Personal information

From March, 1 2018 I work at the Finnish Youth Research Network and can be reached at lotta.haikkola@nuorisotutkimus.fi

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I work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social Research, which I joined again in 2014 after having been a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute for Health and Welfare. I have a PhD in sociology from the University of Helsinki.

I am also the editor-in-chief of Nuorisotutkimus (Finnish Journal of Youth Research) and co-founder and Editor-in-chief of Ilmiö, a sociological platform for popularising researh and sociology

My research intrests include youth, young people in changing labour market and marginalization. I am also interested in sociology of migration and the second generation, ethnic relations andyoung offenders.

Current research project

Currently I study young people with immigrant backgrounds, employment and activation policies in the project Migrant Youth Employment - Politics of Recognition and Boundaries of Belonging (2014-2017) with Lena Näre, Elina Paju and Daria Krivonos. I am doing participant observation in employment offices and youth employment services in order to study how young people’s skills are recognised and misrecognized in their paths to employment. I also look into how unemployment and the risk of social esclusion is governed in the street-level encounters. 

Previous projects

Disparities in health and wellbeing among children in Finland: Ethnic background, social context of development and health-related lifestyles, Etnokids. The multidisciplinary consortium ETNOKIDS examined how social contexts, particularly family, school, public services and the peer group create disparities in health status, health related lifestyles and social wellbeing within and between the ethnic majority and three immigrant minorities. In the project, I was particularly interested in alcohol consumption as an indicator of individual risk behaviour and participation in youth cultures.

Second generation young people, transnational networks and identity. The doctoral project examined two things: how second generation children reproduce and interpret their families’ transnational social context and form cross-border relationships. Secondly, it examined the negotiation of self and identity within this context. The introductory article can be found here (in Finnish).

Previously I have done research on children and young people’s participation and citizenship