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Areas of expertise
Biography
Professor of History and Social Studies Education, University of Turku, 2022–
Visiting Professor of History Education, Linnaeus University, Sweden, 2020–2022
Associate Professor of History and Social Studies Education, University of Turku, 2019–2022
University Lecturer of History and Social Studies Education, University of Helsinki, 1999–2019
Docent (Social Studies and History Education), University of Turku, 2014
Docent (Historical Anthropology), University of Jyväskylä, 2000
PhD (Sociology), University of Essex, 1994
For further information and publications 1999–2019, see: ORCID 0000-0003-0995-3265
Research
Current research interests include intersections of historical consciousness and moral consciousness (involved as Visiting Professor in the research project, History in Moral Encounters, directed by Professor Niklas Ammert, Linnaeus University, Sweden; the team also including Professor Silvia Edling and Associate Professor Heather Sharp; funded by the Swedish Research Council, 2018–2021). Starting points of the project were presented in the Special Issue, "Historical and Moral Consciousness," Historical Encounters, 4(2017):1, edited by N. Ammert, S. Edling, J. Löfström & H. Sharp. The main results of the project have been published in: Niklas Ammert, Silvia Edling, Jan Löfström & Heather Sharp (2022) Historical and moral consciousness in education: learning ethics for democratic citizenship education. London: Routledge.
The aforementioned topic connects with my earlier research projects on the politics of historical apologies, and on upper secondary school students' conceptions of historical responsibility as a perspective on their historical consciousness. Outcomes published in the journals Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46(2014):4, and Citizenship Studies, 15(2011):1, and in the edited volume Voiko historiaa hyvittää? (Can history be repaired?), edited by J. Löfström (Helsinki: Gaudeamus University Press, 2012).
Other research interests include: disciplinary foundations of social studies, economic education, multicultural competence in history education, history and social studies in matriculation examination.