Social justice through education policy

This super week of conferences culminates participating in ISER 2013 Symposium, the International Symposium on Educational Reform. The themes of the symposium this year are Social justice, Future creation, Ethical leadership, The Finnish School system compared to other countries, Lifelong guidance and counseling, Leadership challenges and solutions, and Introducing present school leadership research.

 

The symposium is organized by the Institute of Educational Leadership of the Faculty of Education, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, in collaboration with University of Kentucky, the University of Pretoria, and East China Normal University.

 Senior Lecturer, PhD Kamran Namdar's excellent lecture on Wednesday ...

 

Popular religion, literacy and name-giving

 

Today in the international Witchcraft, Magic and Popular Religion - XI Gustav Vasa seminar 11.-12.6.2013 at the department of History and Ethnology in Jyväskylä. The Eleventh annual Gustav Vasa seminar discusses these themes in multidisciplinary perspectives, e.g. from the fields of history, anthropology, religious science and archaeology. The focus of the seminar is on worldviews and belief systems and their internal logic, which influenced the way people understood the world and the supernatural.

I had a presentation "Popular Religion in Name-Giving: The Effects of Improved Literacy Skills on the Change of People’s Use of Rituals at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries". In it I focused on the effects of improved literacy skills on rituals and popular beliefs connected with the name-giving of newborn babies in the Finnish countryside.

 

The significance of the ambulatory schools in Finnish educational history

Participating the "Days of History of Education" in Jyväskylä. This year's theme, "150 years of teacher training", celebrates the University of Jyväskylä's 150th Anniversary. The first Finnish-speaking teacher training college, Jyväskylä Teacher Seminary, was established in 1863 by Uno Cygnaeus.

 

My presentation concentrates on the significance of the ambulatory schools and teachers in the educational history of the remote rural areas in Finland. I have also written an article of this theme. It has been published in a new book of the Nordic Centre of Excellence NordWel: Education, state and citizenship (2013).

 

Kiertokouluista Kasvatuksen historian päivillä

 

Osallistun Jyväskylän yliopistossa alkuviikosta järjestettäville Kasvatuksen historian päiville. Päivien teemana on opettajankoulutus. Jyväskylässä opettajia on koulutettu jo 150 vuotta, aina opettajaseminaarin ajoista saakka.

Tämänpäiväisen esitelmäni aiheena on kiertokoulujen merkitys kansanopetuksen järjestämisessä 1800-luvun loppupuolen keskisuomalaisella maaseudulla. Olen tarkastellut aihetta laajemmin hiljattain ilmestyneessä artikkelissani "From religious instruction to school education: elementary education and the significance of ambulatory schools in rural Finland at the end of the 19th century". Se on julkaistu pohjoismaisen NordWel-huippuyksikön uudessa julkaisussa Education, state and citizenship (2013).
 

 

 

Vanhaa uudistaen, mutta perinteitä kunnioittaen.

Seminaarinmäki kesällä 2013.

Literacy skills and super-diversity

Today I am participating an interesting international conference Language and Super-diversity: Explorations and interrogations (University of Jyväskylä, June 5-7, 2013) with poster presentation:
The ways of writing Finnish forenames in 18th and 19th century and how this influenced the formation of personal identities.

The aim of this conference is 'to investigate the perspective and potential offered by super-diversity to language study – to, for example, linguistics, sociolinguistics, sociology of language, linguistic anthropology, applied linguistics, discourse studies, new literacy studies, pragmatics, ethnography and multi-modality'. The abstract book online.

The conference is organized by the Department of Languages and the Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä, and the International Consortium on Language and Super-diversity.

Inspiring lectures & presentations, and great discussions with wonderful people, for example professor Jan Blommaert!

New Publication: Elementary Education and Ambulatory Schools in Rural Finland

In a recent article ‘From religious instruction to school education: elementary education and the significance of ambulatory schools in rural Finland at the end of the 19th century’ I have examined the significance of the ambulatory schools and teachers in the educational history of the remote rural areas in Finland.

My article has been published in a new book: Buchardt, Mette, Markkola, Pirjo & Valtonen, Heli (eds.), Education, state and citizenship. NordWel Studies in Historical Welfare State Research 4. Helsinki: The Nordic Centre of Excellence NordWel, 2013.

 

Researching the benefits of literacy

This is a blog of the postdoctoral researcher’s project ‘The Benefits of Literacy in Everyday Life: The impacts of improved literacy on the opportunities for social advancement in remote local communities (c. 1800–1930)’, funded by the Academy of Finland (2011–2014).

In this research project I will use some sample communities to analyze how the improvement of functional literacy and its powerful development at the end of the 19th century (in comparison with the situation in the early 19th century) had the effect of increasing the information capital of the Finnish-speaking peasants and why this had major impacts on the activities of individuals and the structures of the remote local community.

The aim of this project is to consider why the newly learned skills so significantly changed the formation of intangible capital in local relations. At a formal Finnish written language was developed and the status of Finnish as a language for use in official documents and in literature alongside Swedish became stronger, the hierarchical class society was gradually disappearing, and it became possible also for members of the lower social groups to improve their literacy skills and in that way to enhance their social position.