Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää miten ammatilliseen kuntoutukseen valikoitujen, työelämässä olevien ihmisten yksilölliset, työhyvinvointia uudistavat oppimisprosessit etenevät ammatillisen kuntoutuksen kehittämishankkeessa toteutetussa kokonaistilanteen analyysissä. Analyysi on tehty kulttuurihistorialliseen toiminnan teoriaan ja kehittävään työntutkimukseen perustuvilla välineillä. Kulttuurihistoriallinen toiminnan teoria on myös tämän tutkimuksen teoreettinen viitekehys. Sen keskeinen käsite on kohdeorientoitunut toiminta, joka muuttuu jatkuvasti eriasteisten kehitysristiriitojen ratkaisemisen myötä. Parhaimmillaan ristiriitojen ratkaiseminen johtaa ekspansiiviseen oppimiseen. Toiminnan teorian kolmannessa aallossa on tutkittu erityisesti yhteisöllisiä oppimisprosesseja mutta yksilöllisiä oppimisprosesseja ei tutkimuksissa juuri avata. Tässä tutkimuksessa teen yhteenvetoa yksilöllisen oppimisprosessin toiminnanteoreettisista lähtökohdista ja laajennan näkökulmaa työelämässä olevien oppimisesta työelämän ulkopuolella oleviin hyödyntämällä uudistavan oppimisen teoriaa. Tarkoituksena on selvittää mitä vaiheita oppimisprosesseihin sisältyy, missä järjestyksessä vaiheet etenevät ja mitä oppimistehtäviä kuhunkin vaiheeseen sisältyy. Tutkimusaineistona käytän Kelan työhönkuntoutuksen hankkeen yhteydessä kerättyä haastatteluaineistoa, josta olen valinnut viiden haastateltavan litteraatit tutkimuksen kohteeksi. Tutkimus on teorialähtöinen, empiristinen diskurssianalyysi, jossa käytän tutkimusmenetelminä foucaultilaista diskurssianalyysiä ja diskursiivista psykologiaa. Menetelmät kiinnittävät uudistavan oppimisen vaiheet positioihin, joissa ihmisillä on erilaisia toiminnan rajoitteita ja mahdollisuuksia. Lisäksi ne tuovat esille tulkinnalliset repertuaarit, joissa kuuluvat ihmisten käsitykset omista mahdollisuuksista ja rajoitteista eri positioissa. Viiden haastattelun analyysi tuo esille johdonmukaisen ja vahvan diskurssin, jossa ihmisten tulkinnalliset repertuaarit kytkeytyvät työtoiminnan muutoksiin ja yhteiskunnallisiin ja maailmanlaajuisiin muutoksiin. Diskurssista kuuluvat myös uudistavan oppimisen vaiheet, jotka etenevät määrätyssä järjestyksessä. Tarvetilassa oppimistehtävänä on historiallinen analyysi ja tilanteen arviointi, ja vaihtoehtojen etsimisen vaiheessa haetaan konkreettisia ratkaisuja. Ristiriidan kärjistymisen valintatilanteessa punnitaan hyötyjä ja haittoja sekä mahdollisia seuraamuksia. Tämän jälkeen voi rakentaa mallin tulevasta toiminnasta, omaksua sen toteuttamiseen liittyvät tiedot ja taidot ja vakiinnuttaa ja arvioida omaa kehitystä. Tutkimuksessa täyttyvät diskurssianalyyttisen tutkimuksen luotettavuuden arvioinnin tekniset, praktiset ja kriittiset edellytykset. Tutkimusprosessi menetelmävalintoineen, epistemologisine ja ontologisine lähtökohtineen on läpinäkyvä ja huolellisesti kuvattu. Viiden henkilön otos on pieni, joten tulosten yleistettävyyteen on syytä suhtautua kriittisesti. Tuloksia ei voi myöskään suoraan yleistää koskemaan työelämän ulkopuolella olevien uudistavia oppimisprosesseja.

Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää mistä toiminnoista Oulun normaalikoulun alaluokkalaisten päivä koostuu fyysisen kokonaisaktiivisuuden näkökulmasta. Tutkimuksessa kartoitettiin lasten vapaa-ajan toimintoja, ohjattuja ja omatoimisia harrastuksia sekä välimatkaliikuntaa. Koulupäivän ajalta kartoitettiin ainoastaan välituntitoimintoja. Tutkimuksessa vertailtiin sukupuolten ja luokka-asteiden välisiä eroja. Tutkimusaineisto (n=243) kerättiin kaikilta Oulun normaalikoulun 1.−6.-luokkalaisilta joulukuussa 2011. Tutkimus oli luonteeltaan kvantitatiivinen survey-tutkimus. Se toteutettiin käyttäen strukturoitua kyselylomaketta, jonka oppilaat täyttivät kotona yhdessä huoltajan kanssa. Tällä pyrittiin herättämään keskustelua kotona ja saamaan todenmukaisempia vastauksia. Tutkimusaineisto käsiteltiin ja analysoitiin IBM SPSS Statistics -ohjelman avulla. Tutkimuksen teoreettisessa viitekehyksessä käsitellään fyysisen aktiivisuuden käsitettä, lapsen fyysistä aktiivisuutta ja fyysisen aktiivisuuden tilaa. Tämän jälkeen esitellään fyysisen aktiivisuuden suosituksia sekä alan aiemmista tutkimuksista saatuja tuloksia. Lisäksi siinä tarkastellaan alakoululaisen päivän kokonaisaktiivisuutta välimatkaliikunnan, kouluajan fyysisen aktiivisuden ja vapaa-ajan fyysisen aktiivisuuden kautta. Vapaa-ajan fyysinen aktiivisuus on jaettu järjestettyyn ja omaehtoiseen liikuntaan. Tutkimus osoitti, että sukupuolten ja luokka-asteiden välillä oli jossain määrin eroja. Suurimmassa osassa vapaa-ajan toimintoja tytöt olivat poikia aktiivisempia. Pojilla päivittäistä ruutuaikaa kertyi enemmän kuin tytöillä ja he pelasivat tyttöjä selvästi enemmän tietokone- ja videopelejä. Niin ohjattuihin harrastuksiin osallistuminen kuin omatoiminenkin harrastaminen oli yleisempää ylemmillä luokka-asteilla ja harrastamattomien lasten osuus väheni iän myötä. Yleisimmin kouluun kuljettiin vuodenajasta riippumatta pyörällä ja ohjattuihin harrastuksiin autokyydillä. Yli puolet alakoululaisista leikki liikuntaleikkejä ja jutteli kavereiden kanssa kaikilla välitunneilla. Tutkimustuloksia hyödynnettiin toisessa pro gradu -tutkielmassa, jossa kartoitettiin vähän liikkuvien lasten toiveita koulupihan suhteen. Lisäksi tulokset antavat tietoa oppilaiden huoltajille sekä normaalikoulun henkilökunnalle alakoululaisten fyysisen kokonaisaktiivisuuden tilasta.

Social media are technologies that have been widely appropriated in students’ daily lives. This has resulted in increasing research interest in the potential supportive role that social media can offer in learning contexts. To date a lot of research in the area of technology in education in general and social media in particular, has concentrated in the global north. This thesis contributes to the discussion offering a global south perspective from a small-scale study, but still of insightful significance. The aim of the research was to investigate student teachers’ relationships with social media with the focus on their conceptions and uses of social media in their daily lives and how they perceive the potential of adopting social media to support their learning. This is a qualitative study using Phenomenography as a research approach. Data was collected through focus group interviews using open-ended questions. The theoretical framework employed in the study combined technology appropriation theory and learning theory from Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective as well as the concept of networked learning. Technology appropriation was used to conceptualise how social media was appropriated by students in their daily lives, while the sociocultural and networked learning theories provided the theoretical lenses for interrogating the adoption of social media in learning. The participants in this study were student teachers at a university in Namibia. They were identified using the purposive sampling method, and they represented two different teaching programmes and three different year groups. In total, 19 students participated through 3 focus group interviews. The research findings show that research participants conceptualise social media as mainly social platforms for communication, bridging social relationships and for expanding social networks. Their use of social media reflects their conceptions, while also showing tensions regarding online and real-life identities. There were variations in perceptions of online identities, with some participants viewing them as separate from real-life identities, and others considering social media identities to be direct representations of real-life behaviour. The findings also show that social networking sites like Facebook were the dominantly used types of social media, and mainly accessed through mobile phones. Students’ perceptions of social media as supportive learning tools show recognition of the learning affordances that the technologies offer, with evidence that students were already informally using social media to support their own and their peers’ learning. Futhermore, findings show how students recognise the supportive role of social media in lifelong learning and their professional development as teachers. They indicated how social media can be used to create learning communities and supportive professional networks to foster collaboration amongst themselves as teachers. Issues of appropriate usage of social media on the basis of exposure to and sharing of content were identified. Concerns about lack of control over content shared and about privacy were