Kultuuripsühholoogia kompetentsikeskus / Competence Center of Cultural Psychology
The aim of the Centre of Competence is to create a fundamental internationally integrated knowledge base about cultural psychology as the most rapidly growing field in psychology and in society in general. We intend to provide basic research education at a higher level of academic excellence, as well as information about cultural psychology to people from different educational and interdisciplinary backgrounds in the field of social, educational, and health sciences. The Center is an integral part of Tallinn University’s psychology and behavioural science stream of investigations within the School of Natural Sciences and Health.
What is cultural psychology? It can be expressed in eight statements:
- Methodological basis of cultural psychology is structural-systemic epistemological approach.
- Cultural psychology is a new synthesis of knowledge at the borders of developmental and social psychology, semiotics, cultural history, and philosophy.
- It is based on the European tradition of Naturphilosophie, Völkerpsychologie, and phenomenology.
- Cultural Psychology in its contemporary version has emerged since the 1990s.
- Cultural psychology looks at human psyche starting from the highest forms of cultural inventions—art, music, literature.
- Its methodology is qualitative in its nature, with focus on introspection, autoethnography, and microgenesis.
- Cultural psychology is axiomatically based on the framework of open systems that focus on exchange relations of organism with environment.
- It derives general knowledge from systemically analyzed single cases In its Estonian
- academic history it derives from the work of Juri Lotman and Peeter Tulviste.
General Leadership
- Jaan Valsiner, president of the CCP, Aalborg University (Denmark), Sigmund Freud PrivatUniversität (Ljubljana-Wien), Universidade Federal do Bahia, Brazil, and Tallinn University
- Katrin Kullasepp, vice-president of the CCP, School of natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University
Topical Leadership
- Kristiina Uriko, School of natural Sciences and Health. TLU
- Aaro Toomela, School of natural Sciences and Health, TLU
- Aleksander Pulver, School of natural Sciences and Health, TLU
- Mariann Märtsin, School of Governance, Law and Society, TLU
- Maaris Raudsepp, School of Governance, Law and Society, TLU
- Katrin Kullasepp, School of natural Sciences and Health, TLU
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Affiliated partners and institutions
- Giuseppina Marsico Department of Human, Philosophical and Educational Sciences. University of Salerno
- Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia, Tbilisi State University, Georgia
- Maria Virginia Machado Dazzani Universidade Federal da Bahia (Federal University of Bahia), Brazil ORCID
- Tatsuya Sato, the Faculty of Comprehensive Psychology, Ritsumeikan University, Japan
- Sergio Salvatore University of Salento, Italy, European Hub for Cultural Psychology -
- Mónica Roncancio Moreno, Universidad del Valle, Colombia
- Ana Cecília de Sousa Bastos. Federal University of Bahia, Brazil
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Student Members
Will be updated
Research directions
- Identity construction, professional identity of psychologist and teachers (Katrin Kullasepp)
- Artists as creators of culture (Katrin Kullasepp)
- “From university to life: development of the professional self in practice” (Julia Bo Christensen Lindgren)
- “Meta-Intentionality in Psychotherapy: Understanding Therapist Intentions, Professional Growth, and the Therapeutic Alliance” (Simone Indius)
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Psychosocial development in adulthood, particularly in relation to life-course transitions, work-life balance, and migration (Mariann Märtsin)
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Post-Soviet Transition Beyond Liminality: Opportunities for Social Work (Annela Samuel)
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Coming Soon
In planning - Autumn Seminar (October, 2025)
News
Doctoral candidate Raffaele Modugno (Salerno University, Italy) is visiting the School of
Natural Sciences and Health (Psychology and Behavioural Sciences) from May until
October 2025 -
Blended Intensive Program: Culture, Migration, and Identity: Supporting People on the Move
This Blended Intensive Program, organized by Tallinn University in partnership with the University of Oslo and the University of Seville, provides an in-depth exploration of migration, culture, and identity. Grounded in cultural psychology and Dialogical Self Theory, the course examines how migration shapes identities, relationships, and integration processes in diverse sociocultural contexts.
The program consists of two components:
Virtual Component (March 2025): Online sessions introducing key theories and real migration stories.
On-Site Intensive in Tallinn, Estonia (April 7–11, 2025): Five days of immersive learning, including site visits to NGOs, interactive lectures, self-reflective and arts-based exercises, cultural events, and a field trip to Narva to examine migration-related challenges in a border-town context.
The program is taught by experts in cultural psychology and migration studies: Mariann Märtsin and Annela Samuel (Tallinn University, Estonia), Guro Brokke Omland (University of Oslo, Norway), and Alicia Español Nogueiro (University of Seville, Spain).
For more information: martsin@tlu.ee
Accomplishments
- Satellite Seminar. Actualgenese in Focus. Dialogues in cultural psychology (June, 2024).
Organizer: Katrin Kullasepp - Jaan Valsiner's Jubilee Week at Tallinn University 01.06.2021–30.11.2021 Funder: Tallinn University Funding 10000 EUR. Organizer Mariann Märtsin
- The 12th International Conferences on the Dialogical Self” (4.06 - 7.06.2024) Chair: Katrin
Kullasepp - "Between the representation of the crisis and the crisis of representation." Re.Cri.RE (TAU15065, 649436) 1.05.2015−30.04.2018; Principal Investigator: Katrin Kullasepp; Tallinn University, School of Natural Sciences and Health (partner), Tallinn University, School of Governance, Law and Society (partner); Financier: Commission of the European Communities; Financing: 101 913 EUR.
(will be updated)