Reflections on ECER Conference 2026, Tampere: Global issues, difficulties of knowing and acting, and generative debates

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Authors: Oona Piipponen, Tuija Kasa, Meri Häärä and Riikka Jaatinen

The dust has now settled from the beginning of the new academic year, which for many of us was defined by the ECER experience at Tampere. The European Educational Research Association (EERA) held its annual European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) on August 18th-21st, 2026, at Tampere University. The conference theme this year was “Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of education research”, which questioned how political, economic, environmental, and technological changes as well as poly-crises impact the conditions for producing educational research, and how educational research responds in these changing conditions.

The conference provided many stimulating opportunities for academic reflection, with just a small sample listed here. The changing conditions for education and educational research included political, temporal, and cultural dimensions, such as “guerrilla” educators smuggling global citizenship education content into the curriculum during an unfavourable political era in Poland (Aleksiak et al., 2023). It was eye-opening to learn how these dedicated teachers negotiated in a hostile political landscape to be able to teach according to their values.

In another example, Hagevold and colleagues (2026) inquired into the use of research in schools and reflected on the complex sociocultural conditions that are needed to enable collective sensemaking of educational research. In many cases, the use of educational research does not reach its potential, but is implemented in an isolated, instrumental fashion. This is a perspective with which global education researchers could well familiarize themselves when analysing implementation challenges of global education.

The accelerating conditions of educational reform were also discussed in a leadership for sustainability symposium: Ronni Laursen’s (Aarhus University) research showed that instructional leadership is often left on the wayside as principals meet demands by constant reprioritisation and absorbing the cost of the accelerated reforms. What are the costs to a cohesive approach to, for example global education, if school leadership has little time for leading curriculum and instructional matters?

Culturally, we are living in an era of hypernarrativity, according to keynote speaker Hannu L. T. Heikkinen (University of Jyväskylä). Narratives are abundant and create socio-epistemic narrative bubbles, which are enhanced by confirmation bias and algorithms. These bubbles are porous and education has the task of teaching critical thinking skills to enable narrative literacy, in order to avoid non-porous echo chambers from forming. These issues tie directly to global education themes such as political polarisation and radicalisation, the anti-gender movement, democracy education, and intercultural dialogue.

In the spirit of the conference theme on knowing and acting, an issue of contention was the protest for Palestine that happened in front of Tampere Hall before the conference reception. One reason for the protest was the double standards of ECER 2026 concerning the admission of Israeli universities to participate, whereas Russian and Belarusian researchers were banned. One of the protesters came into the Tampere Hall and was met with excessive use of force and removed from Tampere Hall. Consequently, ECER organisers stated that they support the freedom of expression and demonstration. The treatment and the issue in general made many researchers and educators saddened and disappointed, and as global education researchers, we encourage everyone in the field to think about the silences, marginalised perspectives, and ways to take collective action for Palestine (read de Vries et al. 2026, article in Policy and Practice). A group of scholars has also invited participants of ECER 2026 who are interested in partaking in the group for Solidarity with Palestine (one can sign up here). One memorable session in ECER was “If and How (Global) Citizenship Education Engages with the Genocide in Gaza: A Scoping Review” by Malgorzata Anielka Pieniazek (UCL Institute of Education), Riikka Suhonen (University of Helsinki) and Maayke de Vries (University College London), raising up the question of silences and how global educators are engaging with the genocide.

GERIF network members’ presentations

This year several affiliated GERIF researchers presented their work at the conference. 

Tuija Kasa (University of Helsinki) and Oona Piipponen (University of Oulu) were part of the Finnish delegation of the symposium entitled “Global Education and Learning – What we Know but Find it Difficult to Act On?” which was chaired by Professor Elina Lehtomäki (University of Oulu) and Professor Annette Scheunpflug (University of Bamberg) acted as discussant. In their presentation, Kasa and Piipponen set out the challenges faced by the Finnish education system for integrating global education holistically into its different levels. These challenges include, for example, specialisation within teacher education institutions and variable opportunities for teachers’ inservice training, leading to fragmented provision in schools and universities. Although the national and local curricula explicitly support global education learning, in practice certain issues such as learning “basic skills” seem to be deprioritising the implementation of global education. 

What can be done to act on these difficult issues? Kasa’s (2025) research on human rights education within Finnish teacher education offers nonideal human rights education as a way to bridge the gap between ideals and unequal realities. This requires concurrent efforts from government, NGOs and education institutions, both in acknowledging human rights problems (the dark side) but also enhancing the joy of human rights (the bright side). Piipponen’s preliminary research results showed that school leaders in Finnish basic education support whole-school approaches to sustainability by emphasising 1) distributed leadership, 2) teacher collaboration, 3) clear structures and processes, as well as 4) warm relationships and wellbeing. These approaches allow global education to go beyond the actions of individuals and help buffer it against current rising conditions such as political populism or the anti-gender movement.

