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Being part of a peer group and feeling a sense of belonging increases the well-being of children in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Still, children face exclusion and rejection by peers. This study examined children's peer exclusion experiences in pre-primary school settings, investigating children's voices and perspectives through researching children's narratives. Ten children participated in the interviews in Finnish pre-primary school during spring 2018. Children's narrations about exclusion took place during free play time in children's peer groups. Results showed common features but also a variety of children's experiences and strategies when facing exclusion, and suggests that children with positive experiences with peers can cope with occasional exclusion. Children had a clear understanding of exclusion and they were capable of expressing their experiences verbally. Furthermore, by researching children's narratives, we can increase our understanding of peer exclusion in early childhood educational settings.

The aim of our study is to identify elements of young children's shared humour by observing children's own expressions in the everyday life of early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres aged 1-6 in three Finnish ECEC centres. Our analysis shows that young children's humour plays an important role in routine transitions and play situations. Children's shared humour is often seen as momentary twinkles, as a flowing current, as carnivalism or what we term "hyperfun." The article highlights why humour should be more utilised as a pedagogical tool. This study attempts to enrich the discussion on young children's shared humour in order to gain a deeper understanding of its nature and application in early childhood education and care.

Aim: To describe the application of selected creative and participatory research methods in nursing science. Design: Research methodology paper. Methods: Researcher‐initiated role play, stimulated recall interviews, the Storycrafting method, painting and drawing. Altogether, 11 children (5–7 years old) and 12 parents participated in the research. Results: Each small group (n = 3) acted differently during the data collection. Not every child wanted to play, draw or tell stories, but they all expressed their views through some method. Although the same themes emerged from children's narratives, they could not have been verified by just one method. Conclusions: Using creative and participatory methods and the principles of studies of child perspectives are applicable ways of conducting research in nursing science. Children must be treated as individuals during the research process, and they must have opportunities to use several communication methods to express their views. Implications for the profession and patient care: Understanding different ways to interact with children and hear children's views will help nurses to encounter children. Impact: In this article, we present a valid way of conducting research with children. By following our protocol, nursing research from a child perspective can be implemented. Reporting Method: Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ). Patient Contribution: The child participants were involved in choosing physical places for data collection and the usage and order of the selected methods. Both the children and the adult participants took part in interpreting the research data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is two-fold: 1) to describe what kind of practical theories student teachers have in the Finnish class teacher education context and 2) to analyse their differences and similarities at the initial and final phase of teacher education. We further analyse the relationship between the practical theories and their sources. The data include an e-form questionnaire with 1052 self-reported practical theories collected from 180 student teachers. The analysis of these theories is based on Levin and He's (2008) model which was modified by adding categories appropriate for the Finnish context of teacher education. The research results were obtained through quantitative analysis with an emphasis on categorical qualitative data. On the basis of the findings it can be concluded that the main contents--and especially the main sources of these theories--differ in the two student teacher groups examined, i.e. the initial-stage and the final-stage groups. The analyses concentrating on the theory-source relationship show that teacher education has the potential to affect the content of practical theories. The so-called "well-developed practical theories" and the sources of these theories related to teacher education were detected more often in the data from the end of teacher education than in the data from the starting phase.

Schools need concrete pedagogical tools to promote intercultural learning. The Storycrafting method is used to promote interactions between children that lead to a dynamic, rather than static, experience of culture. Children 9-11 years old exchanged stories told using the Storycrafting method with another class in Finland, Scotland, or an international school in Europe. To understand how children experience the intercultural encounters, the children's stories and other ethnographic materials are analyzed and frames are developed. These frames are telling to entertain, telling to challenge, telling from real-life experiences, telling from shared experience, responding sensitively and responding defensively. Approaching intercultural learning through Storycrafting creates a shared narrative culture and avoids stereotyping the Other, which is a common limitation in intercultural exchange projects.

