University of Helsinki
AGORA’s autumn is filled with interesting events, seminars and visitors, and you are welcome to join our activities! Please find below what is happening in the near future:
Future Trajectories of the Precision Education Governance (FuturEd)-project together with the Education & Society-research community and Department of Education is co-organising an event Future Trajectories of Education in Uncertain Times on 23-24 September 2019 at Minerva-plaza, Siltavuorenpenger 5A. You are most welcome to discuss with researchers, policy-makers and educational professionals, how global transformations, marketization and privatisation, edu-tech business, dataintensive technologies and precision education are currently changing cultures and practices of education globally and in Finland. The seminar will also be streamed so you can also follow the seminar online at Unitube.
We are also proud to welcome visiting scholars during September and October. Dr. Johanna Sitomaniemi-San (University of Oulu) will be joining AGORA on 23-27 September 2019. Here is how Dr. Sitomaniemi-San describes her current work: “I situate my own work most comfortably (yet not exclusively) in the fields of curriculum studies and history of education. I am currently working on a three-year post-doctoral research project, ‘Dividing the World through Wonder: How We Became Curious,’ that is funded by the Academy of Finland (2018-2021). It is a project about the Western cultural-education notion of ‘curiosity:’ the self-evidence of it in the making of the learner, child and global citizen; the entangled discourses and histories of education, travel and science that it is embedded in; the colonial residues it perpetuates; and the multiple affectivities around it.” During her stay Dr. Sitomaniemi-San will be joining AGORA’s activities to discuss more about her research.
On 14th October 2019 Dr. Tuuli Kurki and Dr. Juho Honkasilta are organizing a seminar Critical perspectives to global mental health. The seminar is part of the CoSupport-project that is funded by the Academy of Finland (2017-2021). Place and time: 9:00-12:00, Seminar room 302, Athena building, Siltavuorenpenger 3A, Helsinki. The invited keynote speakers are Sami Timimi (University of Lincoln) and China Mills (City, University of London). Register to the seminar here: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/100094/lomake.html
AGORA also has a new research coordinator! I am Dr. Sanna Toiviainen and my professional and research background is in career guidance and sociology of education. I completed my PhD last spring 2019 at the University of Eastern Finland in the School of Educational Sciences and Psychology. My PhD focused on the life narratives of North-Carelian young adults categorised as ‘NEET’ and the institutional support networks and career guidance practices surrounding them. I have also worked as a researcher in national development projects of guidance and counselling at basic school and upper secondary school levels. I have also participated in the national core curriculum design of guidance and counselling. Please see most updated info about my research in Researchgate and Academia.edu.
During this autumn we will begin to make some reforms in AGORA research centre. In the meanwhile you are more than welcome to follow us in Facebook (AGORA for the Study of Social Justice & Equality in Education) and Twitter @AGORAsocjust.