These tensions also raise questions about what kinds of learning teacher education creates space for. Meri Häärä (Tampere University) presented her research on mindsets and the development of preservice teachers’ orientations and attitudes toward cultural diversity and social justice. Alongside developing knowledge, global education requires opportunities for critical reflections on teachers’ own beliefs, assumptions, and orientations. Although teacher education programmes may explicitly aim to foster commitments to diversity and equity, research suggests that such orientations do not necessarily change simply through participation in teacher education. This raises important questions about when and how this kind of development can be supported. Häärä’s research explored whether beliefs about malleability, in other words, beliefs about the extent to which people and groups can change (often referred to as mindsets) might offer one avenue for understanding these processes. Longitudinal results from preservice teachers that followed the development of their orientations over the course of their studies showed, for example, that a stronger belief in the capacity of groups to change (group mindset beliefs) was associated with greater enthusiasm for teaching culturally diverse groups. The findings point to the need to better understand the deeper beliefs through which future teachers interpret people, groups, and difference, and how teacher education can create meaningful opportunities to reflect on them.

Discussions on teaching diverse student groups and promoting equity and social justice should also be informed by students’ perspectives and lived experiences. Riikka Jaatinen (University of Jyväskylä) presented her ongoing study, conducted as part of a research project Pathways, that explores the learning and sense of belonging of newly arrived migrant students who have recently transitioned from preparatory education to basic education. Ensuring a smooth transition is crucial for students’ successful integration into their new school environment and for strengthening their sense of belonging in the school community. Previous research has also shown that teacher support is highly important for migrant students’ learning. Jaatinen’s study explores students’ depictions of their social networks, with a particular focus on the individuals they regard as most valuable and supportive during and after their transition to a new classroom. The students had a wide variety of experiences: while some students considered their new teachers and classmates friendly and supportive, others felt scared to talk to them and had experiences of being neglected or even bullied. Throughout the analysed data, family was perceived as highly important. The study emphasises the importance of the whole school community in creating conditions that foster migrant students’ sense of belonging and support their learning as they navigate a new environment.

Tuija Kasa was also presenting her postdoctoral research in the Art of Knowing -project which studies new ways of knowing in the era of poly-crisis. The presentation was part of a combined session with Arts and Environmental education networks. The presentation was about preliminary ideas on enhancing Community of Inquiry and Philosophy For/With Children approaches at the intersection of arts and sustainability education. The transdisciplinary project brings together education, philosophy, and dance art. It studies embodied knowing through dance art, play, and imagination in dance and nature workshops that are carried out in 2026.

Overall, the conference provided a valuable forum for researchers to exchange ideas and discuss a range of current issues in the field of education. We want to thank the event organisers, all the speakers and participants, all of whom played their part in making this thought-provoking event possible.

Reading:

de Vries, M., Pieniazek, M. A., Gonzalez, D. P., Suhonen, R., & Vittori, L. (2026). From Silence to Action: Taking a Collective Turn in Global Citizenship Education Towards Solidarity with and for Palestine and Palestinians. Policy & practice, (42), 139-159. https://www.developmenteducationreview.com/issue/issue-42/silence-action-taking-collective-turn-global-citizenship-education-and-palestine-and 

Aleksiak, D., Kuleta-Hulboj, M., & Zielińska, A. (2023). Guerrillas or missionaries? Teachers addressing controversial topics of global citizenship education under unfavourable conditions. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2023.2283501 

Hagevold, C. G., Forsström, S. E., & Keles, S. (2026). Research on research use in schools: A systematic review with a framework synthesis. Educational research review, 52, 100825. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2026.100825  

A call for relationship building in initial teacher education to support culturally diverse students

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Author: Ve Romey, Doctoral Researcher in EDUCA-Doc Doctoral Education Pilot, University of Jyväskylä

In this blog post, I will outline the importance of including relationship building in initial teacher education, drawing both on my own doctoral research and other European studies.

For years, migration and education have been in the news and in the mouths of European politicians – be it on campaign trails, in evening debates, or in dashing headlines, over and over questioning how to deal with ‘those people’, and often followed by nationalistic or populistic argumentation. It is true that rising migration rates have led to new challenges in many countries, polarising established communities (Gross, 2023). In education, we try to investigate what support culturally diverse students need, and why there are so often disparities between academic outcomes and social well-being compared to students belonging to cultural majorities (e.g., Romey et al., 2025).

