Speakers

In his career, Prof. Clarke has taught in schools at all levels, from early years to secondary, and has taught and researched at universities in Scotland, England, Australia, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. His research draws on a range of interdisciplinary fields, including social, political, and psychoanalytic theories, and focuses on developing critical analyses of educational policy and politics, with particular emphasis on how policy shapes the professional work and identities of teachers. Recent books include Education and the fantasies of neoliberalism: Policy, politics and psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2022), Lacan and education policy: The other side of education (Bloomsbury, 2019) and Teacher education and the political: The power of negative thinking (Routledge, 2017).

Sonja Kosunen is the Director of the Social Studies in Urban Education (SURE) Research Unit at the University of Eastern Finland and the responsible director of several international research projects. During her career, Kosunen has extensively studied the construction of inequality in education and training from the perspectives of educational sociology and urban studies. One of her ongoing projects, Stratification and the Segregation of Teachers in Education Markets (SegrEd) (ERC, 2025–2030), is developing a theoretical framework that combines the fields of stratification and segregation research by comparing the regional differentiation of primary education and the social construction of teaching in France, Sweden and Finland.

During her career, Kosunen has worked as a visiting researcher in France, Chile, Denmark and Iceland and has given invited lectures around the world. She is currently a collaborative researcher at SciencesPo Paris in France and appointed to a visiting professorship at Uppsala University, Sweden. Kosunen’s recent books, in collaboration with colleagues, include Koulu ja eriarvoisuus (Gaudeamus, 2024) and Finland’s famous education system: Unvarnished insights into Finnish schooling (Springer, 2023).

Photo: Niko Jouhkimainen