Jan Varpanen is a postdoctoral researcher at Linköping University Institute for Thematic Studies. His main areas of interest are childhood studies, philosophy and education. The themes of meaning in life, subjectivity and the more-than-human world are central to his work. Contact: jan.varpanen@liu.se / jan.varpanen@tuni.fi
In his current work at Linköping University, Varpanen extends understandings of childhood by asking where are the children in general philosophical theories of meaning in life and human experience. Taking an explicitly spatial lens, Varpanen draws on post-phenomenological theorising and 20th century French philosophy more broadly to introduce novel understandings of how childhood is part of what it means to be human.
In his dissertation project, which was completed in 2025, Varpanen reformulated the concept of education in light of early childhood play and Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of immanence. He argued that shared adult-child play is an educational practice where welcoming the life of the child becomes an educational purpose in itself, thus developing the concept of hospitality as a central educational concept.
In addition to his doctoral and postdoctoral research, Varpanen has worked on various topics as part of several projects. Most recently, he was part of a Nessling foundation funded project Microbial childhood, which explored children’s everyday relations with microbes from an interdisciplinary perspective. He also worked in the KONE foundation -funded project EnAct – researching environmental activism and self-cultivation as well as having developed pedagogical models of technology education in early childhood education (INNOPLAY-project) and the project ”Discourses of leadership in the diverse field of early childhood education”.
Publications:
In press Saari, A. & Varpanen, J. Critical ambiguities – Ambiguities of critique. Ephemera
Helkala, S., Tomperi, T., & Varpanen, J. (2025). Open-ended and unresolved: Criticality as a practice and a process. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2025.2589319
Varpanen, J. (2025). Education as hospitality – re-thinking the ‘educational’ in education. Ethics and Education, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2025.2450944
Saari, A., & Varpanen, J. (2024). Kadonneet paratiisit: Itsekasvatus antroposeenin raunioilla. Kasvatus ja Aika 18(3) 5–23. https://doi.org/10.33350/ka.129639
Varpanen, J., Kallio, J., Saari, A., Helkala, S., & Holmberg, L. (2024)
Attunements of Care – The Art of Existence in the Anthropocene. Research in
Arts and Education, 2024(2), 52-63. https://doi.org/10.54916/rae.141907
Saari, A., & Varpanen, J. (2024). An Apprenticeship in Failure: Self-Cultivation
and the Question of What to Do With Our Desires. Philosophical Inquiry in
Education, 31(1), 58-68. https://doi.org/10.7202/1112311a
Bengtsson, S., Andreasen Lysgaard, J., Kardyb, D., Varpanen, J., Saari, A.,
Hofverberg, H., & Harman, G. (2024). Report on the symposium “speculative
realism in environmental education and the philosophy of education”.
Environmental Education Research, 30(7), 1177–1187.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2024.2348701
Korhonen, M., Kallio, J., Varpanen, J. & Saari, A. (2023). Ekologisen
kestävyyden utopiat lukionuorten tulevaisuuskuvissa. Ainedidaktiikka 7(2),
25–47. https://doi.org/10.23988/ad.120992
Mansikka-aho, A., Varpanen, J., Lahikainen, L., & Pulkki, J. (2023). Exploring
the moral exemplarity of Greta Thunberg. Journal of Moral Education, 53(1),
195–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2023.2248404
Paananen, M., Centeno, V. G., Fjällström, S., Bhattarai, D. P., Jovanović, G.
Ferreira, J. M., Millei, Z., Ribeiro, C. R., Paakkari, A., Sajjadieh, N., Tholchah, M.
& Varpanen, J. (2023). Imaginaries of ECEC: A comparison of policies of
access in early childhood education in Brazil, Finland, Hungary, Indonesia,
Iran, Nepal, and Serbia. Journal of Early Childhood Education Research, 12(3),
145-180. https://doi.org/10.58955/jecer.122962
Varpanen, J., Saari, A., Jurvakainen, K., & Kallio, J. (2022). The Uncanny Challenge of Self-Cultivation in the Anthropocene. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 41, 345–362.
Saari, A., Varpanen, J., & Kallio, J. (2022). Aktivismi ja itsekasvatus: Itsestä huolehtiminen prefiguratiivisena politiikkana. Aikuiskasvatus, 42(1), 37-49.
Varpanen, J. (2021). Uutta kasvatusajattelua luomassa: dekontekstualisaatio spekulatiivisena mahdollisuutena. Kasvatus 52(4), s. 426-437.
Varpanen, J. (2021). Escaping the Dark Side of Technology via Subject-ness: Sustainable Technology Education and Holistic Craft. Techne serien-Forskning i slöjdpedagogik och slöjdvetenskap, 28(2), 25–30.
Fonsén, E., Varpanen, J., Kupila, P., & Liinamaa, T. (2021). Johtajuuden diskurssit varhaiskasvatuksessa – valta ja vastuu johtajuuden jäsentäjinä. Sosiologia 58(1), 54–69.
Pulkki, J., Varpanen, J., & Mullen, J. (2020). Ecosocial Philosophy of Education: Ecologizing the Opinionated Self. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 1–18.
Ukkonen-Mikkola, T. & Varpanen, J. (2020). Integrated initial and continuing training as a way of developing the professional agency of teachers and student teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 96, 103189.
Varpanen, J. (2020). Early childhood education leadership in Finland through the lens of structure and agency. Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 1741143220903727.
Fonsén, E., Varpanen, J., Strehmel, P, Kawakita, M., Inoue, C., Marchant, S., Modise, M., Szecsi, T. & Halpern, C. (2019). International review of ECE leadership research – Finland, Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Africa and the United States under review. In P. Strehmel, J. Heikka, E. Hujala, J. Rodd & M. Waniganayake (Eds.) Leadership in early education in times of change. Research from five continents. Toronto: Budrich.
Varpanen, J. (2019). What is children’s agency? A review of conceptualisations used in early childhood education research. Educational Research Review, 28.
Varpanen, J. (2018). Subjektifikaatio ja leikki: varhaiskasvatuksen antia subjektifikaation mahdollisuuden jäsentämiselle. Kasvatus & aika 12(3), 5-18.
Varpanen, J. (2018). Vapaus, demokratia ja jaettu todellisuus osallisuuden ytimessä. Teoksessa J. Kangas, J. Vlasov, E. Fonsén & J. Heikka (toim.) Osallisuuden pedagogiikkaa varhaiskasvatuksessa 2 – Suunnittelu, toteuttaminen ja kehittäminen. Tampere: Suomen varhaiskasvatus ry, 120-134.
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