MTT proudly presents
Mervi Kaukko
works as a Professor (Multicultural Education) at Tampere University and co-leads the MTT research group together with Inkeri Rissanen. Most of Mervi’s research focuses on the experiences of children and youth with refugee and asylum-seeking background (see, for example, Drawing Together-project, VOITTO and KOTI). Mervi is the Finnish coordinator of an international research network Pedagogy, Education and Praxis. Her two research passions are action research and practice theories. Mervi defended her PhD at Oulu University in 2015. Before coming to Tampere in 2019, she worked as a lecturer at Oulu University and Monash University, Australia.
Inkeri Rissanen
works as a University lecturer (Multicultural Education) at Tampere University and holds a title of Docent (school pedagogy) at University of Helsinki. Inkeri co-leads MTT research group together with Mervi Kaukko. In her research Inkeri focuses on questions of interculturality, equity, and sustainability within and through education. Her current research project TeacherMind develops ways to support teachers as agents of cultural sustainability transformation.
https://www.tuni.fi/en/people/inkeri-rissanen
Elina Kuusisto
works as a Senior Research Fellow at Tampere Institute for Advanced Study. She is also a University lecturer (Diversity and Inclusive Education) at Tampere University and holds a title of Docent at University of Helsinki. Prior to Tampere University, she worked as an Associate Professor at the University of Humanistic Studies, the Netherlands and as a Senior Researcher at Tallinn University, Estonia.
Kuusisto has over a decade-long expertise in school pedagogy, moral education, and purpose studies. She has co-authored two monographs on teachers’ professional ethics.
She currently leads a project “Towards professional class tutoring and a motivating school community (MOTI)” funded by Kone Foundation. The study pioneers in establishing a theoretical and pedagogical basis for class tutoring (also known as homeroom teaching, form tutoring). This interdisciplinary and mixed-method research provides important theoretical, educational, and societal implications to strengthen class tutors’ professionality and support positive youth development among adolescents. Watch a video on Elina and her research.
Publications and activities:
https://researchportal.tuni.fi/en/persons/elina-kuusisto
https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/elina-kuusisto
Essi Aarnio-Linnanvuori
Ph.D. (Environmental Change and Policy), is an experienced environmental and climate change education expert and a post-doctoral researcher at Tampere university. She works in the international research project CCC-CATAPULT that examines children’s climate agency, value-action gap and means to exceed the gap. Essi’s long term interest is to develop climate change and environmental education that is interdisciplinary, holistic, and considerate of identity, values and worldview of the learner. In addition, Essi is a member of the steering group of the interdisciplinary research network SIRENE. Essi defended her Ph.D. at the University of Helsinki in 2018. Before joining Tampere University in 2021, she worked as a senior education officer at WWF Finland.
Paula Alanen
is a researcher, a grant holder and an experienced Adult Education expert with a demonstrated history of working in diverse environments both Public and Private sector. Her PhD by publications (Tampere University 2022) focuses on questions of data, knowledge quantification and non-knowing concerning decision making and equity in adult education. Currently she works in DIG1t0-project exploring digitized public employment & education services and their consequences for individuals in fragile conditions.
Pauliina Alenius
(PhD in Education; Masters in Ethnic Relations and in International Politics) has investigated, for example, transnational learning spaces, migrants’/immigrants’ informal learning and culturally diverse learning environments. She co-edited the book Internationalisation and Transnationalisation in Higher Education with Vesa Korhonen, published by Peter Lang. She worked until 2020 in development project focused on pedagogical development of Palestinian academics (FinPal).
Raisa Harju-Autti
(MA, language teacher) works as a Doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University. Her doctoral dissertation (language education) is about teaching the language of schooling simultaneously with subject-specific contents for immigrant students in Finnish basic education, especially on the lower secondary level. In addition to pre-service teacher education, Harju-Autti has worked in several in-service training programs within linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogy.
Nick Haswell
(Master’s in Teacher Education) is a researcher at Tampere University, working on several projects concerning the education and wellbeing of children and adults with refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds. As an experienced artist and trained art teacher, he is interested in the ways that expressive arts and story-making can be used in research contexts. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies in Tampere University with the aim to investigate the nexus between wellbeing and environmental relations in the lives of young refugees in Finland, Norway and Scotland. In addition to research activities, Nick co-runs a creative working group, We Who Smile, which organises art projects for children in reception centres around the Finland.
Meri Häärä
(MA, MSc) is a classroom teacher and doctoral researcher at Tampere University. Her current research focuses on Finnish teacher education, specifically investigating the connections between implicit theories of malleability and the development of intercultural competences. She holds a Master of Arts in Educational Science from the University of Oulu, where she specialized in Intercultural Teacher Education, and a Master of Science in Education from Utrecht University. Her academic interests lie in multiculturalism in education, beliefs about malleability, and critical pedagogy.
Riikka Jaatinen
is a PhD researcher at the University of Jyväskylä. Her research examines teachers’ intercultural competence, understood as an ongoing process and orientation toward promoting equity and dismantling systemic inequities in education. Through her research she aims to provide insights into how educators and school communities can meaningfully respond to classroom diversity, fostering inclusive environments that support all students. Currently she works in the research project VOITTO, which explores ways to support the school engagement of newly arrived migrant students and to enhance their proficiency in the language of instruction across various subjects during preparatory education. Her interests include critical multicultural education, social justice, and antiracist pedagogy, and she is particularly interested in exploring how the complex yet fascinating concept of culture is understood and engaged with in educational settings. Outside of work, she enjoys taking long walks and discovering new tea flavours.
