Kaisa Vehkalahti
PhD, Adjunct Professor
Biografia
Vehkalahti joined the academic staff in autumn 2017. She is Academy Research Fellow in project Rural Generations on the Move. Cultural History of Rural Youth, 1950-2020 (Academy of Finland, 2019-2024). She is Adjunct Professor (docent) of Cultural and Social History in the University of Oulu since 2015, and in the University of Lapland since 2020. Vehkalahti lectures in history of childhood, youth and education, research ethics and digital humanities. She supervises theses related to her research. She leads the multidisciplinary research team focusing on History of Childhood and Education 'Lapanen'. She is also PI for projects My Countryside: Intergenerationality, Place and Gender in the Finnish Countryside (funded by Kone-foundation, 2021-2025) and Northern Rural Youth in Flux (NorFlux) (funded by Eudaimonia Institute, University of Oulu 2018-2022). Her current research interests focus on qualitative longitudinal youth studies, rural history and oral history. See the full list of publications.
Tutkimusaiheet
- Cultural and social history
- Rural studies
- Research ethics
- History of childhood
- History of education
- Youth studies
- Contemporary Finnish history
- Northern Finland
- Longitudinal studies
Projects
- My Countryside. Intergenerationality, Place and Gender in the Finnish Countryside (2021-2025), funding: Kone Foundation
- Rural Generations on the Move. Cultural History of Rural Youth (ROOTS)(2019-2024), funding: Finnish Academy
- NorFlux Northern Rural Youth in Flux (2018-2022), funding: University of Oulu, Eudaimonia
- PROMISE Promoting Youth Involvement and Social Engagement: Opportunities and challenges for ’conflicted’ young people (2016–2019), funding: Horizon 2020
- FACT for Minors: Fostering Alternative Care for Troubled Minors (2016–2018), funding: EU/JUST2015 action grants
- Youth in time - qualitative longitudinal study on young people (2014-2025), funding: Ministry of Education and Culture
Research groups
Previous positions
Vehkalahti has previous worked as Research Manager of the Finnish Youth Research Society, funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Her previous positions also include the Turku Institute for Child and Youth Research (CYRI), Department of Cultural History and Turku Open University. She has been the editor-in-chief of Kasvatus & Aika, Finnish peer-reviewed journal in History of Education, and secretary for the Ethics Committee for Youth and Childhood Studies in Finland. Vehkalahti received her PhD from the department of Cultural History, University of Turku, in 2008. She is the author of Constructing Reformatory Identity. Girls’ Reform School Education in Finland, 1893–1923 (Peter Lang, 2009) as well as other publications on the history of childhood and youth, research ethics, memory studies, girlhood studies, and cultural history of writing.
Social media
Yhteiskunnalliset ja professionaaliset toimet
- Finnish publication forum JUFO (Panel 23 History, archaeology and cultural studies), panel member 2018–2020
- Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, deputy board member 2015–2020
- Finnish National Library Board for Digital Humanities, board member 2019–2020
- Barn – Forskning om barn og barndom i Norden, editorial board 2020-
- Kasvatus & Aika, Finnish journal for History of Education, editor in chief 2014-2017
- National Multidisciplinary Expert Group for Child Protection, National Institute for Health and Welfare, 2016-
- Network for Biographical and Oral Histories of Education, board member 2016–
- Finnish Historical Society, Research fellow membership since 2016
Ohjauskokemus
PhD supervision
Essi Jouhki, History, University of Oulu: Generations of student associations. An oral history research on school student movement in Finnish upper secondary schools in the 1950s-1970s. (2020)
Helena Pennanen, History, University of Oulu: Northern Rural Youth in Flux (NorFlux)
Virpi Vainio, Cultural History, University of Lapland: Northern identities in the Post-war fiction by women authors
