Anna-Leena RiitaojaUniversity of Helsinki | HY · Faculty of Social Sciences
Anna-Leena Riitaoja
Ph.D.
About
16
Publications
5,726
Reads
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259
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
I am currently working on higher education, curriculum socialization and professional continuing education and learning, especially in the field of social work. I examine the role of transnational migration, diversity , intersectional power issues and social justice in professional education, knowledge, and in professional ethics.
Additional affiliations
August 2020 - present
Position
- Researcher
Description
- I work in sociology and in the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Ageing and Care. My research focuses on transnational migration, intersecting diversities, ageing, life course and contextual, situational and relational subjectivities and positions, as they are constructed in social work theory and enacted in social work practices with service users.
August 2019 - July 2020
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- I worked as a researcher in the Academy of Finland funded project "Ordering the 'Migrant Family': Power Asymmetry Work and Citizenization in Restructuring Welfare Professional Bureaucracies". https://www.abo.fi/en/project/ordering-the-migrant-family/
August 2017 - July 2019
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- Images and positioning of ”immigrant” in policies and structuring of education, social and health care services: recognition of diversity, family relations and life course (IMMI-SERWE) 01/08/2017>
Education
September 2005 - July 2013
August 2001 - June 2005
August 1998 - June 2005
Publications
Publications (16)
This study examines Finnish student teachers' images of The Middle East conflict and its parties and medias' influence on these images. The research problems are 1) how student teachers understand the Middle East as a geographical and a cultural area 2) what kind of conceptions they have of the Middle East conflict and its parties; Israelis, Palest...
In this article, we contribute to an emerging body of literature concerning the often-overlooked topics of access and consent in research. We posit our understanding of access and consent as continuous ethical reflection and negotiation, conceptualised here as ethical performance, which is particularly valuable in research in institutional contexts...
Artikkelissa kysytään, millaista ymmärrystä siirtolaisuudesta ja siihen kytkeytyvästä moninaisuudesta tuotetaan sosiaalityön yliopisto- ja sosionomi (AMK) -koulutusten opetussuunnitelmissa sekä miten siirtolaisuus suhteutuu yhtenäiskulttuuria, hyvinvointivaltiota ja yhdenvertaisuutta koskeviin kertomuksiin. Aineistona ovat lukuvuonna 2017–2018 voim...
This article discusses North–South–South higher education collaboration as a context for development education. We analyse an intensive course on qualitative research methods and culturally responsive education organized by a network of five universities from global South and global North. The course aimed to enhance qualitative understanding of qu...
Although Finnish basic education is based on inclusion, 37% of students receiving special support still study in either separate schools or separate classes in comprehensive schools. In this study we explore how policies of inclusion are implemented in a school with separated special educational needs (SEN) and general education (GE) classes. More...
The purpose of this article is analysis of discursive marginalisation through education in Nordic welfare states. What knowledge do Nordic research discourses produce about marginalisation through education in Nordic welfare states? What are the Nordic contributions to research discourses on marginalisation through education? We apply a discourse t...
This article offers readers the opportunity to eavesdrop on a conversation between teacher educators from Finland and the United States at the conclusion of a field research project conducted in border schools in Arizona. The conversation ranges across topics central to schooling in both countries and exposes educational practices that are not part...
This article examines educational, political and philosophical perspectives on the concepts of worldview and religion in the context of multicultural education. Using a postcolonial and post-structural approach combined with theories that analyse the politics of secularism, we attempt to pinpoint key perspectives in the recognition of worldviews in...
The study examines how school space and the objects in school participate in reconstruction of norms and silences on racial, ethnic and linguistic diversities in education. The study locates in three schools in the Helsinki region in Finland. All the schools under review are influenced by global migration processes, but with different profiles in t...
Interreligious dialogue is a central objective in European and UNESCO policy and research documents, in which educational institutions are seen as central places for dialogue. In this article, we discuss this type of dialogue under the conditions of asymmetry and categorisation in two Finnish schools. Finnish education has often been lauded for its...
This paper reviews discourses on multicultural education and the concept of intercultural competencies in the European and Nordic country of Finland. We focus on their present uses and perceptions by decision-makers, researchers, and also student teachers. Some prognosis for the future is made based on a short case study from art teacher education...
In this article I deal with the ethnic residential differentiation in Helsinki from the viewpoints of children and school composition. The main questions pertain to patterns of ethnic differentiation among children in Helsinki, how the differentiation of housing areas affects composition of comprehensive schools, and how ethnic differentiation is c...
Projects
Projects (3)
As media affordances and modalities have the power to choose whose voices to be heard and whose visibility is more important, discourses and narratives on the Web have the ability to re-signify symbols and ‘re-tell’ stories for blame and exclusivity. As a result, categorizations of immigrants and refugees that ascribe to particular ideologies arise with rhetorics of fear and blame, while visual images and text circulate create metaphors of fear with projections of certain tropes. In this way, media practices shape communicative collective memory. Based on these considerations, this research project aims to examine the metaphors that images and representations of migration on University-related Web-based platforms and social media in Finland and Greece generate and what type of communicative memory they shape. Also, what vulnerabilities these discourses and narratives sustain.
The aim of the study is to identify how academics relate themselves to interculturality and multiculturalism in the context of higher education and university teaching. The study aims to examine how academics construct and understand interculturality and multiculturalism and what kind of experiences they have had by teaching, communicating, and collaborating with international students or with international colleagues. The findings of study will be utilised in the pedagogical development courses focusing on international and multicultural issues in university teaching.
The project examines exclusion, inclusion, marginalisation and belonging in two lower secondary school contexts in Finland especially from the viewpoint of students themselves. Through ethnographic and action research methods we have scrutinized what causes exclusion and what would increase sense of belonging school, and how the students want to change the exclusionary practices in their school. The project is led by Gunilla Holm and it is funded by Academy of Finland.
