Marc Perkins & Taina Saarinen, Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä: Academic well-being, equity, and the future of academic work: lessons from a qualitative exploration into staff well-being at a Finnish university
We believe that the concept of well-being, while sometimes applied in a one-size-fits all instrumental and individualizing manner, may provide a framework through which we can explore the diverse lived realities of academic workers, and by doing so identify possible pathways towards an inclusive, caring academic community.
Workplace well-being is frequently evaluated via quantitative methods, with multiple choice questions a mainstay of analyses. While these surveys serve important leadership functions and provide useful data, they may fail to capture the complexity of people’s well-being experiences at work due to the lack of nuanced answer options. We used a variety of artistic participatory qualitative techniques to explore the factors that influence staff members’ well- and unwell-being at work in a Finnish university. Our 21 participants were variable on many axes, including classification (teacher, researcher, expert- and professional-staff), employment type (permanent vs. temporary), employment duration, unit, language, and immigrant status.
Preliminary themes we have identified that are central to participants’ workplace well-being are the work environment, work situation, supervisor, purpose, community, and ability to be a whole person. We believe that these very same themes are also central to equitable workplaces, and can help form meaningful imaginaries of possible academic futures that are more inclusive, community-driven, and open to diversity along many axes.
In this presentation we will share some of the stories of our participants, weaving together the streams of well-being, equity, and possible futures into a single dialog discussing the state of academic work in Finland today and beyond.
Vesna Holubek, Derek Ruez, Mila Bujić, Marisa Honkanen, & Zsuzsa Millei, Tampere University: International academics as change agents for transformation: lived and managed internationalization in a Finnish university’
This paper explores internationalization processes as an ongoing transformation of higher education institutions by examining a case of internationalization efforts at Tampere University (TAU). We focus on an initiative of a local trade union association, led by international academics, to understand and improve the position of international researchers, teachers, and other staff at TAU. This qualitative case study combines survey and interviews (2021-2022) with self-identified international staff at TAU, as well as analysis of relevant policy documents. We also work autoethnographically with our own critical reflections as a team of international and Finnish academics who conducted the research and used the findings to advocate for changes.
Like many (globally renowned) universities, TAU built its procedures for managing internationalization predominantly along quantitative indicators (e.g. number of international staff, students, and partnerships). It can be argued that the discourse of recruiting international ‘talent’ further instrumentalizes international academics in Finnish universities. However, the lived side of internationalization efforts paints a more complex picture of the proclaimed international status of TAU: the participants’ experiences of exclusion from university communities and distance from university decision-making intersect with challenges around language practices and impacts of academic precarity. The findings illuminate lived aspects of internationalization and show the complicated convergences and divergences between managerial attempts to increase university’s global competitiveness and the diverse needs, positionalities, and agencies of international academics.
Oshie Nishimura-Sahi, Tampere University: Ethnophilosophy as Intellectual Resources: Self-Reflective Inquiry into the Onto-Epistemic Foundations of Global Education Policy Research
This paper exemplifies a way of recasting researchers’ autobiographical narratives as an intellectual resource. In so doing, it aims to describe the inherent complexity and multilayered nature of the onto-epistemic foundations for studying global education policy (GEP). It seeks to achieve this aim through self-reflective thinking about my own trajectory that encompasses my origin and professional experiences. The origin and professional experiences interrelate in shaping researchers’ decisions on ‘what to study’ and ‘how to study’ that ultimately influence the nature of the knowledge created on political and educational practices in different parts of the world. In reflecting on my trajectory toward becoming a researcher, I am attentive to how my childhood memories, which are coloured by Shinto spiritualities, Buddhist doctrines and Japanese naturalism, gave rise to my interests in actor-network theory (ANT), which has recently gained traction in GEP studies and become an influential part of the ‘material turn’ in the GEP field.
Anna Björnö, Tampere University: Language as an epistemic tool
This paper is trying to deepen internationalization perspectives in academia. In contrast to the commonly accepted perspective highlighting transnational mobility, cultural exchange and the ability to learn diverse practices as key achievements of internationalization, this paper digs into a scholarly journey as “growing roots”—the process of getting to know people, history, and the intricacies of social relations in new and old places.
Internationalization is connected to migration, and intellectual pursuits inevitably also reflect these experiences. As universities become more diverse, integrating international researchers presents a challenge for institutions, but it is also requiring scholars to reshape their epistemological outlooks. Using my personal experience of learning Finnish and autoethnography as an analytical lens, I explore how language acquisition can shape both personal and academic process of “growing roots”, understanding one’s own positionality.
The paper critiques the neoliberal perspective internationalization, which often prioritizes global competitiveness at the expense of deeper engagement with places, histories and communities, reducing language to a mere tool for communication. This perspective highlights the need to re-evaluate language learning’s role within education beyond linguistics and pedagogy, especially in social sciences, where it plays a vital role in shaping scholarly positionality and understanding of the societal phenomena.
