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Paper mills produce large amounts of paper mill sludge in the treatment of process water. According to overburden studies, the hydraulic conductivity of the paper mill sludge originating from a paper mill in Northern Finland at a pressure of 30 kPa was 4.4 x 10-10 m s-1, and 1.7 x 10-10m s-1 at a pressure of 100kPa. These values well meet the generally required values of between 1.0 x 10-7m s-1 and 1.0 x 10-9 m s-1 for a geological barrier in landfill base and sides at landfills in the European Union. Paper mill sludge can also be used in the artificially constructed geological barrier layer of landfill cover structures. The angle of internal friction of the paper mill sludge was 34.8° and the cohesion of interparticle adhesion 23 kPa, which are important measures for assessing the shear strength of paper mill sludge and thus the stability of the landfill layer in which it is used. During a 28-day period, the biodegradability of the paper mill sludge in soil was ca 0.4% and in ground water under 1%, whereas according to the OECD 301F standard concentrations (BOD2s), it was ca 8%. For the determination of total element concentrations in the paper mill sludge, the dried sample was digested using USEPA method 3052. A five-stage sequential leaching procedure was also used to fractionate trace elements in the paper mill sludge between the water-soluble (H2O), exchangeable (CH3COOH), easily reduced (HONH3Cl), oxidizable (H2O2+CH3COONH4), and (5) the residual (HF+HNO3+HCl) fractions. This paper covers also examples of case studies how paper mill sludge is utilized in Finland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study that investigated the effects of pulp and paper industry wastewater treatment sludge composts on soil and cereal crops in Finland. Chemical characteristics of composts prepared using forest industry sludges and limit values for soil improvers used in agriculture; Details of crop yield and nutrient intake of compost.

The aim of this study is to examine how boundaryless career relates to competence development of managers in Finnish information and communication business sector (ICT) and paper business sector. The research was qualitative by nature and the used research method was a focused interview. The research group included 15 managers from three ICT companies in the field of software and 15 managers from three paper companies specialising in pulp, paper and paperboard manufacture. Managers were themselves responsible for updating their competence; continuous development of skills and knowledge enabled managers to make their own career decisions and manage their career. Career decisions directed the managers' further training needs. High competence level created shelter and self-confidence to managers. Managers were more committed to their competence related to the business sector than any particular organisation, and they wanted to combine work, family and hobbies in their lives as well. Only two Finnish business sectors were included in this study and the target was in the middle management level in organisations. Therefore, the study is not comprehensive. However, the results of the study give information concerning the relation between boundaryless career research and competence research in changing work environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although high inflation is associated with the spread of paper monies, rapid price increases are well known under the metallic standard from several countries, caused by the debasement of coins. The exact mechanism is still a puzzle. If agents were rational, why did they accept inferior coins at par with better ones? This paper compares five debasement cycles that occurred in Sweden-Finland 1350-1594. During the initial phase of such cycles coins tended to circulate by-tale, while by-weight circulation was most common towards the end of the cycles. A premium on the heavier coins implied that they were not driven out of circulation. The seignorage rate was significant during the initial phases of the cycles, while it decreased when prices and exchange rates adjusted in response to the debasement, prompting a recoinage, when the monetary unit was strengthened. It is this shift from by-tale to by-weight circulation that explains the high inflation rates that could occur before the rise of paper money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restorative justice presents a morally relevant method for alternative conflict resolution. However, this potential is not always applied fully. Instead, the practice may be used in ways foreign to it. This claim comes to the fore in the practice of restorative justice in domestic violence cases. Despite the persistent feminist critique of it the practice is widely offered. This suggests that the practice can cater to needs not originally depicted in the rationale of it. This paper works out of a wittgensteinian approach and argues that there is a confusing language use going on around mediation. The argument is based on an analysis of public talk of mediation in Finland which shows that it is predominantly conducted in the light of homo economicus. This is problematic. The paper suggests that instead of referring to mediation in terms of homo economicus, the value of it should be counted in terms of homo moralis. This is what restorative justice originally intended to do. The paper establishes a new perspective on the critique of restorative justice in general and offers a fruitful way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using in-depth interviews, newsroom observation, and internal documents, this case study presents and analyses changes that have taken place at Finnish financial daily Taloussanomat since it stopped printing on 28 December 2007 to focus exclusively on digital delivery via the Web, email, and mobile. It reveals the savings that can be achieved when a newspaper no longer prints and distributes a physical product; but also the revenue lost from subscriptions and print advertising. The consequences of a newspaper's decision to go online-only are examined as they relate to its business model, website traffic, and editorial practice. The findings illustrate the extent to which the medium rather than the content it carries determines news consumption patterns, show the differing attention a newspaper and its online substitute command, and reveal the changes to working patterns journalists can expect in the online-only environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores intercultural encounters in a vocational school and how cultural tools and practices are identified and made “visible”; without this process, the practices of the dominant groups are taken for granted and perhaps assumed to be beyond critical scrutiny. The study examines a cultural artifact and learning practices that immigrant students identified: different forms and uses of paper in Finland. The study introduces a new formative intervention method called the Culture Laboratory. The analyses showed that paper-dominant learning practices were varied but rigid. This means that critical reflection on cultural tools and practices is needed when people from different cultural backgrounds encounter each other, as well as spaces and methodologies for dialog and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents long-run exchange rate elasticities of Finnish newsprint and pulp export prices in the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany over the period 1980-94. The elasticities were estimated for a markup pricing model using Johansen's cointegration method. The magnitudes of the elasticity estimates obtained by imposing price homogeneity indicate that pass-through of exchange rate changes to export prices has been incomplete in both markets. For newsprint, the pass-through elasticity was 0.60 in the UK and 0.46 in Germany, which means that about one half of the changes in the exchange rates is reflected in prices as expressed in the destination countries' currencies and about a half in prices measured in Finnish markka. Instead, in pulp exports the pass-through elasticities differed from each other between the two destination countries more clearly than in newsprint exports, indicating a different pricing behaviour of Finnish pulp exporters in the UK and Germany when exchange rate changes. Pass-through was small in the UK pulp market (0.07) as compared to Germany (0.68). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the concentration of the newspaper market in Finland from a regional perspective. The development started in the late 1970s when Tampere based Aamulehti ("Morning Newspaper") went on a shopping spree that started the mergers and acquisitions trend in a market that had until then been characterized by local ownership. Today Aamulehti is the daily flagship of the Alma Media Group which challenges the media champion of Finland, Sanoma Group. in the newspaper business. Aamulehti, Finland's second largest morning newspaper, Kauppalehti, Finland's only daily business newspaper, and Iltalehti, the country's second biggest afternoon paper, are the crown jewels of the Alma Media Group. Here, this development is put into the socio-economic context of the Tampere region, where Aamulehti is published, as well as a managerial market-oriented framework with a newspaper industry perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emerging debate on transnational populism has thus far mainly focused on cases, which have remained relatively inconsequential due to the weak institutionalisation of the political transnationalism arena. By bringing in a better-structured arena of migrant transnationalism, this paper introduces populist political parties mobilising transnational migrants to the debate and explores the resulting phenomenon of homeland populism. The paper investigates three populist parties that operate transnationally – Ecuadorian APAIS in Spain, Turkish AKP in Germany and Estonian EKRE in Finland. The analysis demonstrates that the phenomenon of homeland populism shares several distinct features despite the ideological, geographic, cultural and migratory differences between the three cases. The cases also sport differences: while the construction of 'the people' depends on migratory context, the construction of 'the antagonist' is more related to the ideational variations of populism. The study also suggests that the key target group of homeland populism are economic migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a synthesis of zooarchaeological evidence from 27 medieval and post-medieval sites from Finland. These faunal samples derive from rural, town, manor, castle and ecclesiastic sites, and their production and consumption patterns were examined by studying the role of the major domesticates (cattle, sheep, goats and pigs). As taxonomic abundance in faunal material may be altered by taphonomic processes, such as burning, these factors were assessed before comparison. The animal husbandry system in Finland was shaped by environmental constraints that limited the number of animals that could be kept over winter. However, some specialisations were observed within the frame of the basic pattern. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of zooarchaeological data in the study of animal husbandry and consumption and production patterns. These findings support data integration as a useful tool for understanding general large-scale processes, such as urbanisation, development, environmental adaptation and the specialisation of animal production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper approaches preventive justice and big data from a predictive policing point of view. Predictive policing is a controversial technology because of the many risks it imposes on fundamental rights. Through use cases from the EU, the paper focuses on how the implementation of predictive policing technologies has been limited in the EU but also how difficult the limitations might be due to the high hopes set upon technology. Although predictive policing technologies are not yet used in Finland by the police, the paper discusses how the use of police powers is limited in Finland and how fundamental rights control in the democratic process will work if the police were willing to adopt such technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An organization's capability to build, handle and exploit relationships and learn from these relations, defined here as relational capabilities, is increasingly important in a networked economy and in innovation activities. The paper introduces a framework that helps understand and analyse the relational capabilities of various organizations engaged in innovation activities. Based on theoretical discussion and empirical analysis the paper argues that the literature on organizational level capabilities and relational capabilities would benefit from deeper integration with the systems of