additional findings. The limitations of this research lie in the fact that it was limited to a small group of participants. The purposive sampling method used to identify research participants may also have led to bais in favour of only students who used social media and were interested in talking about it. However, this was necessary for methodological reasons since only participants with actual experience in using social media were in a position to share such experiences. Conclusions highlight how the research findings corroborate previous research, that students predominantly use social media for social purposes, and the popularity of the social networking site Facebook. Conclusions further suggest that decisions on the use of social media in formal learning should be guided by pedagogical goals and learning needs that the technologies can meet. Pedagogical interventions to articulate the learning affordances of social media are suggested and cautions about the conceptual tensions between the nature of social media and the practices of formal education are highlighted. Critical media literacy is recommended to equip students with competencies to critically deal with content consumption and sharing on social media. Future research is recommended to focus on pedagogical and learning appropriation of social media.

The shift from the industrial to the post-industrial era, as well as the infiltration of the neoliberal ideology into the higher education sector, have brought with it ramifications with regards to the tasks of higher education, and the idea of quality and quality assessment in higher education. In the industrial era, tangible factors of production such as land and money were considered the key factors of economic development. However, in the 21st century post-industrial era, knowledge has emerged as the key driver of economic development. Knowledge is no longer seen as stuff, which could be stored away for future use and codified into disciplines, rather, it is seen as factor that is defined by the results it achieves. Neoliberalism is an ideology that sees the market as having the potential to produce a wide range of beneficial outcomes for individuals in a competitive market environment. Inspired by neoliberalism, governments around the world have put in place competitive performance-based funding schemes, by which higher education institutions are funded, not on the basis of intake, but on production, efficiency, and effectiveness. Central concepts of neoliberalism include: efficiency, productivity, effectiveness, and quality, along with their assessment. The present use of the term quality is a concept that emerged from the manufacturing industry and infiltrated into higher education, with implications for what the tasks of higher education are, and how quality is defined and assessed in higher education. Higher education has had its own traditional understanding of quality and quality assessment, which relied more on peer review to ascertain the quality of its work. In the four dominant archetypal models of the university; the Napoleonic, Humboldtian, Newmanian, and Deweyan, a common feature was that the university was an institution for the state by the state, and it was to promote collective good, and foster values such as democracy, equality, and critical thinking, One thing that is inherent in the neoliberal ideology is that it provides a narrower conception of what the tasks of higher education are, as well as a skeletal definition of quality in higher education. This research involved interviews with university staff, and sets out to answer two questions: 1) How do the participants perceive the tasks of the University of X? 2) How do the participants perceive quality and quality assessment at the University of X? This research aims to find out the impact of neoliberal values on the perceptions of quality and quality assessment among academics at a Finnish education institution (given the pseudonym the University of X in this research). The research participants comprises of a teacher, junior researcher, professor, professor emeritus, and an academic in a managerial position. Phenomenography, a qualitative methodological approach which studies the perceptions of individuals was used in this research. Data was collected using semi-structured phenomenographical thematic interviews, and was analysed using the phenomenographical method of data analysis. The findings of this research revealed that, the participants perceived that research and journal article publication are the main tasks of the University of X, while the institution’s societal and teaching tasks are not a primary focus. This research also established that, quality is conceived of as, and assessed more in terms of productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and reputation, rather than in terms of process, educational value, content, or human well-being. The participants also felt that, the performance-based funding scheme instituted by the Finnish government and the neoliberal market values which has swept over Europe, play vital roles in the University of X’s narrowed conception of what its tasks, quality and quality assessment are The participants expressed an awareness of the role of neoliberalism in narrowing the University of X’s tasks to economic instrumentality, and reducing its conception of quality and quality assessment to quantitative performance indicators, to the exclusion of non-quantitative educational and societal indicators of quality.

