People

Field of expertise

My research focus on higher education; particularly on three themes: research on 1) knowledge in curriculum in higher education, 2) teacher’s work, agency and academic communities and 3) student engagement and experience. I have interest to study how educational and curriculum changes transform the idea of university education and academic communities in the long run, what are the special features when universities with different traditions are approaching each other in curriculum and teaching, and what is the meaning of these changes to academics and students.   

I teach faculty members, including doctoral researchers, in the programmes of professional development (academic practice) and in tailored sessions in the faculties. I supervise graduate students and doctoral researchers. I am open to supervise new doctoral students whose topics and methods are aligned with my own research.    

In my research and teaching, I combine the approaches from curriculum studies and social sciences in the context of higher education. I have an enterprise to rethink and cross the divide between critical and normative curriculum theories. This means, that even though I follow the approach from critical curriculum theories, I try also to find meaningful and theoretically elaborated solutions for academic practice.   

I lead a research project funded by Kone Foundation, (Un)making Knowledge: students’ relationship with knowledge from Modernity to AI (2025-2029). I am a co-leader of the research group "Higher Education in Transition (HET)" (see the link below). I have a title of Docent, in the field of teaching in higher education, at the University of Turku (since 2015).  I have a role as Associate professor II (20%), iEarth Research Group, Department of Earth Science, University of Bergen, Norway (2024-2026). I acted as an associate editor in a leading journal in the field, Studies in Higher Education (jufo 3), in 2022-2024.

For my publications, see the research database (TUNICRIS; see link below) 

About me

Juliene Madureira Ferreira works as an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education and Culture at Tampere University, and currently leads the subgroup Child Development and Diverse Needs in Early Years in the ECEPP research group. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology (Developmental Psychology) from São Paulo University in 2017 and her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Tampere at the end of 2018, followed by a two-year postdoctoral fellowship also at Tampere University. Before arriving at TAU, she worked as a teacher and educational psychologist at the Department of Educational Psychology of the Teacher Training School of the Federal University of Uberlândia, Brazil (2010-2017). Juliene Ferreira coordinated the administrative, academic, and research activities in areas of Early Childhood Education and the First years of Elementary Education (2012-2015), as well as one of the Programs for Teacher Education in Special Education in the National Network for Teacher Education in Inclusive Education, organized by the Ministry of Education in Brazil (2009-2014). 

In her research, Juliene has investigated students’ sociability in challenging social interactions/contexts (e.g., when group members have significantly different developmental paths or when groups discuss complex problem-solving strategies), analyzing how the diverse ways to establish intersubjectivity influence/impact peer learning. She has been equally interested in improving teachers’ training, facilitating their learning to become more aware and equipped to support social interactions and collaborative learning in these challenging situations.  

Research topics

My research spans different topics in educational psychology. More recently, I have focused on the applications of embodied cognition theories (5E cognition) in the learning sciences, examining, for example, the implications of the embodied shift in autism studies. My research interests vary across the following: 

• Learning and development in formal education, 
• Embodied learning, 
• Intersubjectivity (social cognition) in learning, 
• Materiality in learning
• Inclusive and special education,  
• Autism research (focus on communication and learning processes)  

Research unit

Faculty of Education and Culture

Research fields

Educational Psychology

About me

I am a grant-funded researcher and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University.  

The grant-supported research relates to an interdisciplinary research project called ‘(Un)making Knowledge: students’ relationship with knowledge from Modernity to AI’ funded by the Kone Foundation (2025-2029).

As a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Programme of Education and Society (Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University), I research cultures and discourses in transnational higher education. The research focuses on discursively constructed teaching and learning cultures in the context of pedagogical development programmes in Palestinian, Brazilian, and Thai universities; the programmes were organised through transnational collaboration with a Finnish university.

My research interests include a variety of topics in the field of higher education research (higher education studies): teaching and learning, knowledge and curriculum, pedagogical development, academic communities, internationalisation, organisational cultures, digitalisation and online education.

Previously I taught university pedagogy courses for university teachers at Tampere University, ‘Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’ (KAS.PEY.010) & ‘Academic supervision and guidance’ (KAS.PEY.030) and several courses related to educational sciences.    

In my research and teaching activities, I work closely with my research group Higher Education in Transition (HET) as well as the Research Centre on Transnationalism and Transformation TRANSIT. Between February and June 2022, I was a visiting researcher at the Educational Research department at Lancaster University, UK. 

I graduated from the Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) programme and obtained a joint degree M.Sc. (Admin) from University of Tampere in Finland and Danube University Krems in Austria. I have been active in multiple professional associations and scholarly societies and worked with non-governmental organisations.
 

Publications and research activities (link to TUNICRIS research portal) 

Research topics

• Internationalisation in higher education   
• Teaching and learning in higher education 
• Pedagogical/academic development
• Knowledge and curriculum in higher education
• Communities in academic spaces   
• Teaching and learning cultures & Organisational cultures 
• Digitalisation and online education 
• Poststructuralist discourse analysis 
• Qualitative research approaches

About me

I am a higher education researcher currently working on my PhD research related to the impact of AI in higher education. As a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Programme of Education and Society (Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University), I research the role of AI as a non-human mediator of knowledge in higher education learning processes. My PhD research focuses on how AI shapes cognitive processes in learning, influences students’ conceptualization of knowledge, and redefines the student’s role in independent learning. I conduct the PhD research with the support of the Kone Foundation’s grant (2025-2027), which is part of an interdisciplinary research project ‘(Un)making Knowledge: students’ relationship with knowledge from Modernity to AI’ funded by the Kone Foundation (2025-2029).

My research interests include a variety of topics in higher education and educational psychology, including cognitive processes in learning, AI as an extension of the mind, student-AI interaction, knowledge construction, and the recontextualization of educational knowledge.

Previously I have assisted in organizing the 2nd and 3rd International Symposiums on Social Interactions in Inclusive Educational Settings and was employed as a research assistant to conduct interviews and code data.

In my research, I work closely with Higher Education in Transition (HET).

In 2022, I graduated from the Master’s Programme in Learning, Teaching and Media Education, and obtained a M.A. in Education from Tampere University. I am a member of Tampere University Association of Researchers and Teachers TATTE.

Research topics

• AI as a non-human mediator of knowledge
• Knowledge construction in AI-supported learning
• Cognitive processes in AI-assisted learning
• AI as an extension of the mind in education
• Student-AI interaction and learning dynamics
• Reconceptualization of knowledge in AI-integrated education
• The role of AI in independent learning processes
• Students’ self-perception as learners in AI-driven environments
• Collaborative interactions
• Joint attention in collaboration

About me

Docent (University of Helsinki) Alexandra Urakova is an internationally recognised literary scholar and cultural historian with a specialisation in the 19th-century. She has a long-standing interest in economic criticism, modernity, and the theories of symbolic exchange, as reflected in her high-profile publications, a monograph (Urakova 2022) and an edited collection (Urakova et al, 2022). She has authored an article on academic knowledge, gift exchange, and sharing (Urakova & Pyyhtinen, forthcoming).