Researchers
The AGORA community supports junior and senior researchers, research fellows and affiliates interested in questions of social justice and equality.
Researchers and key partners involved in the AGORA’s activities are introduced below.
Kristiina Brunila
Professor (tenured) of social justice and equality in education
Research areas:
- Marketisation, privatisation, neoliberalism, knowledge and affective capitalism, (new) governance
- Social exclusion, societal differences, and inequalities, societal power relations
- Agency perspectives in higher education, research, vocational education, teacher training, youth work, adult education and public sector development activities
- Heteronormativity and the rise of psy-disciplines
- Future trajectories of education in terms of precision education governance
Ongoing projects: FuturEd, CoSupport
Website kristiinabrunila.com
Twitter @KristiinaBrunil
Contact: kristiina.brunila@helsinki.fi
Elina Ikävalko
Postdoctoral researcher
Research areas:
- New practices of mental health work and ableism
- Gender equality politics and equality work
- Poststructural methodologies and nomadic research
- Theories of power and subjectification
Ongoing project: CoSupport
Contact: elina.ikavalko@helsinki.fi
Anniina Leiviskä
Postdoctoral researcher
Research areas:
- Philosophy of education
- Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics
- Political exclusion and political extremism as challenges for democracy and citizenship education
- Normative conditions of democratic participation inherent in the contemporary theories of democracy
- Theory and practice of citizenship education
Ongoing projects: CoSupport, FuturEd, Democracy for Inclusion
Contact: anniina.leiviska@helsinki.fi
Jaana Pesonen
University lecturer
Research areas:
- Theories of intersectionality and anti-racism.
- Norm criticism in children’s culture and critical literacies in early childhood education
- Privatization of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services
- Marketization of ECEC pedagogy
- Precision education and ECEC teacher’s profession
- Assemblages of edu-business
Ongoing projects: CoSupport, FuturEd
Contact: jaana.pesonen@helsinki.fi
Satu Valkonen
University lecturer
Research areas:
- Privatization of early childhood education and care (ECEC) serrvices
- Marketization of ECEC pedagogy
- Precision education and ECEC teacher’s profession
- Assemblages of edu-business
Ongoing projects: CoSupport, FuturEd
Contact: satu.m.valkonen@helsinki.fi
Juho Honkasilta
Postdoctoral researcher
Research areas:
- Social constructions of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
- Identity and subjectivity constructions, otherness and othering, social Inclusion and exclusion, ableism in education discourse practices
- Theorizing inclusive education, (mis)conceptualizations of inclusive education
- Implementation of behavioral support at schools
- Disability studies in education, Inclusive education, Special education, Discourse studies
Ongoing projects: CoSupport
Contact: juho.honkasilta@helsinki.fi
Petteri Hansen
Postdoctoral researcher
Research areas:
- Future projections in Nordic comprehensive education
- Social Systems Theory
- Comparative approaches on education policy
- Deregulation, privatization and marketization of education
Ongoing projects: PROFE, FuturEd
Contact: petteri.hansen@helsinki.fi
Janne Säntti
University lecturer
Research areas:
- History of Education
- Construction of Finnish teacher education in post-war Finland
- Academisation of teacher education
- Digitalisation and future visions in education
- Rhetoric analysis
Ongoing projects: FuturEd
Contact: janne.santti@helsinki.fi
Helena Hinke Dobrochinski Candido
Postdoctoral researcher
Research areas:
- Education politics
- Comparative and international education
- Large-scale assessments and education indicators as political instruments
- The interface of public and private actors in education governance
- Commodification and marketization of education
- Quality assurance and evaluation policies in education
- Finnish education export
- Education policies and practices in the Global South
Ongoing projects: Demystifying education export: analyzing the effects of Finnish education export from the perspective of the importer; FuturEd
Chair of Critical sociology and philosophy in education (CRISP) -seminar
Contact: helena.candido@helsinki.fi
Minna Huotilainen
Professor
Research areas:
- Positioning of neuroscience and learning psychology in the field of educational sciences
- Effects of arts and skills education on agency and cognition
Ongoing projects: FuturEd
Contact: minna.huotilainen@helsinki.fi
Birgit Schaffar-Kronqvist
University lecturer
Research area:
- philosophical and ethical questions in education on both societal and classroom level.
Current projects are:
- A critique of "competence". Globalization and its influence on basic notions in education.
- The body and the digital. The need of bodily and physical experience of oneself, the other(s) and the world for learning, teaching and understanding
- Communities of inquiry: Critical engagement in knowledge as a shared task with others, both classroom-methods of philosophy for children and democratic strategies for empowerment, enlightenment and resistance.