innovation perspective. The empirical findings from three Finnish regions indicate that relational capabilities become particularly relevant in research–business–government cooperation contributing to innovation in the field of bioeconomy. Relational capabilities embedded in an organization's capability configurations can boost the efficient use of that organization's resources, bring greater flexibility, a chance to create value in networks and support renewal and innovation. Missing or underdeveloped relational capabilities may also hinder an organization's ability to tap into the economic opportunities that arise leading to failures at the regional and system level thus hampering the transition towards a bioeconomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged our lives during the years 2020-2022. Impacts could be seen in everyday life, both locally and nationally, through economic, mental and social elements. However, these effects varied depending on the life situation of individuals. This paper aims to gather information from the representatives and operators working in two Finnish municipalities, Inari and Utsjoki, to understand and learn about their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data (20 interviews) were collected between December 2021 and February 2022 and analysed following the principles of the qualitative content analysis. The results suggest that the effects of COVID-19 emerged through issues related to the national border between Finland and Norway, economic challenges, and the pressure that people experienced. However, despite challenges, people were supported by everyday life and a connection to nature, communality and close cooperation. Additionally, local needs were highlighted among participants. The results provide a deeper understanding about the public health impacts in these Northernmost municipalities and can therefore be utilised in future development work. They also provide relevant information on the experiences of Sami people, and specific views related to Sami people can be recognised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chain stores have changed the retail landscape leading to the decline of small independent retail. Consequently, public street life on shopping streets is fading, and many premises have been left vacant during the past decade. However, in Finland, such transformation in the retail landscape coincides with the rapid growth of ethnic retail in some Helsinki neighbourhoods, such as Malmi, an area undergoing major urban renewal. The aim of this research is to study the current condition of Malmi public life and to investigate the capacity of ethnic retail to enhance it. Another aim is to examine how ethnic retail has been reflected in deploying scenario planning. The paper argues that ethnic retail has an evident role in improving vitality. The city of Helsinki showed willingness to integrate ethnic retail in its vision for developing the area, but with some shortcomings. The study recommends that ethnic retailers in Malmi, and similar areas, should be recognized for their role in formulating ethnic identities and reinforcing public street life. As such, the paper contributes to literature on urban renewal and space identity with a focus on future uncertainties facing small retailers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines discourses that place refugee students in an inequitable position in school. Focussing on decontextualisation – a depoliticising way of seeing education that overlooks contexts – the paper is based on semi-structured interviews with teachers (n = 15) and open questions of a survey data (n = 267) collected from teachers, principals and teacher assistants at the end of 2022 in Finland. After analysing discourses, we found that educators both resisted and maintained the discourse of valuing skills in terms of the starting points/readiness of refugee students and in language hierarchies; the discourse of normality in inclusivity and in behaviour; the discourse of silence in antiracism education for teachers and in addressing racism in students’ peer relations. The paper concludes that decontextualisation is grounded in everyday schooling and fails to recognise the differing intersecting positions and contexts that create inequitable possibilities for different people in society. This paper calls for a continuous systematic effort of antiracism education at all levels, as well as curricular structures that support schools in understanding contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the role of various organisations' dynamic capabilities in regional transitions toward a knowledge-based bioeconomy. It offers a more nuanced understanding of regional path development and agency by elucidating the concept of dynamic capabilities in regional contexts and analysing the roles and types of the dynamic capabilities of various organisations. This empirical research is based on case studies conducted in three Finnish regions using a combination of interviews, documents and statistical data. The paper argues that it is important to take a systemic perspective in analysing dynamic capabilities and look at simultaneous changes in different types of organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic institutions were seriously challenged across Europe between 1917 and 1939. In 1920, most European states were parliamentary democracies, by 1939 the majority had become authoritarian. However, some states weathered the crises they faced and successfully maintained democracy. There is a significant literature on democratic breakdown, but considerable attention has now been given to those that survived. This paper revisits the question of democratic survival by focussing on the Irish Free State and its experience when compared with other European states. It argues that while the Irish Free State was fragile in a comparative context, sharing many of the challenges associated with breakdown, it also showed considerable resilience. Various factors associated with survival and breakdown are critically assessed to explain the positive Irish outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine private supplementary tutoring within the context of Finnish general upper secondary education. Specifically, we focus on profit-driven private preparatory course providers who cater to individual students and their families, aiming to improve applicants' prospects of gaining access to higher education. We examine this