Kaarina Määttä

The Ability to Love – a Virtue-Based Approach

Abraham Maslow (1954) was amazed of the scarcity of research on love. According to Maslow (1954, p. 235), it was surprising how little empiric sciences had to offer to the theme. Especially weird in his opinion was the silence of psychologists because studying love should have been their special responsibility. Maslow thought that the situation possibly originated in academic researchers’ besetting sin: they would rather do what is easy than what is necessary. Research on love and emotions has been taken with suspicious and even the facts that people behave in relation to other people and that people live in the net of human relationships from birth to death have not furthered the research (Berscheid, 2006).

How do the Finnish family policy and early education system support the well-being, happiness, and success of families and children?

What is childhood like in Finland? What kind of practical solutions have been created and evaluated – as well as those under development – that aim at both providing good childhood experiences and supporting children’s positive development? What practices aim to prevent exclusion from regular education and social experiences and to foster children’s healthy development in emotional, social, and behavioural terms? This issue consists of 12 articles that address aspects of research and practice concerning children under the age of 10, including their growth and development, the organisation of learning and teaching, and practices of rearing and child care in Finland. Authors represent a variety of universities and subdisciplines of the science of education. Reports are organised within the following strands: (1) the realisation and evaluation of early childhood education; (2) perspectives on children’s well-being; and (3) special viewpoints to early childhood education, care, and research in Finland. In order to give international readers an insight of the situation in Finland, we will next provide an introduction about the Finnish family policy and educational system.

Many Faces of Love

What do we actually talk about when we talk about love? Research on love and emotions has been met with suspicion although people live in a network of relationships from birth to death, and the ability to build and maintain relationships is an important strength. This book provides a comprehensive research-based analysis of love in human life: romantic love and its ups and downs, and the fascination of love, the combination of work and family, the secrets of a long-lasting marriage, senior love, and the throes and relief of a divorce. Love is also discussed in relation to other phenomena, such as friendship, play, and creativity. In addition, themes of parental love and pedagogical love, and the ability to love, as well as dark sides of love are introduced.

Sámi education in Finland

The purpose of this article is, first, to describe Sámi childrens education and its status in the Finnish education system and, secondly, to contemplate its development in Finland. The core of the article is intertwined with issues concerning the status, language, and culture of indigenous peoples. According to the article, the western school dominates instruction and teaching and is spirally connected to the assimilation, power relations, and socialisation process that the Sámi have experienced. The practical framework for Sámi education (based on the earlier findings of the authors) which would direct teaching arrangements and comprehensive pedagogy drawn from the own premises of the Sámi people is reviewed. The Sámi world-view and Sámi values and culture should occupy a central position in teaching, but also in the curriculum.

The Throes and Relief of Divorce

A divorce is a series of victories and losses. Everyones lives get better if a marriage eroded by painful disagreements is dissolved. Usually, both spouses go through purgatory with various trials along their divorce. The aim of this article is to analyze what kinds of feelings a divorce excites as described by divorcees (N = 74). What emotions do the divorcees emphasize in their divorce experience? The data were collected in the form of informal letters, in which people (71 women, 3 men) could reveal their thoughts and experiences in an open manner. The data were analyzed by content analysis and the results showed that a divorce produces emotional baggage with plenty of insecurity and uncertainty, but provides promises, challenges, and options as well. Although a divorce is a difficult experience, it cannot be blamed as such. Often after a torturous marriage, divorce is the only reasonable solution.

Parental Love—Irreplaceable for Children’s Well-being

Child rearing has become more and more challenging during the past few decades and increasingly greater expectations are leveled at educators and parents. There has been a dramatic decrease in the traditional families while the proportion of single-parent families has increased (e.g. Sheridan & Burt, 2009). As the worldwide statistic show, number of working mothers of young children has risen over the past few decades, so has the use of child care (Ebbeck & Hoi Yin, 2009).

Experts or good educators – or both? The development of early childhood educators’ expertise in Finland

Well-educated staff consists of multidimensional experts, and this staff is one of the strengths of the Finnish day-care system. The aim of this article is to clarify the development of the expertise of those early childhood educators who have qualified as kindergarten teachers. The data consisted of the early educators’ stories (n = 80) of their growth towards expertise. The analysis was carried out as content analysis. As the results, four key factors in the process of growth towards expertise were created. According to the informants, personal life history, education, work experience and personal attitudes towards work had been the most influential factors in the process of growth towards their expertise. The working environment both facilitated and hindered the growth of the expert. It is possible to foster educators’ professional growth with an individual development plan.

What do the children really think about a day-care centre – the 5–7-year-old Finnish children speak out

A day-care centre is a place where a child spends most of his/her week nowadays. A day-care centre as an institution of early childhood education has often been studied from the early childhood educators’ point of view or within a wider societal context. The children’s voices have not been heard much. The purpose of this article is to describe, on the one hand, the experiences that the children have of the day-care centre as a place and, on the other hand, to bring out how the children talk about their experiences. Twenty-nine Finnish day-care children (aged five to seven) are the research subjects. This study uses the existential-phenomenological method to describe children’s experiences as they appear to the children themselves. The children’s opinions on a day-care centre are an essential means for developing the day-care centre.

Who is the One? The Difficulty in Selecting the Partner

Partner selection and the arousal of love have interested poets, artists, and authors already for millenniums. The process of partner selection—“mate selection”, “mate seeking”, “spouse selection”, or “marital choice”—has proven quite an interesting research target especially in the United States (Hatfield, Benson, & Rapson, 2012). Research has often been relatively narrow studies with small data but they have presented various theories to explain the start of a new relationship.

Silence is Not Golden: Review of Studies of Couple Interaction

Couple interaction and dialogue make up the most important pillars of a functional relationship. In this article, the vast body of research between the 1970s and 2010s was reviewed. The role of couple interaction in long-lasting relationships was dissected through this literature meta-analysis, which was categorized into three perspectives: the level, content, and accuracy of interaction. The core question was how happy and unhappy couples differ in their communication skills and habits. A general view of positive couple interaction was built and discussed. Communication skills and self-disclosure appeared the key factors in the positive development of a romantic relationship.