Critical Approaches to Sustainability, Global Education and Development

Dr. Ratih D. Adiputri 

Ratih D. Adiputri holds a PhD in Political Science, from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, where she is currently a post-doctoral researcher and a course coordinator for UNIPID. Her research and courses are in the topics of middle-income countries, contemporary Southeast Asia, parliament/politics, democracy, international education policy process, sustainable development, and Finland and society (globalization). Her doctoral dissertation dealt with political culture in the Indonesian parliament, and her latest project—funded by the Kone Foundation—studied the international parliament institutions, national parliaments in Southeast Asia, and their roles related to the global agreement on Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to her academic career, she worked for a decade in the Indonesian parliament secretariat as a researcher and a legislative specialist in the USAID project to empower local parliaments in Indonesia.

She has written popular books on Finnish Education System (KPG Jakarta, 2019) and on Professional Teachers Education in the Digital Era (forthcoming) for Indonesian readers, based on her personal life as a foreigner living in Finland and her pedagogical study from the Jyväskylä University of Applied Science/JAMK School of Professional Teacher Education (2021). She is interested in interdisciplinary topics of policy process, global education, and development policy and practices. She actively writes for academic journals and op-ed articles for the wider public in English (Politiikasta) and in the Indonesian language (Kompas Daily). Her current research is on sustainability science for societal change by integrating policy in education, which she wants to learn more about sustainable and just transformation, through systematic and individual changes. Further information is available on her personal website.

Orsolya Tuba

Orsolya Tuba is a student in the Development, Education and International Cooperation Master’s Degree Programme at the University of Jyväskylä, specializing in global and sustainable education. After earning her high school matura in Hungary, she studied economics baccalaureate in Finland. Upon graduation, she gained work experience in London in the business development and conference organizing sectors, during which she became disappointed in the for-profit-oriented unequal and neoliberal circumstances, which later led to the funding of her own non-profit organization focused on education development. She truly believes that education is the key to making a substantial effect towards a more sustainable and equal society, and pursues this mission by collaborating with organizations globally on various projects.

Despite coming from an economic background, she has been working in the higher education sector for years and had her main interests in teacher training and curriculum development. Her research is focused on north-south partnerships, specifically on Finnish and South African higher education capacity building. Her research aims to analyze the sustainable results of development cooperation in the field of higher education capacity building between Finnish and South African stakeholders, through decolonial and critical lenses. The research will contribute to a better understanding of the different Finnish-South African stakeholders’ perceptions of HEI capacity building, decoloniality, and sustainable development.

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Jenni Parantainen 

Jenni Parantainen is a student in the University of Jyväskylä, taking a degree in Educational Sciences Master’s Degree Programme. Before her ongoing studies, she has worked several years as a teacher in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in city of Jyväskylä and experienced also in ECEC curriculum work and in team leadership. Her objectives as an educator and researcher are finding solutions to the educational challenges and improving quality of education worldwide.

Jenni is currently writing her master’s thesis about multicultural and antiracist early childhood education in Finnish context. Her critically oriented research aims at identifying racist and anti-racist elements in physical learning environments of ECEC centres. Jenni is applying visual methodology and critical theories when addressing and interpreting manifestations of power relations and ideologies in learning environments of ECEC centres. Research data consists of photographs taken of spaces and materials in ECEC centres. Data will be analysed by use of visual thematic analysis.

Aim of Jenni’s research is exemplifying elements of antiracism and institutional and everyday forms of racism in spaces and materials of ECEC. Recognizing these existing factors in everyday ECEC surroundings that either maintain, increase, or decrease hierarchies between different groups of people is necessary in order to produce actions towards antiracist society and to promote justice in and through Finnish education.

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Sion Yang 

Sion Yang is a student in the Educational Sciences Master’s Degree Programme at the University of Jyväskylä, specializing in educational leadership and current issues in education. As a third culture kid, she has experienced various education systems in different countries, including South Korea, Malawi, Kenya, the United States, Indonesia, and currently, Finland. After obtaining her official teacher certification from the US, she began her career in education as a music teacher at an International Baccalaureate school in Indonesia. Throughout her experiences of receiving and delivering education in diverse social contexts, including developed and developing countries, private and public schools, and national and international institutions, she has consistently witnessed a disproportionate quality of education that heavily depends on disparities within cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. Therefore, she chose Finland as her destination for her master’s studies, mainly to gain a comprehensive insight into the Finnish Education System, which strives to ensure quality education for all students, regardless of their cultural and social backgrounds.

Her master’s thesis focuses on student teachers’ perspectives on Sustainable Development Goal 4 in rural Uganda. She will conduct a case study during an 11-week internship and research fieldwork at Kumi University in Uganda in the Faculty of Education and Languages. The aim of her study is to understand student teachers’ perspectives of SDG4 in rural Uganda and how critical discussions and reflective activities on SDG4 targets may impact their perceptions of teacher identity. Contextualizing and implementing SDG4 goals into education policies may have different implications in Uganda than in other Western contexts; therefore, investigating what SDG4 means to future educators in the global South offers a critical perspective on SDG4 goals.