Co-directors: Prof. Fred Dervin and Haiqin Liu, Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki, Finland

If you are interested in our activities and/or are interested in joining us please contact: fred.dervin@helsinki.fi and liu.haiqin@helsinki.fi

Full members (in alphabetical order)

Anu Härkönen

Anu Härkönen is Head of International Affairs at Turku University of Applied Sciences and a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. She has a wide experience of coordinating and developing international activities in higher education in Finland.Her research interests include internationalisation of higher education, educational and academic mobility, and education for diversities. She has published on intercultural encounters and student and staff imaginaries about study abroad. Further information.
Contact: anu.harkonen(at)turkuamk.fi

Fred Dervin

Fred Dervin is Professor of Multicultural Education at the University of Helsinki (Finland). Dervin also holds several professorships in Canada, Luxembourg and Malaysia. In May 2014 he was appointed Distinguished Professor at Baoji University of Arts and Sciences (China). Prof. Dervin specializes in intercultural education, the sociology of multiculturalism and student and academic mobility. Dervin has widely published in international journals on identity, the ‘intercultural’ and mobility/migration. He has published over 20 books: Politics of Interculturality (co-edited with Anne Lavanchy and Anahy Gajardo, Newcastle: CSP, 2011), Impostures Interculturelles (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2012) and Linguistics for Intercultural Education (co-edited with Tony Liddicoat, New York: Benjamins). He is the series editor ofEducation beyond borders (Peter Lang), Nordic Studies on Diversity in Education (with Kulbrandstad and Ragnarsdóttir; CSP) and Post-intercultural communication and education (CSP). More information. 
Contact: fred.dervin(at)helsinki.fi

Haiqin Liu

Haiqin Liu is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki. She graduated from University of Oulu with a MA in Education and has worked as an English Teacher in China for 6 years. Her research interests include multilingual education, education for diversities, education and globalization and Chinese as additional language. She has published articles on Chinese discourse about Finnish education and school environment for education for diversities.
Contact: zoehaiqin(at)gmail.com

Olli-Pekka Malinen

Dr. Olli-Pekka Malinen is an Academy of Finland postdoctoral researcher and a project manager at NiiloMäki Institute in Jyväskylä. His research interests revolve around inclusive education, teacher efficacy, professional development, positive behavior support and international and comparative research of education. He is a fluent Mandarin speaker and he has been working with issues related to education in mainland China since 2006. Dr. Malinen has published his China-related work in journals such as Teaching and Teacher Education, Journal of International Special Needs Education, and International Journal of Special Education. His PhD thesis Inclusive education from teachers’ perspective: Examining pre- and in-service teachers’ self-efficacy and attitudes in mainland China received the Finnish Educational Research Association 2013 doctoral dissertation award.
Contact: olsamali(at)gmail.com

Olli Suominen

Olli Suominen graduated from the University of Helsinki in 2012 with a Master’s degree in East Asian studies, contemporary history and International Relations. Currently he is working as a researcher at the University of Turku in a project dealing with Quality Assurance and Evaluation in Chinese basic education. In addition he is working on his doctoral dissertation dealing with political use of history in Chinese education.
Contact: opasu(at)utu.fi

Vicco Ge Wei

Vicco is a doctoral researcher of Center for Basic Education and Teacher Education (CBETE) at Peking University, China. He will get his doctoral researcher at Peking University in 2017. His areas of expertise include teacher education, curriculum studies, and instructional design. Recently, Vicco has directed a project sponsored by Hon Kong Yuen Yuen Funds about “Dynamics of Teachers’ Practical Knowledge”. He has published a book entitled “Focusing on the Five-Star Instruction” (Fujian Education Press, 2015), and a number of peer-reviewed articles and chapters both in Chinese and English. He has honored with several national awards by Ministry of Education in China. He currently has visiting appointment at CRADLE, University of Helsinki, Finland, and National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan. He is also a member of International Advanced Association of Curriculum Studies (IAACS).
Contact: vicco.ge.wei(at)gmail.com

Xiaoxu Liu

 

Xiaoxu Liu is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki, Finland. After getting her Bachelor ’s Degree and Master’s Degree from Northeast Normal University in China, she started her doctoral study at the University of Helsinki. She also studied in National Pingtung University (Taiwan) for half an year as an exchange student. Her research interests include comparative education,education for diversity and Chinese minority education. She has published an article on affirmative action research.
Contact: liuxx354(at)hotmail.com

Xin Tang

After finished his Master degree studies in child psychology in Southeast University, China, Xin Tang moved to Finland as a doctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology, University of Jyvaskyla. His dissertation topic is about teaching practices and primary schooler’s motivation and skills while he has broad interests in both Chinese and Finnish education, especially in answering in which different way Finnish and Chinese teacher organizing and delivering the content. His intention is to use observation and quantitative analysis answering the question. He has published articles on observational measure of teaching behaviors and on providing a perspective model comparing Finnish and Chinese education.
Contact: tangxin09(at)gmail.com

Xin Xing

Xin Xing is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Teacher Education, University of Helsinki since 2014. He completed his MA in educational leadership at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) and Erasmus exchange study at the UCL Institute of Education (United Kingdom) in June 2013. He is currently preparing his doctoral dissertation on the training of Chinese educational leaders offered by the Finnish universities.
Contact: xin.2013.xing(at)gmail.com / xgxy1(at)126.com

