Gunilla Holm

The discourse on multicultural education in Finland: education for whom?

Finland is experiencing increased immigration and therefore increased cultural diversity in its schools. This paper examines the multicultural education discourse in Finland by analysing the national and municipal curricula for the comprehensive school, educational policy documents and teacher education curricula. The focus is on how multicultural education is talked about and whether it is aimed at all students or only at immigrant students. The analysis shows that the existing diversity associated with bilingual students, two national churches and an indigenous population is not considered as part of multicultural education. Instead, cultural diversity is seen narrowly as ethnic, immigrant language and immigrant religious diversity. Multicultural education is therefore only intended for immigrant students. Som en följd av den tilltagande invandringen till Finland har den kulturella mångfalden i skolorna ökat. Vi gör en analys av diskursen om mångkulturell utbildning i Finland genom att granska den nationella läroplanen och de kommunala läroplanerna för den grundläggande utbildningen samt även styrdokument gällande utbildning och lärarutbildningarnas studieprogram. Fokus ligger på hur mångkulturell utbildning diskuteras och huruvida den riktar sig till alla elever eller endast till elever med invandrarbakgrund. Analysen visar att den existerande mångfalden som innefattar tvåspråkighet, två folkkyrkor och den samiska ursprungsbefolkningen inte anses vara en del av den mångkulturella undervisningen. Kulturell mångfald begränsas till etnisk diversitet samt till invandrarnas språkliga och religiösa mångfald. Mångkulturell utbildning är således endast avsedd för invandrarelever.

‘We have our own religion’: a pupil perspective on minority religion and ethics instruction in Finland

The Finnish system of religious education offers instruction in the pupil’s own religion or in ethics throughout comprehensive school. By taking the pupil’s background as a basis for instruction, this system aims at promoting equality and integration with respect to religion and one’s worldview. However, there has been little knowledge about how the system of instruction is experienced by pupils themselves and how it affects pupil’s identities at school. This study illuminates through a participant observation study in grades 1–6 how pupils in five minority instruction groups experience their classes and perceive themselves in relation to other pupils in school. The study shows how working in small groups represents an important element in pupils’ experiences. Pupils generally experienced participation in instruction as positive and fun, but age integration, organisation of schedules and classrooms were also important concerns. Even if pupils were content about having their own instruction group, feelings of otherness and a negative sense of difference in relation to the majority of pupils were found particularly among pupils of religion.

Teaching minority students within minority schools: teachers’ conceptions of multicultural education in Swedish‐speaking schools in Finland

Finland is experiencing increased cultural diversity due to immigration and is facing challenges in developing multicultural education (ME) in schools. There is a Swedish‐speaking minority in Finland, and immigrant students entering Swedish‐speaking schools hence become a minority within a minority. In this study, using open‐ended interviews, we explore the views of Swedish‐speaking teachers of ‘minority within a minority students’ and of ME. We found that Swedish‐speaking teachers have a positive attitude towards cultural diversity. On the other hand, they consider teaching to be independent of culture and take a colour‐blind approach to their work. Being minority language speakers themselves does not necessarily affect their views and understanding of immigrant students.

The perceptions of knowledge and learning of Amazonian indigenous teacher education students

This study focuses on the perceptions of knowledge and learning by indigenous students in an intercultural bilingual teacher education programme in Amazonian Ecuador. The study framed within postcolonial and critical theory attempts to create a space for the indigenous students to speak about their own views through the use of photography and researcher-respondent discussions. We found that the students conceptualised knowledge and learning primarily through their everyday domestic life rather than through their experiences of schooling which appears to play a secondary role.

Essentializing vs. non-essentializing students’ cultural identities: curricular discourses in Finland and Sweden

ABSTRACT This article examines how students’ cultural identities are discursively constructed in the Finnish and Swedish national curricula for the compulsory school. The aim is to illuminate the manifold discourses on cultural identity which prevail within Nordic educational policy. The study employs a critical multicultural education and postcolonial perspective with a particular focus on essentialist and non-essentialist views of identity in the curricular discourses. Through discourse analysis, key terms such as ‘cultural identity’ and ‘multicultural identity’ as well as different aspects of cultural identities such as language, gender and religion are investigated. The results show diverging discourses, with distinct differences in their explicitness and implicitness in the two countries. A clear effort to see all students as having multi-layered and multicultural identities is evident in the Finnish curricular discourse whereas a more essentializing discourse emerges in the Swedish curriculum. We conclude with a discussion on the importance of addressing policy discourses on students’ cultural identities in order to ensure non-essentialist and socially just teaching and educational practice.

