The main purpose of the thesis is: on the basis of an analysis and interpretation of Plato's Dialogues, to describe his personal characteristics in its relation to his pedagogic reality, and, on the basis of these descriptions, to analyse and interpret his teaching methods as a result of two different processes. The scientific perspectives of the thesis are inspired by hermeneutic philosophy of history and especially by the theories of Paul Ricoeur and Hans-Georg Gadamer. Furthermore, the perspective is grounded on three concepts of pedagogics, by the help of which both explicit and implicit pedagogic processes are analysed. In order to interrelate the interpretations some analytical and interpretational models have been used, based on Ricoeur's mimesis concept and his theory of narrative identity. The final interpretations maintain that a particular line runs through Plato's teaching, and that its goal is intellectual autonomy and a change in the pupil's whole view of the world, which implies a fusion between intellect and existential experience. This line shows that Plato teaches in both a sensual and spiritual dimension and that these processes, though contrasted, function in parallel. The goal of intellectual autonomy demonstrates how Plato breaks with his culture and by doing so recommends solitude - something quite revolutionary in an age when the group, a strong sense of community and of being one of Us sets its stamp on everyones mentality. An interpretation of the Symposium shows how any change in world view calls for a combination of existential experience and thought. The main principal features in Plato's teaching methods are presented as preparation, change, liberation and wisdom.

The possibilities and problems of minority children and adolescents in a multicultural school are subjects of growing interest today. In this dissertation a new perspective on the subject is founded on the basis of the minority students' existential conditions in their school life. The idea and method of the dissertation is based on the experiences of a preschool study which led me to the purpose of illustrating social and pedagogical living conditions, as they are expressed in the minority students' narratives on how they experience their situation in the compulsory school [7-16 age group] and how they are treated and judged by their teachers. In three studies of the work and living conditions of minority students, I examine how minority students in the compulsory school experience and handle the pedagogical attitudes they encounter. Students in grades 2, 5 and 9 relate frankly about their experiences of the attitudes of parents, teachers and schoolmates and about their own linguistic qualifications. Based on the material of a national evaluation of the teaching of mathematics, I also study how the students experience the acquisition of skills. The complete set of data is interpreted with the aim and direction of reaching an understanding of the students' situation, i.e. in a hermeneutic perspective. The contents of the students' narratives and the results of the questionnaire from the national evaluation are the themes of the empirical section of the dissertation, and these main themes are summarized in the final chapter. An expressed ideal of a democratic school contrasts with another and more subtle message, which is transferred through a covert "immanent pedagogics." The idea is that the minority students stand outside democracy at school, i.e. their situations and identities are not recognized. The discussion deals with how "a school for everyone" rather functions as "a school for others" from the minority students' perspectives. My ambition is to spread knowledge on these fundamental existential conditions, which characterize the school environment of the minority students.