Opinnäytetyön tavoitteena on selvittää millaista on opiskelu kolmannessa iässä. Tutkimuskysymykset ovat ”Mitä ikääntyvät kuvataideopiskelijat kertovat opinnoistaan?” ja ”Millaista on opiskelu ikääntyvänä?” Kirjallisuuskatsauksesta selviää kuinka elinikäiseen oppimiseen liittyvää tieto keskittyy työssä jaksamiseen ja työurien pidentämiseen. Ikääntyvien formaaleista opinnoista löytyy tietoa ainoastaan ikäihmisten yliopistotoiminnasta, sillä toiminta kolmannessa iässä painottuu vapaaehtoistyöhön. Kolmannella iällä tarkoitetaan eläkeiän alkupäätä, työiän ja varsinaisen vanhuuden väliin jäävää elämänvaihetta. Elinikäisen oppimisen muodot olen jakanut tässä työssä formaaliin, nonformaaliin, informaaliin ja satunnaisoppimiseen ja tarkastelen niitä eri elämänvaiheissa. Kolmatta ikää elävien oppiminen painottuu nonformaaliin oppimiseen. Tutkimusaineiston kokosin Väri-nää varttuneiden kuvataidekoulun jatkoryhmästä. Väri-nää on ikääntyville suunnattu, tavoitteellisesti etenevä pitkäkestoinen kuvataidekoulu, joka toimii Lapinlahdella, Pohjois-Savossa. Tutkimukseen osallistui kahdeksan ikääntyvää naista, jotka ovat syntyneet vuosina 1939–1950. Olen valinnut laadulliseen tutkimukseeni kerronnallisen lähestymistavan. Kerronnallisuus tässä työssä tarkoittaa sekä ikääntyvien kuvataideopiskelijoiden suullista kerrontaa että taiteen avulla tuotettua kuvallista kerrontaa. Ensimmäisessä tiedonhankinnan vaiheessa kuvataideopiskelijat maalasivat elämänpolkunsa ja/tai opiskelupolkunsa kuusi ja puoli metriä pitkälle tapettirullalle. Toisessa vaiheessa he kertoivat polkunsa suullisesti koko ryhmälle. Tiedonhankinnan kolmas vaihe oli ryhmäkeskustelu. Tiedonkeruun neljänneksi vaiheeksi muodostui keskustelu, joka lähti liikkeelle spontaanisti opiskelijoista itsestään. Aineiston käsittelyssä olen käyttänyt aineistolähtöistä sisällönanalyysiä. Opinnäytetyön tarkoitus on antaa ääni ikääntyville kuvataideopiskelijoille itselleen. Analyysin tuloksena keskeiset vastaukset tutkimuskysymyksiin ovat seuraavat: Työelämästä pois jääminen on ollut ikääntyville kuvataideopiskelijoille suuri elämänmuutos ja kuvataidekouluun pääseminen merkittävä asia elämässä. Yhdessä tekemistä ja viihtymistä korostetaan ikääntyvien opiskelussa keskeisenä piirteenä, vaikka sosiaalisiin suhteisiin hakeutuminen ei ole varsinainen opiskelumotiivi. Taideopinnoilla on vaikutuksia hyvinvointiin ja terveyteen. Erona aikaisempiin tutkimuksiin on, että ikääntyvien kuvataideopiskelijoiden pyrkimyksenä ei ole yhteiskunnallisten muutosten ymmärtäminen, vaan itsensä kehittäminen. Näitä opinnäytetyön tuloksia voisi käyttää ikääntyville tarkoitettujen palvelukeskusten ja niissä tapahtuvan toiminnan suunniteluun. Myös yksityisten palvelujen tarjoajat voisivat hyödyntää tutkimuksen tuloksia erilaisten aktiviteettien suunnittelussa ostovoimaiselle ikääntyvälle väestölle.

