Speakers

The Minister of Education and Integration is responsible for primary and secondary school, upper secondary and tertiary vocational education, educational loans and grants, adult education and skills and integration. The minister is also responsible for Nordic cooperation.

Steffen Handal is leader of Union of Education Norway, Norway’s largest union for educators. He is also member of the board of Education International (EI), the global merger of teacher organizations that together represent around 32 million members.

Paula Lehtomäki is appointed Secretary General for the Nordic Council of ministers from 18th of march 2019. She has been a member of the Finnish parliament for 16 years. In 2003 she became Finland’s minister for foreign trade and development, and was minister for the environment from 2007 to 2011. She was also a member of the Nordic Council from 1999 to 2003, working in the regional vicinity committee.

The Minster of Education’s areas of responsibility include preschool, preschool class, recreation center, elementary school, upper secondary school and adult education

Tora Korsvold is dr. art. and professor of Early Childhood Education at Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education, Trondheim, Norway. She has published several of articles and books within the field of Early Childhood Education, including articles in international anthologies and scientific journals. She is member of the board of the programme for research and innovation in the educational sector, the Research Council of Norway.

Jóhanna Einarsdóttir is a professor of education at the School of Education, University of Iceland. She holds Honorary Doctorate from the University of Oulu in Finland and was awarded The Distinguished Alumni Alumni Achievement Award from University of Illinois in 2018. Professor Einarsdóttir has published and presented numerous papers and research results on early childhood education, educational transitions, and children‘s perspectives on their preschool education, to professional and community groups nationally as well as internationally. Jóhanna is on EECERA board of trustees.

Judith Wagner, Professor, Whittier College, US, has lived, taught, and conducted research in Denmark off and on for three decades. From an outsider’s perspective, many of her publications and presentations focus on the Nordic concept of en god barndom (the good childhood) as animated in preschool children’s everyday life. She also examines current trends in support of and in conflict with its basic principles.

Miho Taguma is Senior Policy Analyst in the Early Childhood and Schools Division of the Directorate for Education and Skills at the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). She is currently the project manager of the new OECD initiative, Future of Education and Skills 2030. The project aims to help countries to explore different dimensions of 21st century competencies which modern education systems need to develop in students towards the world in 2030.

David Edwards, PhD is General Secretary of Education International, a federation of 32 million teachers and other educators affiliated with unions and associations in 173 countries globally. Dr. Edwards was named to the position in 2018 after seven years as EI’s deputy general secretary directing education policy, advocacy, research and communications.

Jan Kampmann, professor, Roskilde University. His research spans widely, and is aimed, among other things, at childhood institutionalization, children’s cultural creation and learning.
Kampmann has also contributed to Dansk Clearinghouse’s research series, which compiles and assesses Scandinavian kindergarten research.

Dr. Berit Bae is professor emerita at Oslo Metropolitan Unviversity. Along with teaching/supervising students and leading/being involved in researchprojects, she has been doing advisory work for the government, for local authorities and professional groups throughout the country. Her research has focussed on dialogues/relations between children and teachers, and on childrens’ right to participation within ECEC settings.

Christian Eidevald is a preschool teacher, fil.dr. in education and former head of early childhood education teacher program at Stockholm University. He is director of development for the city of Gothenburg’s preschools and associated professor at Gothenburg University. Christians’ research is about gender issues in the position of girls and boys, preventive work against abuse, men in preschool, systematic quality work and documentation.

Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson is professor in Early Childhood Education at Gothenburg University, Sweden and hold an UNESCO Chair in ECE and Sustainable Development. Her main research areas are young children’s learning, play and preschools’ opportunities to provide a good childhood for a sustainable life.

Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter is a Professor of educational science with a focus on early childhood education research, and she works in the Department of Physical Education and Health at Queen Maud University College of Early Childhood Education in Trondheim, Norway. Her primary research focus is on children’s play in general, physical active play and outdoor play, and particularly children’s risky play. At the moment she is managing a research project on how to develop optimal physical environments for children’s play, development and learning.

The Ombudsman for Children is working to monitor and promote the implementation of the UN Convention on the rights of the Child (UNCRL) in Sweden. One key element in this work is to talk to children in different situations, to find out how they experience that their rights are fulfilled. Currently the Ombudsman for Children is developing a survey to help gather information from children in pre-school. The ombudsman also launched a website in October 2018 on which teachers from pre-school to secondary school can find tools to teach children about the UNCRL.

