Rate My Professor Niina Manninen

Dr. Niina Manninen serves as Lecturer in Social Care and BSc Health and Social Care Course Lead in the Department of Law and Criminology at Royal Holloway, University of London, a position she has held since September 2022. With over a decade of teaching experience in social pedagogically oriented social care higher education programs in Finland and the UK, she previously worked as a researcher at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, School of Vocational Teacher Education, leading a national study on student selection procedures funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Earlier in her career, she spent several years in Finland's social insurance sector. Manninen is a qualified and registered social care professional on the Finnish Valvira Register and holds Fellowship of Advance HE in the UK. Her academic qualifications include a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Helsinki awarded in 2019 for her dissertation "Social Services Students' Education and Purposes in Life - A Case Study from Finland," an MA and BA in Education from the same institution in 2008, and a BSc (Hons) in Social Care from JAMK University of Applied Sciences in 2000.

Manninen's research interests focus on existential wellbeing and value clarity within helping professions, bridging moral sciences, psychology, social sciences, theology, and education. She explores how students and practitioners in social care and social work interpret and apply moral norms, as well as the role of new forms of spirituality in pedagogy and practice. As Principal Investigator, she leads the project "Ethnic and Racial Disparities in Maternal Care: Exploring Contributing Factors in Finland, Spain, UK, and Germany" (2024). Her key publications include "A Qualitative Case Study of Undergraduate Social Care Students’ Approaches to Social Justice in a Finnish Context" (Ethics and Social Welfare, 2024), "Benevolent and Spiritual - Undergraduate Social Care Students' Identification with Religious Beliefs and Moral Virtues in a Finnish Context" (Journal of Beliefs and Values, 2024), and "Finnish Social Services Students' Perceptions of Purpose and Helping Unknown Others" with Elina Kuusisto and Kirsi Tirri (International Journal of Social Pedagogy, 2019). She received the shared Reid Research Fund Award (2024). In teaching, she delivers courses such as SW2001 Contemporary Welfare States and SW1030 Perspectives on People in Society, leads MSc Social Work Critical Reflection Seminars, and supervises dissertations. Manninen actively participates in conferences, including the 50th Association for Moral Education Conference (2024), and serves as a peer reviewer for Nursing Ethics.