during a time when a recent education policy reform has renewed seeking admission to higher education in Finland, consequently impacting the private supplementary tutoring market associated with it. We draw on Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, and habitus as a starting point for discussing the complex dynamics between public and private actors in the field of Finnish general upper secondary education and the role of economic capital. The ethnographic data analyzed for this paper consist of field notes and interviews (n = 58) from three general upper secondary schools, produced in 2019-2020. The study aims to investigate the negotiations between the public and private spheres of education within the everyday practices of Finnish public upper secondary education during an educational policy reform. We conclude that the fields of public and private education are not separate but rather intertwined, and they can become blurred in the everyday life of schools through both temporal and spatial overlaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article locates media literacy both theoretically and empirically in the public practices carried out by journalists and journalistic actors in the case of Finland. In the theoretical section, the paper discusses the activities under the frameworks of non-formal education and strategic audience development as part of media organisations' work. In the empirical section, central journalistic actors and their typical best practices are identified. These activities are grouped into three categories: media education on, in and via journalism. It is found that the initiatives aimed at promoting journalistic media education can be seen as focusing on a specific form of journalism literacy in which drawing the boundaries of journalism and non-journalism is a distinguished feature. The paper concludes by suggesting that demarcating journalistic media education as a separate field within the media literacy framework helps to identify media education as more incorporated in media organisations' functions and promotes the development of this field in its own right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the emergence of an engineering education research (EER) community in three Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland and Sweden. First, an overview of the current state of Nordic EER authorship is produced through statistics on international publication. Then, the history of EER and its precursor activities is described in three national narratives. These national storylines are tied together in a description of recent networking activities, aiming to strengthen the EER communities on the Nordic level. Taking these three perspectives together, and drawing on concepts from community of practice theory, network theory and learning network theory, we discuss factors behind the differences in the countries, and draw some conclusions about implications for networking activities in a heterogeneous community. Further, we discuss the role of networks for affording a joint identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland and Sweden are two countries with long histories of military non-alignment. In 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, both countries swiftly decided to apply for membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Why and how does such a drastic policy change come about? In this paper, I assess realist theory of threat and show that despite their apparent similarity, the reactions of the Nordic nonaligned to the Russian aggression differed significantly. Finland immediately sought protection from NATO, while Sweden attempted to continue non-alignment. Ultimately, the two countries reached the same alignment conclusion through different causal mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intensive parenting has become a key term for analysing the pressures and priorities of contemporary western parenting culture. For mobility studies it provides a discursive framework for understanding why children's leisure has shifted from free play and mobility towards various adult-led organised activities and why parents deem it necessary to control children's leisure journeys in an unprecedented manner. Most of the research on parenting and mobility has explained these trends with urban risks and safeguarding, but this paper highlights how parents also control, manage and enable children's mobility to resource and enrich them with various dispositions. We use children's mobility experiments and parents' interviews to explain two contrasting representations of children's mobility—intensive car-parenting and childhood velonomy—in a local community in Finland. The paper sheds new light on how community and place shape parents' notions of parenting, childhood and mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A space, where the client feels safe, is necessary for therapeutic process. Its importance seems to be implicitly understood and agreed upon across different schools of psychotherapy. However, what it means and how it appears in therapy has not been clearly described before. This paper presents the findings from the first author's master thesis, which sought to answer the question 'Why is safe space important in dance therapy, and how do dance therapists define and create it in their practice?'. This phenomenological inquiry originated from a need to translate the experiential phenomenon of safe space into words. It is a first attempt to investigate safe space in depth and to provide a definition of its essence in dance movement therapy. Findings from this research describe working methods and interventions for safe space as well as qualities that therapists can embody to help their clients feel safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study how sustainable fashion influencers (SFIs) conduct social-symbolic work in their efforts to purposefully transform their followers’ fashion consumption patterns. We conducted a netnographic study of the Finnish SFI scene, including observations of the SFIs’ social media content and complementary in-depth interviews with a subset of SFIs. We identified three types of social-symbolic work conducted by the SFIs: identity work (narrating, reflecting and balancing), community work (tightening, expanding and magnetizing) and practice work (shaping meanings, competences, and materials). Most of the SFIs studied were micro-influencers in Finland. The paper contributes