This article examines how experiences of safety are shaped in the Finnish countryside. The study adopts a new materialist approach to the geography of fear and draws on free-form writings by rural residents. Rural space is conceptualized as a relational setting that actively influences perceptions of safety, emerging through the interplay of human and non-human factors. The formation of safety is explored in two lived spaces of everyday life: the home and the home village. The findings indicate that domestic safety is constructed through family and affective relations, as well as through material aspects of self-sufficiency and resilience. In the home village, key elements of safety include social networks, sense of community, trust, the presence of public institutions, and nature. However, experiences of safety are neither permanent nor immutable; changes in constituent elements can disrupt them. In rural areas, safety is undermined by the retreat of the welfare state, global threats mediated through the media, cultural divides, deficiencies in the built environment, declining physical capacity, and internal distrust within local communities. The study demonstrates that rural safety challenges differ from those in urban settings and that the themes of rural geography of fear diverge from the urban-centered geography of fear, which is primarily focused on fear of crime.
Kuntien tekemä asuntopolitiikka on eriytynyt väestönkehityksen sekä kaupunki-maaseutuluokituksen suhteen. Tutkimuksessa tehty tilastollinen vertailu osoittaa, että asuntopoliittisten ohjelmien laatiminen keskittyy Suomessa väestöltään kasvaviin ja kaupunkimaisiin kuntiin. Näin ollen myös kuntien asuntopolitiikan sisältöjen painotukset keskittyvät ensi sijassa väestönkasvuun ja asuntotuotantoon liittyviin kysymyksiin. Väestöään menettävissä kunnissa kunnan asuntopolitiikkaa ohjaa useimmin kunnan omistaman vuokra-asuntoyhtiön selvitykset, jotka painottuvat yleisimmin asuntokannan kunnostustarpeiden ja käyttöasteen kaltaisiin asioihin. Tekstinlouhintamenetelmien hyödyntäminen politiikkadokumenttien analysoinnissa avaa uusia mahdollisuuksia laajojen tekstikokoelmien käyttöön maantieteellisessä tutkimuksessa haastaessaan rajaa laadullisen ja määrällisen tutkimuksen välillä.
Consumers are not equal in their access to grocery retail services. This may be due to geographical location or personal constraints. Our theoretical framework builds on the concept of accessibility of retail services, with emphasis on service gaps, defined as residential areas lacking services that meet consumers’ needs. Such gaps may arise when local outlets (if any) provide limited assortments and higher prices compared to larger stores. Empirically, we examine three residential areas in Turku, Finland, that differ in demographic profiles and retail supply structures, focusing on the accessibility of home delivery and pickup services. The study reveals marked differences in service provision, with the more disadvantaged and sparsely populated areas suffering from a scarcity of retail services. The everyday convenience and well-being of older and worse-off consumers were particularly affected, whereas younger and better-off consumers were more willing and able to adopt digital services despite the additional costs involved.
This study examines the phenomenon of shrinking regions in Finland, focusing on the strategies municipalities employ to adapt to population decline. The traditional approach to regional planning has emphasized growth, but many Finnish municipalities have experienced significant population loss due to low birth rates and outmigration. This paper explores the concept of "smart adaptation," which involves sustainable planning and restructuring to maintain the quality of life despite demographic changes. Through a review of municipal strategies and expert interviews, the study identifies various adaptation methods, such as infrastructure reorganization, enhancing local cooperation, and improving residents' quality of life. The findings highlight the importance of context-specific solutions and the challenges municipalities face in implementing these strategies. The paper concludes that while smart adaptation is essential, it requires continuous adjustment and commitment from local governments.
Technology-assisted outdoor education refers to activities in authentic environments where digital technology and media support learning, even without the teacher's physical presence. In this study, used the Seppo platform to implement technology-assisted outdoor education for primary school teacher students in a geography pedagogy course. Seppo enables teachers to create learning assignments on GPS-based maps and the assignments open when students reach specific locations. In the course, students independently completed geography research tasks in an urban environment. The aim of the study was to investigate teacher students´ learning experiences with technology-assisted outdoor education. The study is qualitative case study and data was collected through open-ended questions after the outdoor education and by using the students' learning assignments. The data analysis method was content analysis. The results indicate that technology-assisted outdoor education enhanced students' technological pedagogical content knowledge, especially content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and technological content knowledge in geography education field. Technology-assisted outdoor education diversifies geography teaching and offers a way to organize outdoor education within the limited time resources of universities.
The aim of this study is threefold: to examine pupil selection and grouping into emphasized teaching in comprehensive schools in Finnish cities; to analyze the relationship between pupil selection, pupils’ school journeys, and the socio-economic profiles of pupils’ residential areas; and to examine the geographical placement of emphasized teaching in four of these cities. We combine data from the Community Structure Monitoring System by Statistics Finland and the Finnish Environment Institute, pupil register data of 7th graders (n=8,480) from 2021, and geospatial data on school catchment areas. The results show that while emphasized teaching generally involves permanent grouping, the extent of pupil selection varies. In the four cities examined, emphasized teaching is located in catchment areas with diverse socio-economic characteristics. However, emphasized teaching often serves non-local pupils who face longer school journeys, thus undermining the principle of neighborhood school allocation to varying extents and limiting real choice due to socio-economic and spatial factors.
The upper secondary school education in Finland has undergone major changes over the last twenty years. The largest change was a stepwise move to electronic matriculation examinations in 2016. The aim of this study is to find out how high school geography teachers perceive the changes and how this change is reflected in the assessment of the tests in geography. The data is based on a survey among geography teachers conducted in the spring of 2023, the results of which are compared with geography examination scores from the Matriculation Examination Board for the years 2017–2024. In general, geography teachers have a positive attitude towards the digitalisation of teaching and examinations, but the impact of the reform of the teaching structure on their work has been largely negative. The study provides insights into the everyday life of an upper secondary school geography teacher and sheds light on the impact of the reforms on their work.
This article discusses the transformation of climate change science from scientific knowledge to Finnish upper secondary school geography curricula and textbooks from 1985 to 2023. Scientific knowledge transforms into teachable knowledge through the transformation process at the societal, institutional, and classroom levels. In our analysis, we apply the idea of powerful knowledge and use three levels of geographical powerful knowledge, including geographical knowledge, critical and conceptual knowledge, and propensity to imagine alternative futures. The research material consists of five framework curricula from 1985 to 2019 and a total of thirteen upper secondary school geography textbooks that are based on the curricula. Our findings suggest that climate science knowledge has transformed slowly into societal curricula. However, in textbooks, scientific knowledge has transformed more rapidly. According to our results, the transformation may not necessarily occur linearly, first at the societal level and finally in classrooms.
Up-to-date knowledge of key ecological features that maintain boreal forest biodiversity is essential part of sustainable forest management and conservation measures. However, there is only a limited amount of spatial data available, as the detection of ecologically significant elements using remote sensing is challenging due to their low frequency, scattered occurrence, small size and/or location in the field layer. We studied tree-level discrimination of the keystone species aspen (Populus tremula L.) from other common tree species and detection of deadwood utilizing airborne high-resolution RGB images, multispectral and hyperspectral data and airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. We also tested the predictive accuracy of remote sensing parameters in predicting the aspen epiphytic lichen communities. Our results demonstrate that high-resolution remote sensing data together with machine learning algorithms provide new possibilities for mapping the occurrence and spatial distribution of key ecological features and producing proxies of biodiversity. It should be noted that field work is also needed for model training and evaluation. Moreover, resources and collaboration of different organizations are needed for biodiversity assessment and monitoring over large geographical areas.
