Mia Helena Heikkilä
Contact
Name and title: Mia Helena Heikkilä
Mail: mia.heikkila@buv.su.se
Phone: +46812076305
ORCID0000-0003-3361-348X Länk till annan webbplats.
Workplace: Department of Child and Youth Studies Länk till annan webbplats.
Visiting address Svante Arrhenius väg 21A
Postal address Barn- och ungdomsvetenskapliga institutionen106 91 Stockholm
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About me
I am a professor of Child and Youth Studies with a focus on early childhood education and care at the Department of Child and Youth Studies. Before starting at Stockholm University, I was a professor in ECEC at Åbo Akademi University in Finland, and I have also worked at Mälardalen University. I finished my PhD in Education 2006 at the Department of Education at Uppsala University. I am originally a primary school teacher (grades 1-6) from the Faculty of Education at Åbo Akademi.
I am a member of the Swedish Reserach Council's Committee of Educational Sciences and Swedish Gender Equality Agency's scientific committee. I continually hold various government assignments both in Finland and in Sweden. I speak and write Swedish, Finnish and English.
My teaching is within the undergraduate, master's and postgraduate courses at the department. I teach children's learning, resilience in preschool, sociocultural perspectives, international perspectives on preschool and research methodology at different levels. I also teach in rector's continuing education at Stockholm University. I supervise students in independent work, master's students and doctoral students.
I write books and carry out investigations and act as an expert for authorities and organisations.
In the research I lead and/or conduct, the preschool as a contemporary context is included in various ways. Emphasis in my research is on different kinds of analyzes of preschool as a social institution today. My research can be framed through the concepts of learning, play, gender and other social categorizations and children's participation and agency. In some studies all of these are present, in others some appears more clearly than others. In recent years, issues and the preschool's organization and educational leadership have also become more prominent in my reserach, which coincides with the interest in making the preschool as good as possible for all children. There, leadership and organization are important parts.
For me, conducting reserach close to the ECEC context are central aspects, and affects the choice of method and theory. This means that my reserach is seldom focused on a specific theory or method. In studies of younger children, however, I see great advantages in using moving or auditory material.
Currently, I am scientifically responsible for a four-year research project on how resilience can be understood in a preschool context, ResECE, funded by the Foundation Brita Maria Renlunds minne sr and the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland. I am also active in projects about educational leadership in early childhood education in Swedish speaking parts of Finland.
Other themes that are relevant are children's meaning-making in preschool around the corona pandemic, gender and teaching in subject units in preschool, the overall concept in the Finnish preschool context, as well as texts about resilience in preschool.
Recently completed projects include Stjärnklart, a study on children's social and emotional expression and a smaller project on abuse in preschool.
Publications from 2018 to 2023 are accessible here (Åbo Akademi Univeristy's publications)