Iida Kallio
(MEd) is an early childhood education teacher, classroom teacher, and doctoral researcher at Tampere University. Previously, she worked on the VOITTO project (Support and Integration of Students Transitioning from Preparatory Education to Mainstream Education), funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. She is currently working as a grant-funded researcher. Her doctoral research focuses on the support and integration of newly arrived students during the transition from preparatory education to mainstream education. In her research, she utilizes practice architecture theory and art-based methods in working with students. Kallio studied early childhood education at Tampere University with a minor subject in childhood and family studies. She graduated as a Master of Education and classroom teacher from the University of Helsinki. Kallio’s academic interests include anti-racist and feminist education, addressing children and youth from traumatic backgrounds, and multiculturalism in education.
Kallio is actively engaged in organizations related to her research field. She serves on the board of ETMU ry and is the education and training coordinator for the United Nations Youth of Finland. Additionally, Kallio is a member of the expert group on immigration statistics at Statistics Finland. She also works as a trained peer expert at Finfami Pirkanmaa.
Sanna-Kaisa Liukko
(MEd) is a special class education teacher in hospital school and a doctoral researcher at Tampere University. Her professional and academic interests focus on supporting the school well-being and inclusion of children and adolescents with socioemotional and behavioral symptoms and neuropsychiatric challenges. A long career in the school environment as well as previous research has increased her understanding of the need for related research: developing school-based interventions in order to support these pupils and their school attachment is significant both from a human perspective and in light of the cumulative society effects.
Liukko graduated from the University of Jyväskylä as a special education teacher and class teacher with a major in special education. Through specialization and continuing education, she has qualified as an expert in crisis work, a solution-focused neuropsychiatric coach, and a teacher of secular ethics. The principles of strength-based education, growth mindset pedagogy, as well as a trauma-informed approach, guide her work both as a teacher and trainer and as a researcher.
Fath E Mubeen
works as a researcher at Migration Institute of Finland and a PhD candidate at Tampere University. As a refugee herself, she has been engaged in the projects that addresses the issues regarding the inclusion of young refugees and Muslim women in Finnish society. She is now researching how the relational wellbeing of young refugees develops and sustains over the time in Finland. Exploring through art-based methods she aims to reach the cultural and contextual depths of the narratives which otherwise can be missed. Through her research she aims to bring attention and set foundation to impact change towards peoples’ and society’s attitude towards young refugees.
Venla Tammisalo
MA (Education), is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University. Her PhD research combines her interest in improving working conditions in early childhood education with the wellbeing benefits of nature, focusing on the wellbeing of early childhood professionals working in natural environments. In addition to her doctoral work, she is a researcher at the Research Centre for Education, Assessment and Learning (REAL).
Päivi Vartiainen
(PhD in Education; Master’s in Social Sciences) works as a head of competence area at Tampere University of Applied Sciences. She is in charge of pedagogical development in the school of Pedagogical Innovations. Vartiainen has investigated workplace as learning space, integration, and intercultural learning in social and health care work, particularly the case of Filipino nurses in Finland. Vartiainen defended her PhD at Tampere University in 2019. Her dissertation concerns the integration and learning processes of nurses recruited in the Philippines into the work organizations of Finnish social and health care.
Elina Vilenius
(MA) is an Early Childhood Education Teacher. She works as a doctoral researcher in the TeacherMind project (“Developing Teachers’ Transformative Mindsets: Towards a Cultural Shift for Sustainability”). Her PhD research focuses on teachers’ and teacher students’ malleability beliefs, professional purpose, and well-being.
Merja Viljanen
is a Youth Counsellor and working as such at Vesilahti parish. She got her MA (Social Science) majoring Youth work and Youth studies in Tampere University in fall 2021. She started her doctoral studies in January 2022. The focus of her study is – not less than – purpose in life. She is focusing on 9th graders (of spring 2020) in Tampere surroundings. She has a follow-up study going on with some of those year 2020 9th graders who are now in upper secondary education. She is interested in how adolescents have found (or haven’t, or are going to find) purpose in life and how school and youth work could help them with that process. As a counterbalance to youth work and research Merja does long walks with her dog and enjoys creative crafts.
Elina Wolff
(she/they) (MA) is a classroom teacher and a starting doctoral researcher in the MTT team at Tampere University. She holds a degree in classroom teaching from Oulu University, having completed the Intercultural Teacher Education program there. Her doctoral research focuses on Finnish youth’s life purpose, their processing of purpose through art and teacher’s role in supporting this processing. The thesis is part of the “Towards professional class tutoring and a motivating school community (MOTI)” project. Her previous thesis topics have included inclusive education, curriculum research and ideology in education. Wolff has also worked as a research assistant for Antiracism in Finnish Teacher Education (ANTO) project.
Maija Yli-Jokipii
is a Ph.D. researcher and university instructor. She is working on her article-based Ph.D. thesis Multilingual learners’ mother tongue teachers promoting linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogies.
She is originally a teacher of Finnish language and literature. She’s been working in Kuulumisia teacher training for migrant teachers and teachers working with migrant learners. She has been part of national project DivED promoting linguistically and culturally responsive practices in Finnish educational systems. In addition, she’s working within culturally and linguistically responsive education also in numerous local projects and Erasmus+ project EMERgenCeS.