to research on sustainable fashion by highlighting the role of SFIs as drivers of institutional and cultural change, the role of social media in this pursuit, and the way sustainable fashion consumption is interlinked with digital life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diseases, such as tuberculosis and Spanish flu, spread in industrial environments in the early decades of the 20th century, but increased knowledge of various pathogens, in particular the bacteriological breakthrough made in the late 19th century, helped in the fight against the infectious diseases. This paper examines the attempts made to establish more hygienic industrial environments in Northern Finland in the beginning of the 20th century. There were, for example, efforts made by employers to stop the workforce from spitting on floors and to improve their personal hygiene. These goals were also reflected in material culture as people became acclimatised to soaps and spittoons, for example. Eliminating pathogens from daily life was seen as the responsibility of all. Bringing together archaeological and archival data, this paper scrutinises the interplay between demands of companies and authorities and the habits of workers in achieving more hygienic industrial environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaches to countering violent extremism (CVE) increasingly call upon ordinary citizens to report concerns regarding radicalization to authorities. However, knowledge about the factors determining their willingness to report remains limited. This paper addresses this void by asking under what circumstances members of the public are willing to report concerns of radicalization to authorities. The paper reports findings from a large-scale, comparative survey experiment fielded to nationally representative samples in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland (n = 7,389) as well as eight city representative samples (two in each country, n = 6,603). We investigate how perceptions of the appropriateness, inclusiveness, implementation and outcome of CVE policies combine in forming perceptions of the legitimacy of CVE policy, and how manipulations of perceived legitimacy shape willingness to collaborate with authorities. Both cross-country and cross-city differences in willingness to report concerns of radicalization are explored. The results show that the more legitimate citizens perceive CVE policies to be, the more willing they are to contact authorities to report concerns of radicalization, while perceptions of CVE policies as illegitimate lead to a preference for reactions involving "intimates" of the individual in question and short of reporting to authorities. The implications of the findings for CVE practices are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working-class students often face more challenges in securing graduate-level jobs than their middle-class peers. This paper applies the concept of boundary crossing in studying the experience of Finnish business graduates from a working-class background (n = 27) and asks what types of boundaries they have faced and how they have managed them on their pathway through and after university studies. We identify three major boundaries: getting the actual study place, learning to be a student in university and graduating and getting a job in the graduate labour market. Our findings indicate that successful transitions are possible, as the Finnish higher education system enables them in many ways. However, successful boundary work demands socialising to the norms and values of the new social field as well as renewed relationships with one's social background. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for the development of inclusive policies and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how different types of monetary policy have affected house prices in Finland, a small euro area economy that has experienced pronounced business cycles over time. The analyses are carried out using the Bayesian structural vector autoregressive approach. Monetary policy interest rate shocks and balance sheet shocks are identified using zero and sign restrictions. The results reveal that both a policy interest rate shock and a balance sheet shock have a positive and temporary impact on house prices in Finland, with the response to a balance sheet shock being smaller and fading out faster. The peak of the effect of a policy rate shock on house prices in Finland arrives faster than in the whole euro area but the magnitudes of the peak impact are similar. The effect of a balance sheet shock on house prices is not notably different in Finland to what it is in the whole euro area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of the 5th AIMAC International Conference on Arts & Cultural Management held in Helsinki, Finland from June 13-17, 1999. The legitimization issue was given such prominence at the opening of the event. While many papers applied business concepts to arts organizations, other interesting approaches were also addressed, including the growing recognition of a need for creativity in management.

Health policy and academic discourses on rare diseases and people with rare conditions frequently employ terms such as 'low prevalence' and 'unique' to characterize the smallness of the population under consideration and to justify targeted action toward these patient groups. This paper draws from recent anthropological scholarship on smallness and data, ethnographic research in Finland and Poland, as well as document and media analysis to examine how data is utilized in the context of isolated populations that are considered sites of rare diseases in these two countries. Specifically, this paper juxtaposes the notion of Finnish Disease Heritage (FDH) with that of a 'Kashubian gene' in Poland. The concept of FDH was developed by Finnish researchers in the 1970s; it encompasses almost forty rare hereditary diseases that are significantly more prevalent in Finland than elsewhere globally. On the other hand, the notion of the 'Kashubian gene' was first utilized by the media and some members of the Polish medical community around 2008. Based on 'unstable' data gathered during genetic research, the term referred to the high prevalence of a rare metabolic disorder (Long-Chain 3-Hydroxyacyl-CoA Dehydrogenase (LCHAD) deficiency) among Kashubians, an ethnic minority that resides in Northern Poland's Pomerania region. Whereas FDH facilitated the production and