The ETMU Recognition Award is granted annually at the ETMU Days to recognize major contributions to the promotion and research of ethnic relations in Finland. During the 6th ETMU Days in Joensuu, October 23rd, 2009, the award of the year 2009 was allotted to Professor Emerita Rauni Räsänen.
Professor of Education Rauni Räsänen has through her long term career worked for supporting positive ethnic relations and cultural diversity in education and research in Finland as well as abroad. She has worked at the University of Oulu since 1986 in various posts. She is also a Docent of teachers’ professional ethics at the University of Joensuu. In 2006 she was invited to the post of Professor in International Education, third in Europe and first in Finland.
In Rauni Räsänen’s transnational and transgressive co-operation networks, local and global dimensions are intertwined. In addition to her academic tasks, she has actively worked both in practical projects and in positions enabling wider influencing. Among others, her fields of action have been the Finnish National Unesco Commission, North?South?South programmes and development co-operation projects of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In her research work, Rauni Räsänen has focused especially on ethical questions of global education and multiculturalism. During her working career, she has strived for promoting ethnic relations and cultural diversity in Finnish teacher education as well as in research on the field. She has supervised a substantial number of doctoral and master’s theses. In 1994, she initiated the first teacher education programme in Finland focusing on International education and issues of Multicultural education.
Rauni Räsänen has also been productive in publishing in the field both in Finland and internationally. In 2005 she was allotted the University of Oulu internationalization award and in 1992 the award of a good teacher of the University of Oulu. Even after retiring in autumn 2009, Rauni Räsänen has continued her committed work on issues she finds important.
The ETMU Award has been given since 2004 to Academician Erik Allardt, Professor (emerita) Marja-Liisa Swantz, Professor Karmela Liebkind, Professor (emeritus) Tom Sandlund and Chancellery Counsellor Risto Laakkonen.