Anu Hirsiaho, Ph.D
Researcher, Postdoctoral researcher’s project of the Academy of Finland (01.01.2008 – 31.12.2010)
University of Tampere
e-mail: anu.hirsiaho@uta.fi
Research interests
The Politics of Literacy and Citizenship
Adult Basic Education for Immigrants in Finland and the Republic of Ireland
Anu Hirsiaho’s postdoc research is an ethnographic study of the life and education of recently arrived adult immigrants who are learning to read and write in two EU member states, Finland and the Republic of Ireland. The emphasis in this study is on the learning of literacy as a lifelong process, which is not only solely dependent on the formal classroom setting.
The point of departure is David Barton’s (1996) suggestion of an ecological approach to the study of literacy: it is important to recognize that literacy has communal paths and local histories. In the case of immigrants, local history often becomes global political history, the history of wars, natural catastrophes and ethnic and gender discrimination, the consequences of which then become the responsibility of the receiving states.
Hirsiaho’s interest lies in the role of the European Union as a promoter of adult immigrant education, active citizenship and social inclusion, and her study poses the question of whether it is feasible for member states to co-ordinate adult basic education and learn from one another’s experiences.
How does the learning of literacy take place with adults, how is it experienced, and what kinds of expectations do the students face from the receiving society after having mastered this vital skill? What kind of power relationships can be found in an immigrant classroom, and how is citizenship, such as full membership of an EU state, negotiated? Is the learning of literacy in adulthood a political phenomenon, and if so, how is it articulated by the students?