Leena Autonen-Vaaraniemi, Researcher, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, 33 014 University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail: leena.autonen-vaaraniemi@uta.fi.
Her research interests include the questions of gender and domestic space, critical studies on men and masculinities, family studies. Her ongoing dissertation work is about “Men at home.
Constructing masculinities in domesticity during the life course.”
Tuija Eronen, Licenciate of Social Sciences, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail: tuija.eronen@uta.fi
The main subjects in her thesis is to make and give sense children’s home as lived experience as a part of life history. Data has been collected by using narratives of former children in residential care and co-operative research method with two young women who have lived a part of their childhood and adolescence “in care”.
Hannele Forsberg, Professor of Social Work (acting), Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail: hannele.forsberg@uta.fi
She has done research on social construction of family in social work practices, family policy and social security, considered child-centered counselling work as children’s experience, studied children’s position in so called supervised meetings and analysed the meanings of emotions within social problems helping work
Teija Hautanen, (M.Soc.Sc.), Department of Women’s Studies, University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail: teija.hautanen@uta.fi
She is writing her doctoral thesis about fatherhood and violence in custody trials. Her work is part of the project “Differences in families: family experts, gender, differences and problems".
This project is funded by the Finnish Academy and its leader is Professor Ritva Nätkin.
Dagmar Kutsar, Ph.D. (Psychology), Professor of Social Policy, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Tartu University, Estonia, e-mail: dagmar.kutsar@ut.ee
She is leading a small research group formally called as the Unit of Family and Welfare Studies at the University of Tartu, Estonia, attached to the Department of Sociology and Social Policy. Her research interests are around children, families and welfare research and policies. She has carried out research on poverty and social exclusion of children and adults.
Tapio Kuure, Research Director, Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy, University of Kuopio, Finland, Master´s Programme in Youth Education, e-mail tapio.kuure@uta.fi Research topics: - EU-youth policy, living conditions of young people, youth subcultures
Riitta Laakso, Master of Education, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Tampere, Finland, E-mail: riitta.laakso@uta.fi
The title of her inquiry is “doing child protection in children’s homes”. The main interest in her dissertation is to describe and find concepts of a professional work in children’s home.
Method in this research is ethnographic based on six month fieldwork, interviews and participating observation.
Anja Riitta Lahikainen, Professor in Social Psychology, Chair of the Board of the Research Unit for Childhood and Family Studies, University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail:
anja.lahikainen@uta.fi
Main research interests: child in context of comparative studies of well-being. socialization, identity development.
Heidi Laitinen, MSocSc, researcher, Research Center for Social Economics, Diaconia Polytechnic Huvilakatu 31, FIN-76130 Pieksämäki, Finland, e-mail: heidi.laitinen@diak.fi The author is a researcher in the Research Center for Social Economics in Diaconia Polytechnic Pieksämäki Unit. She has worked as a social worker both in health care and in municipality and as a social secretary and a social director. Costs and Outcomes of Taking Children into Care? research will be a doctoral thesis for Kuopio University.
Finnish Academy has granted a partial financing for the research (grant No. 212066). The research will be completed in 2007(-2008).
Ksenia Limanskaya, Lecturer, PhD, St-Petersburg State University, Faculty of Sociology, Department of Theory and History of Sociology, Russia, e-mail: lkseania@yandex.ru
Miia Lähde, Department of Sociology and Social Psychology, 33 014 University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail: miia.lahde@uta.fi.
She is currently doing her PhD research ‘Childhood, bodily appearance and identity’ at the Department of Sociology and Social Psychology in the University of Tampere, Finland. Her masters thesis ‘Children and bodily appearance: a multimethodological study of the physical identity of 10-13-year olds’ (2004) was a part of the research project ‘Inequal childhood: a comparative study in the nordic countries’, funded by the Academy of Finland and NOS-S (Nordiska samarbetsnämnden för samhällsforskning), 2002-2004.
Aurélie Mary, Department of Sociology and Social Psychology, 33014 University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail: aurelie.mary@uta.fi.
She has obtained a Master in Methods of Social Research at the University of Kent at Canterbury, in England, and am now a Doctorate student at the University of Tampere. I am also currently part of a research project called “Twenty-Five and Something. Transition to Adulthood in Europe”, conducted with Eriikka Oinonen and Helena Laaksonen, at the University of Tampere.
Helinä Mesiäislehto-Soukka, D.Sc. (Health Care), M.A. (Educ.), Senior Lecturer Seinäjoki Polytechnic, Finland, South Ostrobothnia Hospital District, e-mail: helina.mesiaislehto-soukka@seamk.fi
Atte Oksanen, Lic.Soc.Sci, M.A., Researcher, Department of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail: atte.oksanen@uta.fi
He has written on welfare and identity problems of Nordic children. His recently finished his doctoral dissertation Wound-Subjectivity: Baroque of Violence in Control Society addresses the question of identity in late modern technological societies.
Eija Paavilainen, PhD, Professor, Department of Nursing Science, University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail: eija.paavilainen@uta.fi
Her main research fields are family health and wellbeing and family violence, especially child maltreatment. Her family violence research project is funded by Academy of Finland (2006-2008).
Tarja Pösö, Professor, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Tampere, Finland, e-mail tarja.poso@uta.fi.
Her research interests cover the issues of children, young people and families & social problems and the different institutional practices, escpecially child protection, around those problems.
Beata Sahverdov, MA, Researcher, Institute for Law, University of Tartu, Estonia., e-mail:
beatas@ut.ee
Her field of study is juvenile delinquency and prevention.
Marju Selg, MSW, Assistant Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Tartu University, Estonia, e-mail: marju.selg@ut.ee
She is working on her doctoral thesis about family social work. She is also interested in social work with children.
Harriet Strandell, Docent, University lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland, e-mail: harriet.strandell@helsinki.fi
Research topics: sociology of childhood, childhood and space, representations of childhood, social age, children's after school time, children's social interaction, ethnography. Research projects: Regimes of childhood and children's welfare (Academy of Finland), Childhood, space and age order of society (Academy of Finland).
Judit Strömpl, (dr.), Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Tartu University, Estonia, e-mail: judit.strompl@ut.ee
Her main research field is children and young people in trouble and social work with children and youth.
Patricia Tomlinson, Professor Emerita, PhD, MN.DHS (Hon, University of Tampere, Department of Nursing Science), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. e-mail:
ptomli@msn.com
Her main research field is families with children. She has developed a theory concerning strengthening and supporting families during their child’s illness, especially when the child is in hospital care. She has made research collaboration within this field also with Dept. of Nursing Science, University of Tampere for a long time.