ResECEC- People
Ann-Christin Furu holds the title of docent and works as a senior researcher connected to the education of teachers in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) at the Faculty of Human and Social Studies at Åbo Akademi University. She is involved in research about sustainability issues in early childhood education and care with a special focus on nature connectedness in nurturing resilience and making possible sustainable ways of being among children and staff. Her research is rooted in relational ontology, and she adopts narrative and arts-based approaches in both research and teacher education. Theoretically, she is concerned with issues of temporality and spatiality in ECEC and explores how post qualitative perspectives might nourish educational research and pedagogical practices. She is a member of national, Nordic, and international research groups in sustainability education.
Mia Heikkilä, PhD, senior researcher at ÅAU (part time), Professor of Child and Youth Studies, with a focus on ECEC, Stockholm University.
Her research focuses on learning and communication, pedagogical relations, leadership and participation in early childhood education and care including social justice aspects. Resilience, hope and relations are cnetral concepts in that work. Her research also include how educational practices, interiors and exteriors can be organized to give children greater agency as well as pedagogical leadership. A key motivation in her work is to examine what hinders equitable inclusion and sustainable processes for all children, within education. She is PI of several research projects, one concerned with the notion on attendance in preschool and what that means for possibilities for equal education.
Jessica Nylund, M.A. Education, is a doctoral researcher in educational sciences at the Faculty of Human and Social Studies at Åbo Akademi University. Her research interest is arts-based approaches in Early Childhood Education for sustainability (ECEfs). In her doctoral dissertation she explores how children experience and express thoughts and feelings about a sustainable future in arts-based learning processes. Her research is based on relational ontology and conducted through post qualitative methodology.
Linda Eriksson is a doctoral researcher in educational sciences at the Faculty of Human and Social Studies at Åbo Akademi. Her doctoral dissertation explores worldview education in early childhood education and care through a relational ontological lens. She draws on her experience in both theology and pedagogy, working with philosophical concepts to explore how worldview literacy and existential resilience can be nurtured in young children. A central concern of the research is to spark meaningful dialogue and mutual understanding in multicultural and multireligious early childhood education and care.
Alexandra Nordström, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at Åbo Akademi University (part-time) and University lecturer in ECEC at the University of Helsinki. Her research themes include literacies, play, and affect in early childhood education as well as figurations of children and childhood. She engages with post-approaches in educational research. She is the PI of a current research project on slow and affective pedagogy in ECEC, primarily focusing on children aged 1–3 years. She is a member of national, Nordic, and international research groups, where she collaborates on research concerning early literacies as well as methodological experimentation, including post‑qualitative and arts‑based approaches.