branding of 'a unique Finnish genetic identity' (Tupasela 2016b, 61), the notion of the 'Kashubian gene' has engendered health policy interventions targeting members of this ethnic minority and has contributed to stigmatizing practices carried out against Kashubians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to bridge part of the gap that exists between the resource curse literature and economic historical research on natural resources by analysing four resource-abundant countries. The study proposes that at the sectoral level, the determinants of growth in resource-based industries were mostly similar in the late 19th and late 20th centuries. However, we also argue that the relative contribution of natural resources to economic growth might have been declining during the late twentieth century. The evidence comes from an analysis of the forestry sector in Finland and Sweden between 1860 and 1910 and the palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia between 1970 and 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An active discussion of gender roles and the need to renegotiate them took place in the late 1960s in Finland. While previous studies have associated this 'sex role debate' with the independent civic organisation Association 9, this article focuses on the wider gender role movement. The article analyses the interplay and differences among the Finnish Women's Democratic League, the Committee for Women's Status, and Association 9's grassroots activism between 1965 and 1970. It demonstrates that similar ideas about sex roles were presented simultaneously in two public spheres: the dominant public, where the ideas were promoted by Association 9, and the people's democratic counterpublic, which presented the goals of the Finnish Women's Democratic League. Both discussions also influenced the work of the Committee for Women's Status in Finland. These organisations had divergent modes of action, ranging from a civic association to party political organisation and parliamentary committee, but the theoretical premises of their conceptualisations of gendered societal structures had clear similarities. We show this by drawing on the archives of Association 9 and the Finnish Women's Democratic League, including original documents such as minutes of meetings and newspaper and magazine clippings, and the Committee for Women's Status's White Paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores policy related to digital competence and the digitalisation of Nordic K-12 schools. Anchored in some key transnational policies on digital competence, it describes some current Nordic movements in the national policies of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The concept of boundary objects is used as an analytical lens, for understanding digital competence as a plastic and temporal concept that can be used to discuss the multi-dimensional translation of this concept in these Nordic countries. The paper ends with a discussion of the potential to view digital competence as a unifying boundary object that, with its plasticity, temporality and n-dimensionality, can show signs of common Nordic efforts in the K-12 school policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Finnish press subsidies during the second half of the twentieth century, tracing their development as a mechanism for supporting democratic principles. The article shows how subsidies have been provided, how the mechanisms of support changed during the period, and the effects of subsidies on the newspaper industry. The study shows that support rose significantly in the 1970s and 1980s but declined in the 1990s. Nevertheless, the cost of support in 2000 was 28 per cent higher than in 1970. The study reveals that despite € 2.5 billion in support (at constant prices) between 1951 and 2000, only 6 per cent of the newspapers maintained political affiliations by the beginning of the twenty-first century and that state funds subsidised only 10 per cent of total newspaper circulation by 2000. The research revealed that papers representing dominant political parties have been the primary recipients of aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines newspaper cartels, a largely unoccupied field in media history, from the perspective of longevity. We analyse Finnish newspaper industry from the 1910s to 1970s and show that newspapers sought to regulate various aspects of competition, such as subscription prices, advertisement tariffs, and newsprint prices. Data indicates that political rivalry shaped the newspaper cartel collaboration until late 1950s: the cartel was set up by right-wing and centrist papers and, unlike in other Nordic countries, the Social Democratic press remained outside of the association until 1958. Political shocks of the Finnish Civil War in 1918 and the Second World War also changed the composition of the cartel. The era of private cartels in the newspaper industry gradually started to fade away as a result of anti-cartel laws in the 1960s and governmental anti-inflation measures in the 1970s. We conclude that the economics of newspaper industry and the cartelisation of the wider business environment, newsprint suppliers in particular, encouraged newspapers to co-operate with each other. The results of this article increase the understanding on the collaborative and competitive environment of newspaper companies, but also contributes to broader questions on cartels and their inner dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a conceptual and empirical framework for analyzing the role of users in innovation and performance at the firm level in the service sector. The theoretical model builds on the user innovation theory in services and proposes to distinguish between different modes and degrees of user participation that may perform differently. The empirical testing is based on a unique dataset from Finland. Results show that not all user engagement led to similar impacts: more active roles versus passive ones have a significant positive relationship with innovation output, but only specific combinations of user orientation and its intensity matter. Besides, no direct significant impacts from user orientation on productivity were found. As a managerial implication, service companies may approach users as co-innovation partners oriented to service quality and customer satisfaction rather than oriented to increase business efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While existing literature