Rate My Professor Mervi Kaukko

Mervi Kaukko is an Adjunct Research Fellow in the School of Education, Culture and Society within the Faculty of Education at Monash University. A Finnish researcher, teacher, and teacher educator, she graduated from the Intercultural Teacher Education program at the University of Oulu and earned her PhD there. Her early career included roles as a classroom teacher and English teacher, followed by teaching fellow (2012–2015) and lecturer (2015–2016) at the University of Oulu. Kaukko arrived at Monash University in 2016 as a visiting researcher with her family, serving as lecturer from 2016 to 2019. Since 2019, she has been at Tampere University, starting at the Tampere Institute for Advanced Social Research and now holding the position of Professor of Multicultural Education in the Faculty of Education and Culture. She was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2022–2023.

Kaukko's research focuses on migration and refugee studies related to childhood and education, refugee students’ educational success and school wellbeing, informal learning practices, ethical praxis in intercultural education, and practice theories including practice architectures. Her key publications include the book "Toimintatutkimus: Käytännön opas" (2023), "Pedagogical love in Finland and Australia: A study of refugee children and their teachers" (2022, 113 citations), "‘Learning how to go on’: Refugee students and informal learning practices" (2020, 113 citations), "The management of time and waiting by unaccompanied asylum-seeking girls in Finland" (2018, 106 citations), and the co-edited volume "Living Well in a World Worth Living in for All Volume 1: Current Practices of Social Justice, Sustainability and Wellbeing" (2023). She has received the Advancing Women’s Research Success Grant (2018), Emerging Action Researcher award (2013), KidzFlicks (2018), and Fulbright Senior Scholar (2022–2023). Her scholarship informs refugee education practices internationally.