Children's ability to establish peer relationships is an important issue in early childhood education. Making and maintaining friendships fosters children's social skills development. This longitudinal study examines the transitivity, mutuality, and stability of five- and six-year-old children's peer relationships over one preschool academic year.…

Digital technologies have been increasingly embedded in students' everyday lives. Interest-driven sociodigital participation (ISDP) involves students' pursuit of interests mediated by computers, social media, the internet, and mobile devices' integrated systems. ISDP is likely to intertwine closely with young people's social networks that has been…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the role of characteristics of vocational education teachers' personal network at the workplace for determining the resources that enable them to cope with innovation-related demands at work. Design/methodology/approach: A survey study with 48 vocational education teachers is carried out. Social network…

The purpose of the study was to assess adolescents' participation in various socio-digital activities by using a self-report questionnaire, a social networking questionnaire, and interviews. The participants (n = 253) were grade 6-9 students from a multicultural lower-secondary school in Finland. Three profiles of socio-digital participation were…

The purpose of the present study was to examine expertise in magic by interviewing 16 prominent Finnish magicians who were identified earlier through a social network analysis of 120 Finnish magicians. A semi-structured interview was administered that addressed the participants' histories; their relationship to magic, the nature of their…

In order to address the requirements of future education in different fields of academic professional activity, a model called Academic Apprenticeship Education was initiated in Finland in 2009. The aim of this article is to analyse the development of expert networks in the context of a 1-year Academic Apprenticeship Education model in the field…

This article aims to examine cognitively central actors and their personal networks in the emerging field of energy efficiency. Cognitively central actors are frequently sought for professional advice by other actors and, therefore, they are positioned in the middle of a social network. They often are important knowledge resources, especially in…

The focus of our study is social status among first graders. In particular, we will consider the relationship between acceptance and rejection, and how these are connected to three social behavioral traits: bullying, victimization, and social withdrawal. The data set is from peer nominations of 748 children from 49 classrooms in the southwest of…

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine young diplomats' socialization to the professional expert culture of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland over a six-month on-job training period, as part of their preparation for service in the diplomatic corps. Using social network analysis, we analyzed departments' internal social…

This case study analyzed a special education (SE) teacher's activity within his workplace community and external professional network in a Finnish special education context. The nature of the SE teacher's networks and his networking role were examined using an interview and a questionnaire, completed by the teachers working in the community…

This article explores the networking roles and practices of special educators with the methods of social network analysis. This multiple case study included three special educators in a Finnish part-time special education context. The results revealed that although the special educators had central positions in the formal teacher communities as…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the network structure of a teacher community in relation to their use of information and communication technology (ICT). The participants in the study were the 33 members of the teacher community of an upper comprehensive school from a suburban area of Helsinki, Finland. The methodology of the study…