Pirjo Lahdenperä

From monocultural to intercultural educational research

In this article, the author looks at the Swedish educational system and the consequences that the Swedish multicultural society has had for this system. The author especially focuses on the consequences that multiculturalism has for research into educational issues and how research itself needs to become intercultural.

An analysis of internationalisation and intercultural outlook in Swedish teacher education

Abstract Foucaults discourse concept provides an instrument for the critical examination of internationalisation and, respectively, inter‐cultural education in Swedish teacher education. Three different discourses concerning internationalisation are treated in the article: solidarity with developing countries, immigrant knowledge, and integration within the EU. Attention is focused on the analysis of intercultural teaching upon those visions that governed implementation of the concept in teacher education, and on reality as it appears in evaluations of teacher education. The question is whether a dilemma exists for teacher education in realising the goals of intercultural education, or whether these goals merely act as teacher educations false banners? The article concludes with perspectives on the future of the development from immigrant knowledge to intercultural learning.

Educating the old and newcomers: Perspectives of teachers on teaching in multicultural schools in Sweden

This study focuses on teachers in schools with large numbers of new arrival immigrant pupils in a provincial school district in mid-Sweden. Drawing from focus group interviews and examples from the teachers’ lessons, we examined the views of the teachers regarding the challenges experienced in responding to the pedagogical needs of new arrival pupils in culturally and linguistically heterogeneous classrooms. The findings reveal the structural and organisational problems at the city council and at the school and classroom levels as the major challenges. These include the pressure to create inclusive and safe classrooms for diverse cultural and linguistic pupils in an atmosphere where there is limited resources and emphasis on standardised assessment and teaching for tests within a prescribed curriculum However, the teachers’ pedagogical practices demonstrate attempts at intercultural teaching that build on the pupils cultural and linguistic experiences and compares well with principles of cultural responsive pedagogy.