made pedagogical documentation mandatory. Theoretically, the study is based on educational research that has a close affinity to the Reggio Emilia approach to documentation. The empirical data (N = 135) was derived from a questionnaire that was sent out to ECEC centres in one larger municipality in Finland. Our empirical data was examined using a mix of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Our findings arrived at four different dimensions presenting various ways of implementing and adopting pedagogical documentation. We see the results as significant both in Finland and internationally, since pedagogical documentation requires interpretation by ECEC professionals and adaptation to local and regional conditions.
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