Taina Saarinen
Contact search available for JYU staff members. Web page: https://ktl.jyu.fi/en/staff/saarinen-taina X (formerly Twitter) handle: https://twitter.com/tainasaarinen ResearchGate address: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Taina-Saarinen ORCID link: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5117-2756 |
General description
I am a higher education researcher, currently working as research professor and Director at the University of Jyväskylä Finnish Institute for Educational Research. I am interested in higher education in society, particularly equity issues in higher education and higher education institutions. Due to my background in applied language studies, I am particularly interested in various questions related to language and language policy and ideology. In addition to research work, I have served in various expert positions regarding language policy, language education policy and higher education policy. In 2023-2024, I lead the Equality, equity and accessibility development group of the University of Jyväskylä. I am the current chairman of the Edistyksellinen tiedeliitto, and former chair of Korkeakoulututkimuksen seura.
Active JYU affiliations
- Finnish Institute for Educational Research, Research Professor
Previous, inactive or other affiliations
- Centre for Applied Language Studies (University of Jyväskylä), Senior Researcher, Ended
- Centre for Applied Language Studies (University of Jyväskylä), Post-doctoral researcher (Academy of Finland), Other affiliation
- Centre for Applied Language Studies (University of Jyväskylä), Senior researcher (Finnish Network for Language Education Policies), Other affiliation
Research interests
I study internationalisation of higher education and higher education policy from the perspective of language. What political, ideological or societal theme do we talk about when we think we talk about language? What are the spaces and times where and when language makes societal structures visible? Whose language is important, whose is invisible, and what does that say about our higher education? How can we theoretisize higher education with language? Recently, I have moved towards questions of academic wellbeing and academic work in crisis.
Fields of science
Follow-up groups
Personal keywords
Language; higher education; language policy; higher education policy; academic wellbeing; new materialism
Projects as Principal investigator
- Growth opportunities for prosperity: a comparative view of Ukrainian education
- Research Council of Finland
- Kriisit, korkeakoulujohtaminen ja -työ: miten korkeakoulut voivat toimia paremmin kriiseissä?
- Finnish Work Environment Fund
- Korkeakouluopiskelijoiden työssäkäynnin vaikutukset
- Prime Minister's Office
- The politics and ideologies of multilingual writing
- The Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS)
- XIV Symposium of Higher Education: Pop up policies or long term impact”
- Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
- Analys av svenskans ställning inom den högre utbildningen i Finland i nynationalistisk tid
- Svenska Kulturfonden
Projects as Team Member
- ETMU Days 2023
- Ennser-Kananen, Johanna
- Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
- Higher education XIII symposium
- Aittola, Helena
- Federation of Finnish Learned Societies
Publications and other outputs
Author of research datasets
- AHJO: A qualitative investigation of well-being among staff at a Finnish university using art-inspired methodology, including workshops and individual interviews (2024) Perkins, Marc; et al.
- AHJO methods: Prompts and other communications used in the AHJO project's artistic qualitative investigation into factors affecting the well-being of staff at a Finnish university. (2024) Perkins, Marc; et al.
