Projects

Research projects | In-service teacher training

About

The utopia group’s research and development work is achieved through several projects, in collaboration between University of Helsinki, University of Eastern Finland, and University of Oulu. In addition to research, the group participates in in-service teacher training projects, coordinated by NGOs. The research is carried out in several municipalities.

Ecologies of learning for climate transformations in the lives of Finnish, Senegalese, and Brazilian young people

Young people have been front-runners in raising awareness about the magnitude of the climate crisis and the profound transformations it requires in societies. It is known that in the global context, young people’s perspectives on the impacts, effects, and possible solutions of the climate crisis vary according to their socio-cultural settings. For example, in Finland, Senegal and Brazil youth’s everyday lives and contexts of learning beyond formal education are shaped by diverse cultural, religious and Indigenous knowledge systems. However, little is known about how young people learn to adapt to and to mitigate climate transformations while navigating among co-existent, colliding and merging epistemologies. We claim that to further advance scientific and political discussions and actions for climate justice, it is necessary to dismantle Euro-centric universalizing ideas about climate transformations. To this end, this four-years transdisciplinary research project focuses on young people’s (15-24 years) learning around the climate crisis in Senegal, Brazil, and Finland. The project draws from learning sciences and decolonial cultural studies. The research data will be produced in a long-term collaborative ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation, interviews, audiovisual recordings and collaborative data production and analysis with young co-researchers. Young people’s learning around climate transformations is analyzed through ‘learning ecologies’, which in the learning sciences refers to a set of formal and informal contexts in and across which people learn. We expand this approach with decolonial ideas about epistemic pluriversality: addressing the diverse epistemologies present in young people’s everyday lives and diverse contexts of learning. The results will be disseminated through conferences, journal articles and a scientific book, and by active communication with non-academic audiences.

Principal Investigator: Antti Rajala (PI)
Project duration: 2025-2028
Funders: The Kone Foundation
Research Group: Paula Ahola (doctoral researcher), Monica Lemos (postdoc), Eleonora Lundell (postdoc), Antti Rajala (PI), Emmanuella Udom (doctoral researcher)
Advisory Group: Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen (University of Helsinki), Alfredo Jornet (University of Girona), Keysa Manuela Cunha de Mascena (University of Fortaleza), Moussa Kane (Gaston Berger University de Saint Louis), Baba Libasse Sow (University of The Gambia)
Universities: University of Neuchâtel, University of Helsinki

Pedagogy of Concrete Utopias: Fostering Youth Agency and Climate Activism in Formal Education

This research project aims to design and research pedagogical approaches for responding to youth’s anguish about climate change and for supporting the development of youth’s active citizenship and activism for sustainable futures. The project also examines the development of youth agency and its preconditions. The project is implemented in collaboration with teachers, civil society organizations and young climate activists.

The project poses four objectives:
1) Examine the pedagogical potential of the concept of concrete utopia to support diverse youth in envisioning alternative futures and enacting them in the present.

2) Develop a pedagogical model for fostering youth agency and climate activism based on the concept of concrete utopias. Examine the feasibility and achievability of the model in formal education settings

3) Generate empirical research knowledge about students’ learning and agency development through their engagement in envisioning and building concrete utopias

4).Advance empirically-grounded understanding of the ethical and political dimensions of learning, agency, and pedagogy

To address these objectives, the project builds on methodology of social design experiments as well as ethnographic and video-based research methods.

Principal Investigator: Antti Rajala (PI)
Project duration: 2020-2023
Funders: Academy of Finland, Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation
Partners: Lempäälä Upper Secondary School, Joutseno College, Otaniemi Upper Secondary School, Parola Upper Secondary School, Ruusuvuori school, Tikkurila Upper Secondary School, Kudelma-network, FEE Finland, Fingo
Advisory Group: Moises Esteban-Guitart (University of Girona), Kris Gutiérrez (University of California Berkeley), Alfredo Jornet (University of Oslo), Anna Stetsenko (City University of New York)

Utopia-laboratory in education: Fostering community-based and inter-generational learning for sustainability

The project asks, how can municipalities promote community-based and inter-generational learning and civic engagement among youth and adults in the current societal situation in which humanity is exceeding planetary boundaries. The research project brings to the discussion the concept of concrete utopia, which refers to bold initatives and experiments to promote alternative and sustainable way of life in schools and in the broader society.

The project has the following aims:

1) co- and redesign alternative school and community infrastructures that support the envisioning and enacting of concrete utopias in education.
2) advance theoretical and empirical understanding of inter-generational learning that is involved in building socially and ecologically sustainable futures in municipalities.
3) advance empirically-grounded understanding of the ethical and political dimensions of learning and agency
4) Co-create with students and practitioners a ground-up sustainable and scalable model for expanding, sustaining and connecting the work done in the schools

Principal Investigator: Antti Rajala (PI)
Project duration: 2022-2027
Funder: University of Eastern Finland
Advisory Group: Moises Esteban-Guitart (University of Girona), , Alfredo Jornet (University of Oslo), Tania Zittoun (University of Neuchâtel)

Global Responsibility to Act Sustainably as Students

The project takes a critical perspective on how students form values relating to internationalisation. Focussing on participatory approaches, it will identify what competencies are needed for global responsibility, how students’ agency manifests and whether non-Western and non-anthropocentric approaches can help to reimagine global responsibility & sustainability in higher education.

Transformer 2030 – Future makers

IN-SERVICE TEACHER TRAINING PROJECT

Transformer 2030 – Future makers project promoted teachers’ content-based and pedagogical expertise on the topics of sustainable futures and ways of life as well as global education. The project continued the project Transformer 2030 – Teachers as Change Agents for Sustainable Futures.

Transformer 2030 – Sustainability Experts

IN-SERVICE TEACHER TRAINING PROJECT

The project promotes teachers’ content-based and pedagogical expertise around several thematic areas regarding sustainable ways of living and global education. The project emphasizes a systemic and cultural-ecological approach to sustainability. Additional emphasis is on eco-social bildung and the meaning of values for responsible engagement.

Frontrunners of Global Bildung

Developmental project

The project examined the roles of bildung and education for sustainable and globally just futures. The aim was to strengthen the networks and peer learning of experts of bildung, education and NGOs. The aim was also to foster skills to promote learning aligning with the UN Agenda 2030 sub goal 4.7. At the same time, the project strived to recognize and disseminate inspiring ways of motivating people in global responsibility and civic engagement.