Gender has a strong impact on individual’s entire life course. However, this impact is also shaped by the culture and society the individual lives in. For girls (and for boys) the consequences of being of certain gender may be positive as well as negative. This master’s thesis focuses on the factors that contribute to the well-being of girls, and more generally, on how girlhood is experienced. These factors are divided according to the biopsychosocial approach, but it is acknowledged that girlhood is constructed culturally and socially too, which guides the research process. Research context is here seen as ‘geography’ according to the theory deliberated in the book Geographies of Girlhood(2005), edited by Paula Bettis and Natalie Adams, in which several authors speak for the diversity of girlhood. Research on girls’ empowerment is part of girlhood studies aiming at empowering the girls holistically; through empowerment girls are equipped to act upon their own well-being. In the study girlhood and girl empowerment are observed through the lens of biopsychosocial theory, taking into consideration the girls’ living environment, i.e. the geographical context (Western, North American society). It is argued that many of the biopsychosocial challenges of girlhood might best be solved with empowerment theory turned into practice. The theoretical discussion on girlhood and girl empowerment is supported by a case study of one of the North American girl empowerment organizations, GENaustin,Texas, where ethnographic data was collected. Based on the analysis of the data, the researcher evaluates how successful the project of empowering the girls was and also, what were the challenges people working for this organization needed to cope with. The conclusions drawn from the theoretical consideration and the case study show that the empowerment of girls is of vital importance for their well-being and further, that in order to get good results, the geographical perspective should be recognized; this became obvious when analyzing the challenges that the organization needed to solve, such as the homogeneity of the local girl groups and prerequisites for funding set by the sponsors. / Sukupuoli vaikuttaa yksilön elämänkulkuun voimakkaasti koko eliniän ajan. Tämä vaikutus muokkautuu sen kulttuurin ja yhteiskunnan mukaan, jossa yksilö elää. Tytöille (kuten pojillekin) tämä aiheuttaa sekä positiivisia että negatiivisia seurauksia. Tässä pro gradu -tutkielmassa tarkastellaan nimenomaan tyttöjen hyvinvointiin ja ylipäätään tyttöyden kokemisen vaikuttavia tekijöitä, jotka on jaoteltu biopsykososiaalisen teorian mukaan. Tyttöyden katsotaan olevan kuitenkin myös kulttuurisesti ja sosiaalisesti rakentunutta, mikä ohjaa tutkimusprosessia. Tutkimuskontekstista puhutaan myös maantieteenä; tyttöyden maantieto -teoria perustuu Paula Bettisin ja Natalie Adamsin (2005) teokseen Geographies of Girlhood, jossa useat tutkijat puhuvat tyttöyden moninaisuuden puolesta. Tyttöjen voimaantumisen tutkimus on osa tyttötutkimusta ja siihen perustuvan toiminnan tavoitteena on tyttöjen kokonaisvaltainen voimauttaminen niin, että he pystyvät itse edistämään hyvinvointiaan. Tässä tutkimuksessa tyttöyttä ja erityisesti tyttöjen voimauttamista tarkastellaan biopsykososiaalisen teorian kautta, johon tyttöjen elinpiirin, maantieteellisen kontekstin (länsimainen, pohjoisamerikkalainen yhteiskunta) huomioon ottaminen. Tutkielma suosittaatyttöyteen liittyvien biopsykososiaalisten haasteiden kohtaamiseen voimaantumisen teoriaa ja sen soveltamista käytäntöön. Tyttöyden ja tyttöjen voimaantumisen teoreettista vahvistetaan yhden organisaation, texasilaisen GENaustinin, tapaustutkimuksella. Tutkija on kerännyt organisaation toiminnasta etnografisen aineiston, jonka perusteella hän arvioi tyttöjen voimaanuttamisen onnistumista ja niitä haasteita, joita tämän organisaation toimijat työssään kohtaavat. Teoreettisen tarkastelun ja tapaustutkimuksen perusteella päädytään painottamaan tyttöjen voimaantumisen tärkeyttä hyvinvoinnin edistäjänä; parempaan tulokseen tässä työssä päästään ottamalla huomioon maantieteellinen näkökulma, mikä ilmenee myös haasteissa, joita organisaatio kohtaa, kuten paikallisten tyttöryhmien homogeenisyys ja sponsorien mahdolliset rahoitukselle asettamat ehdot.