Jaana Juutinen, Phd, post-doctoral researcher, University of Oulu, Finland, has been involved in several, both national and international, early childhood education research projects on wellbeing, belonging and values education. Currently, her research is about the politics of belonging in ECEC as a part of the Nordforsk funded research project “Politics of belonging: Promoting children’s inclusion in educational settings across borders”.

Anne Kultti holds a PhD in Education and is Associate Professor at the University of Gothenburg. Her research concerns equal opportunities for children’s learning and development in early childhood education (ECE). The research focuses on ECE as a learning environment for multilingual children, communication and participation in preschool activities, teaching as well as collaboration between home and ECE.

Dr. Mihaela Ionescu is the Program Director in ISSA (the International Step by Step Association) a membership association that connects organizations from Europe and Central Asia working in the field of early childhood development (www.issa.nl). She is deeply involved in strategic program development with a focus on equitable and high quality early childhood services provision. She coordinated the development of several resources in ISSA, most of them focused on process quality and professionalism in early childhood services (see ISSA’s Knowledge Hub) and recently coordinated the development of a toolkit for strengthening integration in early childhood systems within INTESYS project.

Géraldine works as a policy officer for Early Childhood Education and Care in the Directorate general Education, Youth, Sport and Culture of the European Commission. She graduated in European and international public law and dedicated all her career to managing European projects and programmes in the field of education, training and youth.

Susan Flocken is the European Director of the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) and has been working for the organisation in Brussels since 2009 and was appointed to this position in 2017. She engages in ETUCE policy advocacy work with government representatives as well as with European and international institutions across a range of areas: education and training post-2020, including early childhood education, European Pillar of Social Rights, equality, social inclusion and democratic citizenship; digitalisation in education; economic governance, promotion of social dialogue and teachers’ working conditions.

Johanna Jaara Åstrand is the president of the Swedish Teachers Union, the largest union of educators in Sweden, with 234 000 members at all levels of education. She is also member of the board of Education International (EI). Johanna has a background as a professional teacher in primary school since 1996.

Pia Williams, Professor in Child and Youth studies at the University of Gothenburg. Her research is oriented towards Early Childhood Education, focusing on conditions for children’s, learning and development in preschool. She has been a consultant for the Swedish Ministry of Education and authored a wide range of books and articles.

Sonja Sheridan, professor emerita in education at the department of education, communication and learning, University of Gothenburg. She specializes in research on quality issues in preschool. She has worked for the Swedish Ministry of Education, for NOKUT, participated in the OECD network and is a member of the AcademiaNet – Expert Database of Outstanding Female Academics (www.academia-net.org )

Kjetil Børhaug is a political scientist with a major in administration and organizational science from the University of Bergen (UiB) in 1990.  Børhaug has been affiliated with the Christian Michelsen Institute, the University Colleges of Lillehammer and Bergen, and from 2010 he has been employed at the Department of Administration and Organizational Science at UiB, from 2012 as professor of social science didactics. Børhaug’s research field is firstly related to subject didactics, with particular emphasis on social science as political socialization. Secondly, management, organization and management in the kindergarten sector.

Anne Kjær Olsen is Head of Further Education Programme in the Department of Pedagogy and School at the University College Copenhagen. She has been a member of the committee proposing a new national curriculum framework for Early Childhood Education and Care in Denmark.

Dr. Kirsti Karila is a Professor of Early Childhood Education at Tampere University, Finland. Her research areas include professionalism, parent-practitioner collaboration and institutional cultures and policies in early childhood education and care. Nowadays, Karila investigates the municipal-level ECEC policies, parents’ choices and children’s early childhood education trajectories in the CHILDCARE-consortium – Finnish childcare policies: In/equality in focus – funded by the Strategic Research Council (Academy of Finland).

Iram Siraj is Professor of Child Development and Education, University of Oxford (SRF at Jesus College) and until end 2018 Research Professor at the University of Wollongong in Australia. She is on the Technical Advisory Group for the lead Australian Council for Educational Research group which won the OECD IELS pilot study (and the NFER England study) she advises on measures for the study.
Iram is an ECEC specialist with an international reputation for her longitudinal research and policy expertise.

Rikke Høistad Sjøberg was appointed State Secretary to the Minister of Education and Integration from 19. februar 2018.

Anders Rusk holds a master degree in Pedagogy. He is the General Secretary of the Nordic Teachers’ Council NLS, and the International Coordinator of the union Opetusalan Ammattijärjestö (OAJ).