Riikka Oittinen,  Research

Riikka Oittinen is an urban geographer and works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Population Research Institute. Her research focuses on segregation and inequalities in residents’ everyday lives. She has examined topics such as the segregation of urban neighbourhoods and schools, territorial stigmatization, place attachment, and young people’s peer relations and social class-based distinctions.

At the Population Research Institute, Riikka works in the Right to Belong -research consortium, where she examines, for example, how to tackle the consequences of neighbourhood segregation in the everyday lives of families with children, as well as families’ place attachment and sense of local community.

In 2025, she completed her doctoral degree at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, on the segregation of young people’s everyday lives in terms of housing, school, and leisure activities. Alongside her doctoral research, Riikka has examined emphasized teaching (selective classes) from the perspective of students’ peer relations and within-school segregation, as well as everyday racism in lower secondary schools.