Xingguo Zhou

Xingguo Zhou is a doctoral researcher of department of education of Turku University. She graduated from Xiamen University with MA in Education. She ended  her  teaching assistant position of Minjiang  University in 2014 and started her doctoral study as a case country researcher in the project of ‘Transnational Dynamic of Quality Assurance and Evaluation(QAE)’ in Brazil, China and Russia. Her study interest  is on QAE in Chinese context including education inspection, evaluation and assessment. She has one co-authored article on the topic of problematic of standardized testing in Brazil China and Russia submitted. Her previous publications were on the international influence on researchers’ professional development.
Contact: zhou.xingguo(at)utu.fi

Yanling Cao

Yanling Cao is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education (YTY), Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki. She completed her MA in Education at Northeast Normal University, China. Her research interests include higher education, university teaching, teacher education, comparative education and professional development of teacher educators. She has published an article about teaching excellence in higher education. Her dissertation topic is approaches to teaching of teacher educators, and it is a comparative study between Finland and China.
Contact: yanling.z.cao(at)helsinki.fi

Yan Wang

Yan Wang is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki. She earned her MA in Education from Beijing Normal University. Her research interests include science education, especially inquiry-based science teaching and learning, curriculum studies, gifted education, and comparative education. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on the comparative analysis of science education in Finland and China. She has directed a project on the cultivation of talents in science communication, which sponsored by the Department of Popularization of Science, Science and Technology Association of China. She has published articles on Finnish science education and nurture of the talents in science communication.
Contact: yan.wang(at)helsinki.fi or wangyan070904(at)126.com

 

Associate members

Xiangyun Du

Xiangyun Du (杜翔云), Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Learning and Philosophy and director of the Confucius Institute for Innovation and Learning at Aalborg University. She is also an adjunct professor at Beijing Normal University and at China Medical University. Her main research interests include innovative teaching and learning in education, particularly, problem-based and project-based learning methods in fields ranging from engineering, medicine and health, and language education, to diverse social, cultural and educational contexts. She has also engaged with educational institutions in over 10 countries in substantial work on pedagogy development in teaching and learning. Professor Du has over 130 relevant international publications including monographs, international journal papers, edited books and book chapters, as well as conference contributions. She has also been actively involved in a number of international academic programs, networks, and editorial works for journals. Currently she is also (co)editing book series for PalGrave and RIVER publishers.

杜翔云，博士，丹麦奥尔堡大学教育与哲学学院教授，奥尔堡大学创新学习孔子学院院长，北京师范大学兼职教授。其主要研究方向包括跨文化教育与学习、全球化背景下的创新人才培养、教师发展及课程改革。在过去的十几年里，杜翔云教授积极致力于基于问题与项目的学习法（PBL）的开拓和发展及其在语言教学、教师发展、工程教育、医疗健康教育等领域的应用。杜翔云教授目前还致力于中丹知识交流与人才协作的研究。她在教育国际化、跨文化教育与学习、创新教学法及教师发展领域（尤其是基于问题及项目的学习方法）领导并参与组织了30多个研究课题。杜翔云教授在上述研究领域的出版物数量超过130项，包括国际期刊论文、专著、丛书编辑、及书章、会议论文等。奥尔堡大学创新学习孔子学院于2011年被评为优秀孔院。

Regis Machart

Regis Machart is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Rouen (France) and his research interests include intercultural studies, cultural anthropology, academic mobility and construction of identity. He is editor-in-chief (with Fred Dervin and Julie Byrd Clark) of the International Journal of Bias, Identity and Diversities in Education. Machart has co-edited two volumes on academic mobility and three other volumes on issues of identity, stereotypes and intercultural interactions. He is also a member of the international committee of the Education for Diversities research group (University of Helsinki).

Congman Rao

Congman Rao is Director and Professor of the Institute of International and Comparative Education at Northeast Normal University (China) and the Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Studies in Foreign Education (in Chinese). He also holds some memberships in national expert organizations including member of the Second MOE(Ministry of Education) Expert Working Committee for Basic Education Curriculum and Materials, member of the Third National Expert Committee for Teacher Education Resources, member and the Secretary-General of the Second MOE Advisory Committee on Teaching in Secondary Teacher Preparation, etc. His research interests include teacher education, citizenship education, moral education and Japanese education. He has the experience of studying, working or visiting in Japan, USA, UK, Finland, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, etc. He has over 100 publications including monographs, journal papers, edited books, book chapters and translated books in Chinese, English or Japanese.
Contact: raocm506(at)nenu.edu.cn

Tinghe Jin

Tinghe Jin is the founding president of the Chinese Educational Research Association in the UK. She has been a Chinese language teacher for four years in China after she obtained her first degree in Chinese language and literature. Her MA in International Education was taken at the University of Leicester. She progressed to her PhD as a Centenary Scholar at UCL, Institute of Education, London. Her research is specialised in intercultural education, especially in a relation to teaching and learning Chinese language. She has published articles and book chapters on Chinese language education and teachers’ professional development. She has co-edited a book and a journal special issue, which address the issues and development in Chinese Educational Research.