on third-sector support for ageing migrants shows that social clubs can be a vital source of social support, what remains unclear is how these positive outcomes are attained on an interactional level. Drawing on fieldwork conducted over the course of one year in a meeting place for older Russian-speaking migrants in the capital region of Finland, this paper adopts a processual approach to examine how a sense of groupness is negotiated in the meeting place. The attendees of the meeting place comprise of different nationalities and backgrounds, who mainly share age and Russian language. This heterogeneity creates a situation where the attendees, together with the organisers, negotiate a sense of groupness with the category of 'Russian-speaking'. I argue that such a sense of groupness is reached by drawing from shared traits of culturality, while excluding aspects that could cause conflicts. The paper further contributes to the literature on groupness by analysing what role atmosphere plays in attaining a sense of groupness, and argues that the notion of atmosphere is important to take into consideration when thinking how different places can support ageing and wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores what a forest as a specific place means and does for girls, while it scrutinises how to understand place and how to consider place methodologically. The girls, called 'forest daughters' here, write letters to the female President of Finland. The letters portray a forest as a lived 'place-world' that ties place and self together. The multiplicity of these relations is methodologically displayed as an assemblage of 'girl–place–letter' and conjoined a perspective of the 'where of research'. The paper argues that place and self help construct and activate each other. A forest is a site of pleasures and possibilities and in the letters, it turns out that a forest becomes a stage and practice of power that develops environmental activism and gives rise to utterances of green criticism. To develop and exemplify this discussion, I examine a letter to the president written by one of these young forest daughters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Due to the minimal role of statutory city-regional planning in Finland, the Finnish state promotes inter-municipal, integrated planning of land-use, housing and transportation in the biggest city regions by a strategic planning instrument and a contractual policy tool called MAL procedure. MAL procedure includes MAL agreements, where the central government agrees to fund transportation infrastructure, while the municipalities in the city-regions commit to certain planning principles. MAL policy has advanced sustainability goals in planning, but it has also been argued to be prone to legitimacy problems as MAL negotiations take place behind the backs of citizens. The article discusses the structure of the MAL policy, assessing the ways in which this structure supports the legitimacy of the policy. It focuses on the interplay of strategic and communicative rationalities in the MAL procedure, starting from the observation that the theorists of strategic planning have focused predominately on communicative rationality as the legitimacy basis of planning. This paper aims to show that from a broader, structural perspective, both rationalities – and the way in which they interact – have a role in maintaining the legitimacy of planning. The article builds on theoretical studies and interviews with actors engaged in the MAL procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we study the concept of 'belonging' within the context of inclusive education. We see inclusion and belonging as two entangled concepts and focus on inclusion as an ethical process. We do this by analyzing the Flemish documentary Inclusief [Inclusive] to investigate the idea of belonging as building and finding roots. As a method we carry out a close reading of two episodes of the documentary and plug in theory to gain a deeper sense about the meaning of belonging in two students' life stories. In our writing process these fragments become tangible. Through the stories, we see how belonging emerges. We come to understand belonging in inclusive education as connected to the dynamic interplay with the context; listening with care; and radical relationality. By combining these elements schools can invest in becoming inclusive communities of care, and contribute to every student having a feeling of belonging. This paper explores the relation between inclusion in educational contexts and the sense of belonging of disabled students. The authors argue for a system approach to aim for inclusion instead of through case-by-case assessment. Through close reading of two episodes of the Flemish documentary Inclusief, the authors find that belonging is enhanced through the teachers' careful attention to the students' relations with each other. The authors state that creating space to enhance every student's belonging is carried out through listening with care and being open to many connections between the student and others. The interplay with the environment proves very important to stimulate a sense of belonging with every student. The authors argue that caring communities arise through close connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The supply of social housing has been marked by erosion and decline in most Western Europe countries since the 1990s, albeit with considerable variation in timing, speed and degree. Recently, it has been suggested that the sector has kept a more prominent position at the local level, at least in some cities. This paper scrutinizes this claim by comparing the development of social housing in two cities in two distinct national housing systems that have traditionally had a strong commitment to social housing: Vienna and Helsinki. To do so, we build a multi-dimensional framework that encompasses sector size, stock privatization, new housing production, and residualization. We empirically demonstrate a remarkable stability along these dimensions in both cases, albeit with some differences in degree. A number of factors need to be considered to explain this stability. They relate to aspects of institutional design of the social housing systems, as well as to continuity in policies at national and local levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn this paper, we explore some of the challenges and opportunities of integrating environmental education in pre-service