Suomi toisena kielenä vai lukivaikeus? : Luokanopettajien käsityksiä oppilaiden kielellisistä vaikeuksista

Goals. Immigrant pupils are over-represented in special education. Linguistic difficulties are the most pivotal reasons for social exclusion of immigrant pupils during their school career. Addedly reading, writing, and language development disorders are the most common reasons for both part-time and extensive special education. I studied class teachers' perceptions of the typical linguistic difficulties of pupils who speak Finnish as their second language and of those who have dyslexia, because I suspect that telling the difference between linguistic competency in progress and the symptoms of dyslexia isn't easy. I look for overlappings in the perceptions of linguistic difficulties, their causes and their support measures, which would reveal the challenges in recognizing linguistic difficulties, which in turn might partly explain why immigrant pupils are over-represented in special education. Methods. This study was carried out as structured individual interviews with nine class teachers from the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. To increase reliability, complementary information was gathered about the same phenomenon with a questionnaire that each interviewee filled out at the end of the interview. It was required that the interviewees have experience of teaching both dyslexic pupils and pupils who speak Finnish as a second language. The material analysis was mainly deductive, but the material that wasn't in line with the theoretical frame of reference was analyzed inductively. Results and conclusions. There were overlappings in the class teachers' perceptions of the linguistic difficulties, support measures fitting them and, based on the questionnaire results, also of the causes of these difficulties. Additionally all the interviewees said it to be difficult to recognize dyslexia in a pupil who speaks Finnish as a second language. I came to the conclusion that distinguishing different linguistic difficulties from one another is a challenge to which class teachers don't always feel competent to rise, which is why they consider the assistance of special teachers and other professionals beneficial.

Participation or further exclusion? : Contestations over forest conservation and control in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

This Ph.D. thesis Participation or Further Exclusion? Contestations over Forest Conservation and Control in the East Usambara Mountains, Tanzania describes and analyses the shift in the prevailing discourse of forest and biodiversity conservation policies and strategies towards more participatory approaches in Tanzania, and the changes in the practises of resource control. I explore the scope for and limits to the different actors and groups who are considered to form the community, to participate in resource control, in a specific historical and socio-economic context. I analyse whether, how and to which extent the targets of such participatory conservation interventions have been able to affect the formal rules and practices of resource control, and explore their different responses and discursive and other strategies in relation to conservation efforts. I approach the problematic through exploring certain participatory conservation interventions and related negotiations between the local farmers, government officials and the external actors in the case of two protected forest reserves in the southern part of the East Usambaras, Tanzania. The study area belongs to the Eastern Arc Mountains that are valued globally and nationally for their high level of biodiversity and number of endemic and near endemic species. The theoretical approach draws from theorising on power, participation and conservation in anthropology of development and post-structuralist political ecology. The material was collected in three stages between 2003 and 2008 by using an ethnographic approach. I interviewed and observed the actors and their resource use and control practices at the local level, including the representatives of the villagers living close to the protected forests and the conservation agency, but also followed the selected processes and engaged with the non-local agencies involved in the conservation efforts in the East Usambaras. In addition, the more recent processes of change and the actors strategies in resource control were contextualised against the social and environmental history of the study area and the evolvement of institutions of natural resource control. My findings indicate that the discourse of participation that has emerged in global conservation policy debate within the past three decades, and is being institutionalised in the national policies in many countries, including Tanzania, has shaped the practices of forest conservation in the East Usambaras, although in a fragmented and uneven way. Instrumental interpretation of participation, in which it is to serve the goals of improving the control of the forest and making it more acceptable and efficient, has prevailed among the governmental actors and conservation organisations. Yet, there is variation between the different projects and actors promoting participatory conservation regarding the goals and means of participation, e.g. to which extent the local people are to be involved in decision-making. The actors representing communities also have their diverse agendas, understandings and experiences regarding the rationality, outcomes and benefits of being involved in forest control, making the practices of control fluid. The elements of the exclusive conservation thinking and practices co-exist with the more recent participatory processes, and continue to shape the understandings and strategies of the actors involved in resource control. The ideas and narratives of the different discourses are reproduced and selectively used by the parties involved. The idea of forest conservation is not resisted as such by most of the actors at local level, quite the opposite. However, the strict regulations and rules governing access to resources, such as valuable timber species, continue to be disputed by many. Furthermore, the history of control, such as past injustices related to conservation and unfulfilled promises, undermines the participation of certain social groups in resource control and benefit sharing. This also creates controversies in the practices of conservation, and fuels conflicts regarding the establishment of new protected areas. In spite of this, the fact that the representatives of the communities have been invited to the arenas where information is shared, and principles and conditions of forest control and benefit sharing are discussed and partly decided upon, has created expectations among the participants, and opened up opportunities for some of the local actors to enhance their own, and sometimes wider interests in relation to resource control and the related benefits. The local actors experiences of the previous government and other interventions strongly affect how they position themselves in relation to conservation interventions, and their responses and strategies. However, my findings also suggest, in a similar way to research conducted in some other protected areas, that the benefits of participation in conservation and resource control tend to accrue unevenly between different groups of local people, e.g. due to unequal access to information and differences in their initial resources and social position.