In recent years, I have focused on studying educational power and governing. I am interested in the changing ideals, norms, and ways of speaking about education, as well as the ways people deviate from them or act differently. I participated in the Research Council of Finland–funded project Living on the Edge: Lifelong Learning, Governmentality, and the Production of Neurotic Citizen (ONELLL, 2020–2024), in which we examined the exclusionary ideals and unintended consequences of lifelong learning policy.
Next, I intend to study how critical education, critical thinking, and criticality are defined within an increasingly market-oriented university education. I am, for example, interested in how the aims of criticality become intertwined with market-driven objectives in educational discourses, shaping our understanding of what counts as critical education. Although fostering critical thinking is widely mentioned in Western democracies as a central aim of higher education, it is typical—especially in public debate—that the concept remains poorly defined.
In a university system that is becoming more marketized and emphasizes individual success, little room is left for perspectives that are critical of society and ideology. At the same time, individual-psychological approaches dominate fields such as education, even though education is fundamentally also a societal phenomenon.
It is therefore necessary to analyze the consequences of prioritizing economic growth, employability, and individualism in higher education. Studying critical education is especially important at a time when populism, political extremism, conspiracy theories, and anti-scientific sentiment challenge democracy and academic freedom.
In my daily work as a researcher, my work involves several parallel writing projects from both old and new research initiatives, teaching, supervision, and participation in university working groups. I also serve on the editorial board of the journal Aikuiskasvatus (Adult Education). In addition, a great deal of time is spent preparing funding applications.
I collaborate in various groups, and I enjoy working across disciplinary boundaries. In addition to education scholars, I have worked with researchers in sociology and business studies. Different perspectives offer new ways of looking at the research topics.
When I am not researching or teaching, I spend time with my family. During my free time, I want to forget about work, and I am strict, for example, about not dealing with work matters while on holiday. In practice, this does not always succeed, which makes me irritated. I am a former exercise enthusiast, but these days I also appreciate idling and rest. However, I start to feel unwell if I do not go running from time to time. I also try to find time for films, theatre, music, and reading, because life must be moving on the inside as well.
My message to those working in educational sociology and education policy research: When the world is turbulent and dark things are happening, we must persist in believing that our work has social significance. Independent science and critical research must be nurtured, and in research, we must have the courage to diverge from the mainstream in order to open up new horizons.