This research work examined the perceptions’ of teachers towards the study — leave with pay policy and its impact on teacher recruitment, motivation and retention in Ghana. The main purpose of the study is to find out how the studyleave with pay policy is impacting teacher recruitment, motivation and retention in Ghana. The perennial vacant teaching post being created in the Ghana Education Service (GES) on daily basis has attracted my research interest into this study. In this study, (12) interview questions were used to solicit teachers’ view on the study leave with pay policy and its impact on teacher recruitment, motivation and retention. Three research questions were drawn up in order to meet this research aim: 1. How do teachers’ perceive the study leave with pay policy and its impact on teacher recruitment into initial teacher colleges of education? 2. How do teachers perceive the study leave with pay and its impact on teacher motivation in Ghana Education Service? 3. How do teachers perceive the study leave with pay and its impact on teacher retention in Ghana Education Service? Simple Random sampling was used to select (10) teachers, who have been on the study- leave with pay policy, 5 from each university for interviewing. The empirical data is collected using thematic interviews of (10) teachers. The study made use of phenomenographic research approach since the study concerns itself with teachers’ perception. The theoretical framework under which this study was carried out emanated from two major sources namely the interpretive approaches to policy and policy analysis. Data analysis was done using interview transcribing techniques. The key findings from this study are: 1. There is a strong perception among teachers studied that the conditionalities attached to study with pay is causing low recruitment into Initial Teacher College of Education, 2. The low motivation among teachers studied is attributable to the study leave with pay policy and 3. Most of the study leave with pay policy conditions function as a limitation to teacher retention in Ghana education service. On the basis of the findings, there seems to be some weakness in the policy and will therefore suggest a possible look at the policy again. The study suggests that government discontinue with the study leave with pay policy in that it continues to deprive the teaching profession of valuable assets. It recommends to government to shift policy completely by means of redefining teacher education thereby lifting teacher education to where it belongs.

This thesis calls attention to a previously unexplored phenomenon: leadership programmes for educators in support of education reforms. Such programmes, appearing nowadays in different parts of the world, are designed to enable educators to carry out certain activities, and to change their perceptions about newly introduced policies. This study analyzes such a programme for university leaders, initiated and supervised by Russian Ministry of education and science. Theoretically the study builds on a concept of New Public Management (NPM), arguing that this concept is relevant to both Russian education reforms and the programme contents. NPM refers to a complex phenomenon of introducing private sector mechanisms into the public sphere. This thesis shows how Russian higher education reforms since early 1990s are going along the lines of NPM, but at the same time paradoxically combine it with planned economy approaches and tight state control. Apart from internal contradictions, the reforms implementation in Russia is also impeded by public resistance and lack of leadership in universities. The study suggests that the programme in focus served as a means of NPM reform implementation, and provided a concentrated version of the local higher education narrative. Research aims were formulated as follows: 1) to uncover the specifics of NPM narrative in Russian context; 2) to discuss the programme as an instrument of facilitating higher education reform in Russia. Methodologically this research is a qualitative case study. Transcripts of the programme lectures served as the primary data for analysis, complemented by interviews and field notes. The data was processed through a theory-guided qualitative content analysis procedure. The results of analysis show that 80 per cent of the contents were in line with the NPM narrative, which was justified primarily through international competitiveness argumentation. The study reveals the ambiguous role of the state, which was positioned as the main controller or customer, but was also addressed as a barrier for development. It shows how student-centeredness lacked from the narrative, while industries and regions were pictured as important stakeholders. The study also uncovers contradictions within the narrative that can explain difficulties in reform implementation: the call for cooperation contradicts enhanced competition; the orientation to the global market contradicts local functions of universities; and suggested NPM means contradict humanitarian missions of higher education. Basing on a single case with the corresponding limitations to generalization, this thesis contributes to the body of research on NPM, studying it in the previously uninvestigated context of Russian higher education.

