Utbildning information

Filosofie doktor (2023) (pedagogik, utbildningssociologi)

Information om forskning och undervisning

I teach courses on general methodology, methods and principles in educational sciences, as well as seminar groups for students writing their bachelor’s theses. My teaching and invited talks are aligned with and grounded in my research, which is rooted in the critical school of educational 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 only prepare for work but also for a meaningful life).

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 our concern than 'choices' or 'facts' drawn from human experiences. Many things are not of our choosing (we cannot and should not sink into voluntarism!), and we cannot be certain of things. This is why I suggest it is fruitful to ask what it is about the world that moves us in a state of modus vivendi.

Forskningsintressen

1 -- My present research is a theoretical analysis of embodied personhood and human agency. In my research, I have used social realism to critique naive ideas and simplistic policy discourses seeking to diminish that role and what it is to be human. I have published about the role of knowledge and agency in education and the importance of transformational professionalism rather than one based on credentialism. 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 the critical realism of Roy Bhaskar and Andrew Collier. I aim to develop conceptual extensions in Spinozist ethics, critical theory (particularly the Frankfurt School), and realist social theory (social realism) developed by Margaret S. Archer and Andrew Sayer. At the core of my work is the conception of human flourishing, the realist conceptualisation of being. This orientation holds that life unfolds within a structured, differentiated, and changing world in which the social, natural, and practical orders of life are in interplay.

Forskningsintressen

2 -- I will be glad to advise/supervise doctoral students interested in progressive education for sustainable social transformation. I believe I can support emerging researchers 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.

I am the founder of CRITVET (Critical Research for Vocational Education Transformation), a transdisciplinary initiative, proposal and team that critiques dominant skills-informed policy frameworks in Finland and the EU. CRITVET advances a relational and ethically grounded philosophical underpinning to 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.