teacher education in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arctic. Case examples from teacher education programs in Namibia and Finland set the scene for a critical analysis of environmental education in teacher training from these two distinct contexts. We begin with an overview of the current situation of environmental education in pre-service teacher education in Namibia and Finland, followed by a reflection on the courses we have developed at our respective higher education institutions. In response to the urgency of education to attend to the escalating climate crisis, through lessons learned from our environmental education courses and our collaboration on co-designing teacher education, we explore whether sustainability really does start with teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reaching sustainability targets requires a holistic understanding of the different dimensions of residential building stock development. This paper aims to provide a solid and transparent approach for modelling residential building stock development with a focus on the long-term need for repairs and renovations. The modelling approach is based on Dynamic Material Flow Analysis (MFA) and the model is constructed using comprehensive Finnish statistics. Still, it is widely applicable to different geographical locations and modifiable for various purposes. The main contributions to the previous literature are the incorporation of empirical building mortality analysis and rehabilitation degree model in the MFA modelling framework. The model is demonstrated by modelling the development of Finnish residential building stock from 2020 to 2050. The annual average need for renovation from 2020 to 2050 is 4.1 million residential square metres (1.8% percent of the entire housing stock), equalling to annual investments of some 7.8 billion euros. However, the results revealed notable geographical differences between municipality categories. The results also suggest that the proportion of renovations in the total construction market is increasing while the volume of new housing construction is decreasing. The modelled results are in line with the Finnish Long-Term Renovation Strategy 2020–2050. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2006–2007, the romantic affair between Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen and white-collar worker Susan Kuronen received unprecedented attention in the national media. Analyzing the coverage of the affair and its aftermath in Finnish evening papers through Sara Ahmed's notion of affective circulation, the present article investigates the drawing of public and private boundaries through the public reviling of Kuronen for revealing intimate details concerning Vanhanen's private life. As the couple's relationship unraveled, the evening papers began fashioning class differences between the parties both previously characterized as "ordinary" and middle-class, labeling Kuronen as common and trashy. Addressing the dynamics of class and gender at play, the article shows that although Kuronen was accused of continuously revealing her private life, she actually gave few interviews herself. Rather, the popular press reused the same comments and quotes extensively in an intertextual process of circulation through which Kuronen was crafted into a highly affective media figure and an object of considerable public dismay. In addition to exploring the intertextual working practices of the popular media, the article investigates the effects of the circulation of affect from evening papers to online discussion forums as underpinned by social hierarchies, the uses of privacy as a politician's media strategy as well as the risks that this involves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article scrutinises the significance of the most-favoured-nation (MFN) treaty in promoting the development of commercial activity and its results in transnational trade. As cardinal agents of trade policy, governments act as ‘umpires’ in formulating and guarding the rules of international trade, while the ‘players’ are private corporations which conduct commercial operations in the playing field of international trade. Within the framework of Finno-Japanese trade relations, the players established and developed their trade networks (corporate interconnections) regardless of the umpires and their official rules, meaning the commercial treaties. Through a close examination of the early trade policy relations between Finland and Japan along with the formation and development of the Finnish forest industry’s sales networks into the Japanese market in the early twentieth century, this study demonstrates that there was no explicit causal connection between MFN treaties and the evolution of the Finnish forest industry’s export efforts – and their results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on the environmental Kuznets curve theory (EKC) and the double-dividend hypothesis of environmental tax, this paper aims to examine the relationship between environmental tax, economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions in China, Finland, and Malaysia from 1985 to 2014 using panel autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) models. This paper discovers an N-shaped relationship between the volume of carbon dioxide emissions and the value of the gross domestic product. Furthermore, this study confirms that the double-dividend effect of environmental tax exists in all three countries in the long run. Overall, this study argues that evidence from Finland and Malaysia on environmental taxes that help the country to save energy and reduce carbon dioxide emissions can provide a reference for China and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the concept of urbanity in a specific context, namely Helsinki, Finland. In a European context, Finland urbanized late. This lies at the heart of the common interpretation that Finland lacks an urban culture and urban lifestyles. Today, however, with the new comprehensive Urban Plan, city planners in Helsinki emphasize a paradigm shift towards urbanity. This paper seeks to understand this changing emphasis in planning by exploring how planners frame and understand urbanity. The paper concludes that within the Nordic welfare context more emphasis is needed to rethink whom urbanity serves and how it resonates with the prevention of segregation that the city also aims at. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]