Koulutustiedot

Filosofian tohtori, FT (2023) (kavatustiede, koulutussosiologia)

Tutkimuksen ja opetuksen kuvaus

I teach courses on general methodology, methods, and principles in the educational sciences, as well as seminar groups for students writing their bachelor’s (2024-2026) and master's theses (starting in 2026). My teaching and invited talks are aligned with and grounded in my research, which contributes to the critical school of education philosophy. Before entering academia, I worked in industry and the technology sectors, and my basic qualification is as a teacher in vocational and adult education. This experience continues to inform my inquiries into the social and natural ontology of life, education, and work—in that order (i.e., life is more than education, and education is more than work; education should not just prepare for work but also for a life people find reasons to value or seek to change).

Education, as I see it, should focus on people's knowledge-laden authority in a non-conflationary manner. That is, priority is neither given to human agency nor to social structure. From here, questions of crucial importance for ecological and social justice can emerge, and in this perspective, I welcome all interpretivist and positivist perspectives, agreeing entirely with neither. I am thus more interested in reasons for us to value things of concern than in categories drawn from human expression. Many things are not of our choosing, and nor can we be that certain of things. This is why I suggest it is fruitful to ask what about the world moves us in a state of uncertainty. We might sometimes have more and sometimes less agency than we think!

Tutkimuskohteet

1 -- My present research is a theoretical analysis of embodied personhood and the human capabilities approach (also known as human development). In my research, I have used social realism to critique naive ideas and simplistic policy discourses seeking to diminish human agency and the notion of human being. I have published on the role of knowledge and agency in education, showing how people make choices they have reasons to value to live the lives they want. This is to consider education as a broad life-affirming aspiration rather than in a narrow sense. And this should be of particular concern when questions about what education and vocational education should accomplish are dealt with.

My philosophical perspective is typically grounded in critical realism. I draw on concepts from Aristotelian and Spinozist ethics to develop the realist social theory (social realism) and realist humanism. At the core of my work is the normative idea of human flourishing. I think Bhaskar is right:

"It is not that there are the starry heavens above and the moral law within, as Kant would have it; rather, the true basis of your virtuous existence is the fact that the starry heavens are within you, and you are within them." -Roy Bhaskar, The Philosophy of MetaReality (2012)

Tutkimuskohteet

2 -- I will be glad to advise/supervise doctoral students interested in progressive education for sustainable social transformation. I believe I can support students who engage with natural and social ontology, economic and political sociology, the sociology of knowledge, and, in particular, the philosophical foundations and purposes of vocational education.

My initiative, in general, seeks to advance a relational and ethically grounded philosophical underpinning for education, particularly vocational education. Most recently, I have begun planning and exploring a new research initiative drawing on and developing critical realist philosophy and epistemic inquiry. I collaborate with people in the UK and Nordic countries to theorise and critique the standardisation of educational outcomes based on technical and economic rationality, and to develop alternative models of education that foreground transformative professional agency, the ethical lives of people and social cohesion.