In the meantime, societies segregate along cultural and ethnic lines, dividing between us and them, between we and other. We lose the perspective of us. It is our children, not those children, that are not receiving adequate education, and it is our people, not those others, that struggle to overcome systemic and structural injustices. For me, it feels like we have long lost the sense of community, of embracing the beauty of diversity within an understanding of us. And at the core of each community are relationships, which is the topic I have been investigating within my doctoral research – specifically, relationship building as a learnable skill for student teachers.

Positive and reciprocated relationships tie a community together, foster feelings of belonging, and help to overcome differences and challenges as one (e.g., Orazani et al., 2023). However, while the benefits of positive relationships on academic outcomes as well as student and teacher well-being and the overall social cohesion have been found in many different culturally diverse educational contexts throughout Europe, the ‘how’ often remains unanswered (e.g., Romey et al., 2025). 

The skill to build relationships is often seen as some inherent trait that some student teachers just possess or have developed through their own experiences and interests. In other cases, people highlight that student teachers will develop these skillsets when actively working in culturally diverse contexts. Of course, many teachers develop their skillsets on the job, so to speak. No student teacher can be prepared for every possible situation in their working life. Nonetheless, in many European teacher education programmes, relationship building remains an elusive topic (Borresmans et al., 2024). Often only addressed marginally within broader contexts of diversity or classroom management, relationship building skills remain overlooked and underdeveloped. This leaves beginning teachers in many contexts feeling un(der)prepared for culturally diverse classrooms, affecting both their self-efficacy and their ability to provide adequate teaching for their diverse students (e.g., Dražnik et al., 2022).

So, what are relationship building skills? And could they actively be developed within initial teacher education? Research suggests that relationship building connects to communication skills, cultural beliefs, and self-efficacy, making it a learnable and developable skillset for student teachers (Robinson et al., 2022). I argue that while not every teacher needs to be a social butterfly that effortlessly navigates any interpersonal situation, they do need to be able to facilitate relationships between different stakeholders in school communities, such as students, their families, and other school staff, especially when these communities are culturally diverse.

In my research, I have investigated how relationship building has been addressed by European research and explored the development of cultural beliefs during early initial teacher education in a Finnish context. My findings suggest that relationship building is not necessarily a skillset that is even indirectly addressed within initial teacher education, and that especially those student teachers who already hold more assimilationist or nationalistic views might not change these throughout their first years of initial teacher education (Romey et al., under review-a). Furthermore, another study on the perspectives and approaches of Finnish teacher educators to prepare for cultural diversity highlighted that teacher educators themselves often feel underprepared to address these topics, relying on personal experiences and interest as opposed to professional learning (Romey et al., under review-b).

I invite you to consider your own relationships with your peers and colleagues, and how often it is close connections that enable us to share knowledge, understanding, and learning with each other. Relationship building skills are needed by teachers, and student teachers, and teacher educators. They are needed by society. I strongly believe that by including relationship building skills explicitly in initial teacher education curricula, we might not be able to solve all the challenges related to migration and cultural diversity present in today’s society – but it is a starting point, that all our children will benefit from.

If you would like to discuss my statements or my research further, I would love to hear from you at leandra.ve.romey@jyu.fi. I am also happy to provide a more extensive reference list, if wished.

References

Borremans, L. F. N., Koomen, H. M. Y., & Spilt, J. L. (2024). Fostering teacher–student relationship-building competence: a three-year learning trajectory for initial pre-primary and primary teacher education. Frontiers of Education, 9, 1349532. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2024.1349532

Dražnik, T., Llompart-Esbert, J., & Bergroth, M. (2022). Student teachers’ expressions of ‘fear’ in handling linguistically diverse classrooms. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 45(8), 3127–3142. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2086258 

Gross, S. G. (2023). Understanding Europe’s populist right: The state of the field. Contemporary European History, 32, 489-497. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777322000261

Orazani, S. N., Reynolds, K. J., & Osborne, H. (2023). What works and why in interventions to strengthen social cohesion: A systematic review. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 53(10), 938-995. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12990

Robinson, C. D. (2022). A framework for motivating teacher-student relationships. Educational Psychology Review, 34, 2061-2094. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09706-0 

Romey, L. V. S., Varis, S., Pakarinen, E., & Mankki, V. (2025). Relationship building in culturally diverse European classrooms – a scoping review. Multicultural Education Review, 17(3), 330–349. https://doi.org/10.1080/2005615X.2025.2553999 

Romey, L. V. S., Lähteenmäki, M., Pakarinen, E., Varis, S., Wallinheimo, K., & Mankki, V. (under review-a). Cultural Belief Profiles of Finnish Student Teachers.

Romey, L. V. S., Varis, S., Pakarinen, E., & Mankki, V. (under review-b). Teacher educators’ perceptions of and approaches to cultural diversity in teacher education.