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This study focuses on the social actions taken around English language by a 12-year-old Finnish schoolboy, Simo, and his family members in the course of living their everyday life at home. The paper asks how everyday life learning opportunities are related to both in-class and out-of-class English-language learning. The multiple data (e.g. media diary, video recordings, discussions, interviews, drawings and observations) come from two contexts, an online language learning project and Simo's home. The research approach draws upon nexus analysis and the results suggest Simo's everyday life learning affordances cross geographies of English-language learning. The results have implications for pedagogic design and teacher education.

This paper examines whether the relationship between parental work and adolescents' well-being would be mediated through parenting behaviour. The primary focus was on the experiences of adolescents. Questionnaire-based data from families (both parents and one children, n=77) and adolescents (n=126) were collected in Finland in 2000 and 2001, respectively. The adolescents were on average 14 years old. Results showed that the relationships between parents' negative work experiences and adolescents' depression (all perceived by adolescents) were partially mediated by adolescents' experience of lessened autonomy granting in parenting and increased conflicts between parents and adolescents. In addition, the relations between fathers' negative work experiences and adolescents' negative attitude regarding school (all reported by adolescents) were mediated by adolescents' perceptions of increased conflicts between fathers and adolescents.

In many developed countries lone parent families face high rates of child poverty. Among those lone parents who do get child maintenance there is a hidden problem. States may retain all, or a proportion, of the maintenance that is paid in order to offset other fiscal costs. Thus, the potential of child maintenance to alleviate poverty among lone parent families may not be fully realized, especially if the families are also in receipt of social assistance benefits. This paper provides an original comparative analysis exploring the effectiveness of child maintenance to reduce child poverty among lone parent families in receipt of social assistance. It addresses the question of whether effectiveness is compromised once interaction effects (such as the operation of a child maintenance disregard) are taken into account in four countries Australia, Finland, Germany and the UK using the LIS dataset (2013). It raises important policy considerations and provides evidence to show that if policy makers are serious about reducing child poverty, they must understand how hidden mechanisms within interactions between child maintenance and social security systems can work as effective cost recovery tools for the state, but have no poverty reduction impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The health care systems in the Nordic countries and worldwide are under pressure due to increased longevity and a shortage of nurses. Providing nurses with a high level of education, such as advanced practice nursing, is of great importance to ensure effective, safe and high-quality care. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate self-reported competence using the Nurse Professional Competence Scale Short-Form for the first time among master's students of advanced practice nursing in the Nordic countries and to relate the findings to age, work obligations, child-rearing responsibilities, level of education and clinical nursing experience. Methods: A multicentre, cross-sectional design was used in this study conducted at five universities in Denmark, Finland and Norway. The Nurse Professional Competence Scale Short-Form consisting of six competence areas was used with a maximum score of 7 per item for the analysis of single items and a transformed scale from 14.3 to 100 for analysing the competence areas (higher score equals higher self-reported competence). Descriptive and comparative statistics were used to analyse the data. Results: The highest mean score was found for the competence area 'Value-based nursing care'. Students living with home-dwelling children (≤ 18 years) reported significantly higher competence in 'Nursing care', while students ≥33 years reported significantly higher competence in 'Nursing care' and 'Value-based nursing care'. No significant differences were found between students working and those not working alongside their studies, between students with and without further nursing-related education, or between students with long and short experience as nurses. Conclusions: The findings from this study might help to further develop curricula in advanced practice nursing master's programmes to ensure high-quality nursing and sustainable health care in the future. Future high-quality master's programmes might benefit from systematic collaboration between Nordic higher education institutions as also Sweden is planning master's programme. Higher age, having children at home and working while studying should not be considered causes for concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 5,000 to 6,000 Somalis arrived in Finland between 1990 and 1995 through Russia. Currently, 8,096 have settled permanently in the country. The data reported here is from a 1998-1999 research survey carried out in the Finish cities of Helsinki and Turku. The survey of 117 married Somalis explored the social-cultural determinants of contraception use. The paper presented here focuses upon one particular aspect of the survey. We selected 21 Somali parents (11 women and 10 men) to look in-depth at the experiences of Somali migrants raising children in Finland. All of the respondents selected have more than 5 children in their family and all were asked