Not All Students Are Equally Equal: Normality as Finnishness

Equality is a foundational theme for the educational system in Finland. This chapter explores the marginalization of migrant students in two lower secondary comprehensive schools. The subtle processes of exclusion, of being considered not normal or too different, are explored through interviews with teachers and other personnel. Even though teachers talk about all students being equal, they often have different behavioral and achievement expectations of migrant students. However, while the school is presented as an equal space for all individual students, the ideal or ‘normal’ student includes expectations of Finnishness. Hence, migrant students are seen as causing the problems themselves by being too different from ethnic Finnish students, rather than seeing the problems as caused by the school structure and culture.

Taking Steps towards Institutionalising Multicultural Education--The National Curriculum of Finland.

Abstract Internationally multicultural education research has pointed to the need to move from superficial to social justice-oriented multicultural education. However, realising this goal in policy and practice is a challenge. This study takes Finland as a case and examines the discursive developments of multicultural education in its national curriculum 1994–2014. Despite being a country which is known for emphasising equity and equality in education, superficial forms of multicultural education have prevailed. However, the results of this study show that the curricular discourse is clearly moving towards social justice education where multicultural perspectives are an integrated part of the curriculum. The 2014 curriculum, which came into effect 2016, emerges as a policy which aims to foster ethical and respectful students with a sense of fairness and an open attitude towards all kinds of diversity. The challenge for Finland is to ensure implementation and advance transformativeness in future curriculum reforms.

Capturing Nordic Identifications Through Participatory Photography

This study explores how participatory photography can be used in researching upper secondary students’ identifications with what it means to live in one of four Nordic countries. The study draws on students’ constructions and interpretations of photographs. For this article the data analyzed consisted of 571 photographs taken during spring 2018 by a total of 104 students in the metropolitan areas in Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. The analysis of the photographs and their captions show that students associated themselves mostly in a positive way with the Nordic region, though also some critical attitudes were identified. Visual ethnography in education as a method enhanced the upper secondary students’ way of giving meaning to what living in the Nordic countries means to them. Moreover, the method enables the students to become co-researchers together with the research team in both an aesthetic and narrative way. The study offers insights into how participatory photography can be as a useful and activating method in both local and cross-national research.

Diverging discourses on multicultural education in Finnish teacher education programme policies: implications for teaching

ABSTRACT The necessity to include multicultural education policies and practices in schools and teacher education has been widely recognized both in Finland and internationally. However, terms such as ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘multicultural education’ have contested and vague meanings in educational discourse. This paper investigates discourses on multicultural education from critical multicultural education and postcolonial theoretical perspectives. The focus is on the teacher education policies of all the eight primary teacher education programmes in Finland. Discourse theory analysis revealed six diverging discourses within a framework of conservative, liberal and critical multicultural education. The results show that it should not be taken for granted that policies including multicultural education contribute to social justice in education and teacher education. Consequently, policy-makers need to question the rhetoric regarding multiculturalism and to focus on how inequality is reproduced and upheld in discourses in teacher education and schools, and how this can be challenged.

‘He failed to find his place in this school’ – re-examining the role of teachers in bullying in a Finnish comprehensive school

ABSTRACT Bullying has been conceptualised as a phenomenon that focuses mainly on individuals and individual behaviour. We seek to broaden the discussion on bullying by describing and defining how teachers participate in and/or enable bullying, and to thus expand the notion of bullying as individual behaviour to include actors, norms and processes. This study is based on ethnographic observation and interview data that were gathered in 2013–2016 in one high school in the metropolitan area of Finland. We found that teachers ignored and excluded a student who was labelled ‘not-normal’. We use the concept of recognition and redefine it according to the context of bullying, and state that the individual in our study was not recognised as a student because he broke the norms of the school and was thus excluded. We suggest that bullying should be seen as a structural issue and should not be limited to individuals’ behaviour.