Ameera Masoud
Doctoral student
Research areas
Inclusion, racialization, education and integration
Topic of PhD
How refugees and immigrants are constructed as integrateable and skilled through integration policies and training practices. The focus is on labour-market oriented integration training
Ongoing projects: CoSupport
Contact: ameera.masoud@helsinki.fi
Katariina Mertanen
Post-doc researcher
Research areas:
- Governance, youth education, education policy, digitalisation
Current research:
- Future of youth education and precision education governance
- Digitalisation, marketisation and globalisation of youth education
Ongoing projects: FuturEd
Contact: katariina.mertanen@helsinki.fi
Kalle Mäkelä
Doctoral student
Research areas:
- Governmentality, neoliberalism, youth support systems, psychologisation, entrepreneuralisation, citizenship, subjectification
- Geneaology, History of the present
- Philosophy and critical social anthropology Postcolonial and feminist theory
Topic of PhD:
- Governing young people through neoliberal management – A Genealogy of vulnerability of young people in Finland.
Ongoing projects: CoSupport
Contact: kalle.makela@helsinki.fi
Antti Paakkari
Doctoral student
Research areas:
- Knowledge capitalism
- Affective work
- Critical pedagogy
Topic of PhD:
- The effects of technology on school space and power relations. Looking at upper secondary school student’s communication and technology use during school days.
Contact: antti.paakkari@helsinki.fi
Katariina Tiainen
Doctoral student
Research areas:
- Philosophy of critical pedagogy, Critical feminist theory
- Critical Social Theory
- Democratic education, and political sociology of education
Topic of PhD:
- Developing theory of democratic education from the standpoint of philosophies of critical pedagogies, and providing new theoretical perspectives in conversation with recent critical feminist and political theories.
- The philosophy of critical pedagogy in my project refers to theoretical framework that draws its philosophical foundations from Critical Social Theory and is originated by Paulo Freire’s political pedagogy.
Ongoing projects: CoSupport
Contact: katariina.tiainen@helsinki.fi
Cynthia Trilliani
Doctoral student
Research areas:
- Immigration, gender and feminist studies
- Motherhood ideology
Topic of PhD:
- Immigrant mothers’ educational experiences and sense of belonging in Icelandic higher education, in conjunction with their identity construction and strategies for balancing multiple responsibilities to achieve academic success. Research also investigates the impact of intersectional approach or lack thereof in educational policies and practices on educational experiences of students of minority background
Saara Vainio
Doctoral student
Research areas:
- Precision education governance
- Life-Skills Management policies
- Youth transitions
- Genealogical-discursive approaches
Topic of PhD:
- Rethinking Life Skills-Based Education as a Form of Precision Education Governance
Ongoing projects: FuturEd
Contact: saara.vainio@helsinki.fi
Ivan Zamotkin
Doctoral student
Research areas:
- Philosophy of education, political theory of anarchism, anarchist education and critical pedagogy
Topic of PhD:
- Utilizing the theory of anarchism to develop novel theoretical grounds and conceptual tools for understanding and analyzing current educational trajectories, as well as counter-practices for educational justice and equality
Ongoing projects: FuturEd
Contact: ivan.zamotkin@helsinki.fi
Tuija Kasa
Doctoral student
Research areas and interests:
- inequality, power-relations, critical theories in education
- human rights education
- moral philosophy
- philosophy of education
Topic of PhD:
Re-evaluating the moral, educational and legal aspects in human rights education
Kirsi Yliniva
Doctoral student
Research areas:
- The Anthropocene
- Political agency and subjectivity
- Neoliberal governance
- Early Childhood Education, Childhood studies
- Biopower and biopolitics
Topic of PhD:
- Possibilities and problems for political agency of the child in the Anthropocene. Interested in what kind of agency of child is fabricated as ideal in the future of Education connected to the Anthropocene.
- Especially interested in ’subject-making’ implications of discourses and policies connected to the Anthropocene and future of Education. Approach to these problems is informed by Foucauldian accounts of (bio)power and governance.
Ongoing projects: FuturEd
Contact: Kirsi.Yliniva@oulu.fi
Anni Hirsaho
Doctoral Student
Research areas:
- Therapeutic governance, psychologisation, critical psychology
Topic of PhD:
- Dynamics of therapeutic governance in school psychologists’ work in upper secondary education
Contact: anni.hirsaho@helsinki.fi
Hanna Posti-Ahokas
Senior Researcher, Adjunct Professor
Research areas:
- International higher education partnerships
- Global education in higher education
- Intercultural teacher education
Ongoing projects:
Contact: hanna.posti-ahokas@helsinki.fi