to describe their experiences of raising children in Finland and, more generally, in establishing and maintaining family structures. Unlike their experiences in Somali, bringing up large families (by Westerns standards) is not a collective matter in Finland where biological parents are left to manage the family for themselves. A number of challenges also accompany this shift in family norms: first, and most notably, there is the need to re-establish control over one's life in an alien environment; second, intergenerational conflict between adult migrants and their adolescent children is often heightened. The findings indicate that Somalis' experiences of raising children in Finland raise important parenting challenges associated with changing generational, gender and family relations within the migrant household. Importantly, this case study of large Somali families shows how migrants' lives are intricately linked to the household dynamic between home and host country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paternal role has become one of the most topic discussions in parenting and has drawn researchers' intention worldwide. This research aimed to explore the existing literature relating to paternal roles across cultures, which analyzed 1) how the paternal roles in cultural perspectives have been researched; 2) what the parental values based on cultures mentioned in the literature are, and 3) what the topic discussed about the paternal role across culture is. The focus of the research was to find out the current trends of paternal roles across cultures from 2012 to 2022 derived from the Scopus database. The method used was a systematic review and followed PRISMA guidelines (the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis). The study revealed that most of the literature highlighted the significance of the fathers' involvement in child-rearing in every culture (Indian, Japanese, Latino, Chinese, Indonesian, Norwegian, and Finland) and the improvement of paternal practices due to the adaptation of new cultures and the emergence of fathers' awareness to take part in their children's lives. It can be concluded that the paternal role in a collectivist culture still holds firm to the culture in parenting practices but has begun to experience a shift from the original position of breadwinner, protector, even disciplinarian and authoritarian, becoming the more involved father in child-rearing. While most fathers from individualist cultures had previously been involved in child care because they were supported by policies in their country of origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden and Finland were the first countries to ban corporal punishment 30 years ago. Since then, the prevalence of attitudes supporting the use of corporal punishment and the practice itself have decreased. This study examines the current frequencies of corporal punishment and other humiliating upbringing practices in Finnish and Swedish families. The analysis is based on survey data among 3170 Finnish and 1358 Swedish parents with children from newborn to 12 years of age. Data were analysed using univariate tests (chi-square) and logistic regression. According to the analysis, a larger proportion of Finnish parents, and especially mothers, use humiliating upbringing practices compared to Swedish parents. This difference is not found with regard to corporal punishment. A larger proportion of Finnish parents push their children compared to Swedish parents, while a larger proportion of Swedish parents shake their children. In both countries, corporal punishment is more frequently used by fathers, boys are more often victimised than girls, toddlers are more often exposed to corporal punishment and school-age children are more often subjected to psychologically abusive practices. Corporal punishment and other humiliating upbringing practices are strongly correlated in both countries. The differences found between countries were not explained by socio-demographic factors. Key Practitioner Messages Use of corporal punishment is still quite common among Finnish and Swedish parents., Parents use corporal punishment more often towards children aged two to six years while other humiliating upbringing practices are used more often towards children above age six., The differences between Finland and Sweden in the use of corporal punishment and other humiliating upbringing practices are not explained by traditional socioeconomic characteristics, nor by the parents' own experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BackgroundLow socio-economic status (SES), and a conflictive, cold and unsupportive family environment in childhood have been associated with early adulthood hostility. However, it is unknown whether this association changes in magnitude with age from childhood to adulthood. We investigated whether childhood family factors (SES and parental child-rearing style) predicted differential development of offspring hostility and anger from early to middle adulthood.MethodBetween 2041 and 2316 participants (age range 3–18 years at baseline) were selected from the longitudinal Young Finns study. The participants were followed for 27 years between 1980 and 2007. Childhood SES and parent's self-reported child-rearing style were measured twice: at baseline and 3 years after baseline. Hostility and anger were assessed with self-report questionnaires at 12, 17, 21 and 27 years after baseline.ResultsLow parental SES and hostile child-rearing style at baseline predicted higher mean levels of offspring anger and hostility. Low parental SES and one of the hostile child-rearing style components (strict disciplinary style) became more strongly associated with offspring hostility with age, suggesting an accumulating effect.ConclusionsChildhood family factors predict the development of hostility and anger over 27 years and some of these family factors have a long-term