How a society supports its most vulnerable individuals can serve as a barometer of social inclusion. By engaging in previous debates on how the influx and resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers challenge European educational spaces, this study investigates asylum seekers' non-engagement and non-participation in one engaged learning project in Finland (the KOTO project - Kotoutuminen taidolla ja taiteella [Integration through Arts and Skills]). A mixed methods approach with convergent design was adopted for the study, which combines qualitative data on asylum seekers' attributions of their participatory barriers with quantitative data on the relationship between asylum seekers' demographics and the quantified data on their participatory barriers. The study illuminates how asylum seekers' liminality, along with the project-based barriers, generates non-engagement and non-participation in the educative pre-integrational programmes in a reception centre context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the process of developing classroom culture that promotes reciprocal intercultural encountering in the primary school. Storycrafting, an oral storytelling method used for democratic encounters between participants, was used to connect classes in Scotland, Finland and Belgium over three cycles of design-based research. Abductive analysis produced a theoretical framework of seven key dimensions that influence the learning space for reciprocal encounters: power, knowledge, relatedness, purpose, structure, continuity and meaningfulness. These dimensions were used to identify four kinds of learning spaces that occurred during the implementation of the story exchange: the ambivalent space, the space of information, the transitional space and the space of reciprocal encountering. The intervention created a platform for children's encounters that reinforced mutuality and reciprocal interactions rather than Othering the exchange partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Personal practical theories (PPTs) are built based on underlying beliefs, experiences, values and conceptions regarding 'good teaching'. Having a vision of teaching and valuing the work may have a strong effect on one's sense of identity, resilience and commitment. This study focused on Finnish teacher students' (N = 84) PPTs constructed during the middle or at the end of their studies, on average during their fourth year of a five-year MA programme. All of the PPTs, written as statements (N = 647), were combined, and a unified conception of the theories was formed using inductive content analysis. The three main categories found were "the foundations of good teaching," "the teacher" and "the teacher's daily work." The analysis of the statements shows that the notions of good teaching are very idealistic: they emphasise abstract ideologies and high standards for the teacher, but also everyday matters of teaching, although also here the ideology of the pupil's individuality is at the centre. The paper concludes by arguing that it is good to have high aims and values for teaching, although in reality some of them might be difficult to achieve.

In this article, we investigate first-year student teachers' teacher identities through their practical theories and ask what these practical theories reveal about their emerging teacher identities? This study approaches teacher identity from a dialogical viewpoint where identity is constructed through various positions. The empirical part of this study analysed the practical theories of 71 first-year student teachers in order to determine what kinds of positions are involved in their teacher identity at the beginning of their teacher education and what positions are emphasised. The results showed that when student teachers begin their teacher education, the majority of positions concern didactical issues, that is, how to promote pupils' studying and learning processes. In addition, student teachers' teacher identities as teachers strongly emphasise the moral nature of teaching. Contextual issues about school and society and matters related to content, such as the curriculum, had little representation in first-year student teacher identities. On the basis of the results, the role of teacher education is considered in the process of promoting development of student teachers' teacher identity during their studies.

The aim of our study is to identify elements of young children's shared humour by observing children's own expressions in the everyday life of early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres aged 1–6 in three Finnish ECEC centres. Our analysis shows that young children's humour plays an important role in routine transitions and play situations. Children's shared humour is often seen as momentary twinkles, as a flowing current, as carnivalism or what we term "hyperfun." The article highlights why humour should be more utilised as a pedagogical tool. This study attempts to enrich the discussion on young children's shared humour in order to gain a deeper understanding of its nature and application in early childhood education and care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on critical participatory research in an early childhood education and care centre in Finland. The objective was to study which elements are critical in the development and construction of a culture of participation. The data comprise conversations, team meetings and educators' diaries. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results indicated that a culture of participation requires four elements: (a) a shared understanding of the image of the child, (b) a shared understanding of professional development, (c) leadership and (d) a shared we‐narrative that enables the comprehensive understanding, promotion and maintenance of a culture of participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly 1.4 million asylum seekers arrived in Europe in 2015. With an unprecedented 822% increase in the number of asylum applicants, Finland experienced the largest increase in applicants than any other European country that year. In this study, we investigated asylum seekers' experienced subjective well‐being (ExSWB) construct in comparison with their evaluated subjective well‐being (EvSWB) construct. A mixed methods approach with convergent design was adopted for the study, which combined quantitative data on asylum seekers' (n = 181) ExSWB and EvSWB with qualitative data on the elements of ExSWB and EvSWB. The findings point at a limbus phase in asylum seekers' livelihood transition between the borders for international protection in Finland. The Cantril self‐anchoring striving scale was used by the participants to describe this passage ritual of ambiguity. Furthermore, we also found gender differences related to coping and subjective well‐being, which supports previous findings on asylum seekers' well‐being. Key Practitioner Message: • The concept of the limbus phase of the asylum seeker livelihood transition is useful for describing asylum seekers' experiences while waiting for an asylum decision; • Asylum seeker SWB is closely related to status dissonance, separation and capitals, causing anxiety, worry and fear, and inflicting cognitive disruption; • Equal, institutional‐level functions should be organised in the reception centre for easing the anxiety related to the asylum‐seeking process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we focus on child perspective methodology when co-researching well-being with children and young people. The paper explores how to produce and analyse data produced with children and young people, and how to further develop the method of co-researching with them? We combined visual and verbal methods by using photo elicitation interviews (N = 16) and drawing group discussions (N = 49) to study the subjective well-being of 2–16-year-olds in their residential areas. We found out that by combining two methods it is possible to achieve a wider view of children’s subjective well-being. However, we must be aware that well-being is a complex entity and that there are barriers to use child perspective methods. Co-researching requires situationality, reciprocity and the researcher’s willingness to hear the perspectives of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]