Nonformal education (NFE) and training is quite widespread in Europe nowadays, and is considered a tool for empowerment for youth and other individuals. Nonformal education was founded in the late 1960s as a response to the failure and limitations of formal systems, and was supposed to replace the bureaucracies practiced by such institutions within those. One of NFE’s aims is to empower learners through achieving un-met learning needs, and programmes should be tailored to meet their own interests. Thus throughout the years, the values related to NFE have developed into a different dimension and its educational programmes have been employed to serve political agendas. It has also been attributed to economic and neoliberal discourses. Having said that, this study examines how NFE and the concept of empowerment evolved through critically analyzing discourses in the Europe 2020 Strategy. Since the EU’s major objective is to become the most competitive knowledge-based economy of the world, the study will attempt to critically examine what influence does this objective have on youth empowerment, and whether NFE is being exploited to transfer the knowledge favored by the Strategy, thus contributing towards hegemonic ways of thinking and acting. The focus of this study is to reveal the power of language in policies and its influence on shaping empowerment, utilizing Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis as the methodology to help in analyzing the significant discourses in the Europe 2020 Strategy. Accordingly, two narratives were identified and analyzed: a Transformation narrative that bisects into two sub-narratives of ‘Information Society’ and knowledge transformation towards a ‘Knowledge-Based Economy’. The second is an Adapting Skills narrative that has transformed the competencies of individuals to contribute to the former narratives. This has helped in exposing how ideologies and power through the language conveyed in the Strategy govern social change and youth’s interest towards a collective educational pathway. This study argues that the policy lacks a critical approach, as it focuses its attention on building an information society that requires lifelong learners to be educated and empowered within certain domains. It could be noticed that it mobilizes educational programmes to promote determined objectives that marginalize other knowledge and competencies, also contributing to building ‘class’ and privileges among learners. Using Critical Theory and empowerment theory as the theoretical framework, suggests that transforming the society should result in improving the human condition, allowing not only for empowerment according to political interests, but most importantly for emancipation.

The interest in consumer education by international organizations as well as the German government has dramatically increased throughout the last ten years. At the same time the critical voices regarding the negative implications of consumption as a dominant cultural practice are getting louder. Here, the current economic consumption discourse as well as consumer education is argued to be colored by the neo-liberal ideology that contributes to social and environmental exploitation. As such critical research suggests that there is a need to engage more critically with the current promotion of consumer education that is predominantly educating students to function within the neo-liberal system instead of challenging it for the sake of collective well-being. Specifically for the German context different NGOs (foodwatch, LobbyControl) have pointed out to how the current promotion of consumer education in Germany is colored by economic argumentation. The objective of this qualitative study was to question and challenge the hegemonic ways of thinking about consumption and consumer education and to contribute to a more critical discussion of consumer education and its implications for the society. As social transformations are increasingly manifested through and visible in discourse in the ‘new times’ this study, therefore, analysed a policy for consumer education as a product of the ‘new times’ that was published in 2013 in Germany. The goal was to investigate which discourses the policy is drawing from, how they are worked together in the policy and whether the text is doing ideological work in terms of sustaining the current economization of society. The two main research questions were: 1. What discourses are included into the policy for consumer education and how are they ordered? 2. Does the text do ideological work in terms of working towards the stabilization and spread of neo-liberalism and consumerism? The study was conducted using Fairclough’s approach to Critical Discourse Analysis that draws from postmodern, poststructuralist as well as neo-marxist theories. It combines critical social science with sociolinguisticcs and as such offered a suitable framework for critically studying the policy text. By applying this methodological framework it was possible to combine the analysis of language, discourse and the social environment which are considered to be dialogically related to each other. This research showed that the education policy text draws on the neo-liberal, social-democrat and critical consumption discourse where it could be determined that the neo-liberal discourse is dominant and marginalizes the other discourses. Furthermore, it could be shown how the policy text fosters ideological transformation by partially promoting an education that works towards the spread of neo-liberal ideology. This ideological work is majorly achieved through fostering a lack of imagination and acceptance of current changes instead of offering view-points that also challenge the current transformations in society. As a result the policy fosters a consumer education that educates students to function within the system instead of drawing from the critical pedagogy discourse that calls for emancipation and empowerment for the sake of collective well-being. However, the policy is not entirely dedicated to the neo-liberal project and together with the insights from this research gives space for a more critical interpretation and implementation.