accumulating effect on the development of hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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Utilising an ecological framework, this study presents a meta-analysis of four sub-studies investigating the socialisation experiences of young people affiliated with a religious minority community. More precisely, it is a study of how this particular socialisation context affects the individual's construction of a personal value system and religious identity and how the developing person interacts with his/her environment. Seventh-day Adventism in Finland is the context for this case study. The research adopts an educational perspective on religious socialisation, placing a special emphasis on youth as the phase during which values and memberships are negotiated and constructed with increasing independence from parental values and opinions. The mixed-method study includes both quantitative and qualitative data sets (3 surveys: n=106 young adults, n=100 teenagers, n=55 parents; and 2 sets of interviews: n=10 young adults and n=10 teenagers). Results indicate that the religious community has an important influence on these young people's religious socialisation, both in terms of commitment to denominational values and lifestyle and in providing a religious identity and anchoring them in the social network of the denomination. Furthermore, the network of the religious community generates important social resources (or social capital) for both the youth and their families, with tangible as well as intangible benefits and bridging and bonding effects. However, the study also illustrates the sometimes difficult negotiations that young people face as teenagers in negotiating between differentiation and belonging, when there is tension between the values of a minority group and those of the larger society and one wants to — and does — belong to both. It also demonstrates the many different ways one can choose and yet find a personally meaningful way of being an Adventist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, the child-rearing goals of mothers of 4- to 6-year-old children from Estonia, Finland, and Sweden were compared. The developed Child-Rearing Goals Questionnaire consisted of three different tasks: open-ended questions, item rating, and item ranking. All mothers were similar in valuing highly self-maximization, but differed in emphasis on traditional child-rearing goals (e.g., conformity, obedience, politeness, being hard-working, etc.). The Swedish mothers tended to stress the characteristics connected with self-maximization as well as self-confidence and children's happiness, but did not value the traditional child-rearing goals. The Estonian mothers attached a great significance both to the traditional characteristics and to self-maximization. The Finnish mothers also stressed both traditional and non-traditional values, but to a lesser extent than the Estonians. The Swedish and Finnish mothers’ child-rearing goals were relatively homogeneous. In contrast, the Estonian mothers were generally less focused on any specific goal. Mothers with a lower level of education stressed traditional goals more than mothers with a higher level of education. The results are discussed in the light of the possible effect different cultural contexts have on maternal child-rearing goals: bringing up children in stable welfare societies (such as Sweden and Finland) in contrast to a rapidly changing society (such as Estonia). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

e current study examined maternal control of children across families with early adolescents from different socioculural backgrounds. The intention was to find out whether belonging to the same ethnic group/language community (i.e., Estonian or Finnish) is more important for determination of child-rearing attitudes and practices than sharing the immediate sociocultural context (i.e., Swedish society). In addition, attention was paid to the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. The results were obtained from three monocultural samples of Estonian, Swedish, and Finnish families living in their country of origin; two bicultural samples consisted of Estonian and Finnish families residing in Sweden. Two types of data—mothers' reported attitudes towards the importance of control over children's behaviour (the Control Scale) and video-recorded real-life verbal behaviour—were used to determine how the mothers' attitudes towards control relate to the behavioural control exhibited in their real-life interactions. The study showed that the Finno-Ugric mothers living in their countries of origin controlled their children's behaviour significantly more frequently than those Finno-Ugric mothers who live in Sweden, but both Estonian samples outperformed Finns in their reported control attitudes. The Swedish mothers were the least directive among monocultural mothers both in maternal beliefs and in real-life behaviour, but they differed from Estonian and Finnish mothers residing in Sweden only in their lower scores on the Control Scale. The study revealed that mothers' real-life control behaviour corresponded rather modestly to their reported attitudes toward the importance of controlling children. Analyses of actual mother-child interaction showed that only the Estonian mothers living in Estonia actually put their relatively high scores on the Control Scale into practice in real-life interactions with their children. Finally, some characteristics of... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the family dynamics of childbearing and childrearing families in Finland. Changes in family dynamics after childbirth; Effect of family dynamics on the birth of a child; Comparison of the communication in families rearing their first child and families rearing their second child; Description of pregnant mothers of their family dynamics.