07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Paper
Making Sense of Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice Through Teachers Discourses on Pedagogical Practices
Ida Hummelstedt, Gunilla Holm, Sonja Kosunen, Pia Mikander, Birgit Schaffar-Kronqvist
University of Helsinki, Finland
Presenting Author: Hummelstedt, Ida
The aim of this paper is to analyse how the sense-making of diversity by Finnish primary school teachers in relation to aims of inclusion and social justice links to pedagogical choices they make. Finland, as part of the Nordic countries, is often referred to as a country of educational equality. The ‘Nordic model’ for education has emphasized equal education for all in order to erase societal inequalities and equalise opportunities also for higher education for all (Frønes et al., 2020). The Finnish national curriculum strongly supports diversity and support of each pupil to attain their full potential (FNBE, 2014). The ‘education for all’ in Finland has among other things contained a local school principle’ since the introduction of the compulsory school in the 1970’s, where every child goes to their neighbourhood school; as well as inclusion of all pupils in the same schools and classrooms (Finnish basic education act, 2010; see also UNESCO, 1994). However, recent results from different angles of social (in)justice in education, challenge the success story of the Nordic and Finnish model (Corral-Granados et al., 2023; Frønes et al., 2020). In many European cities (Musterd et al., 2017), there is an increased socio-economic segregation, which in turn creates segregation between schools (see e.g. Maloutas & Lobato, 2015). School segregation takes place also in Finland (Bernelius & Vilkama, 2019), as well as segregation between classes in the same school, based intersectingly on both socio-economic status and race (Kosunen et al., 2020; Peltola, 2020). The “local school” principle is strongly challenged by school choice policies in urban areas (e.g. Seppänen et al. 2015). Finland has also received criticism for differences in educational outcomes based on gender and immigrant status (OECD, 2019) and on equal learning opportunities for pupils with special education needs (SEN) (Corral-Granados et al., 2023; Lempinen, 2017). In their review article on the research on exclusion of different minoritized groups in education in the Nordic countries, Corral-Granados et al. (2023) argue that there is a need to analyse these areas of exclusion together. They (p. 19) also emphasize both the importance and challenge for the school staff to strive for social justice. In line with this, there is also an ongoing debate on Finnish education and goals of inclusion, where teachers often claim the task of including an increasing diversity of pupils as too demanding with the resources provided.
With this study we wish to contribute to both the Finnish, and international dialogue on inclusion, diversity and social justice, by analysing teachers’ meaning-making on these issues from the perspective of critical multicultural education and social justice education (Ayers et al., 2008; Nieto, 2018). The principles for social justice in education outlined by Ayers et al. (2008, p. xiv) are both equal access and outcomes in education, full participation for all pupils, together with a critical resistance to inequal societal power relations. The aim of critical multicultural and social justice education is to strive towards social justice by critically examining and acting on inequalities (e.g. Nieto, 2018). We approach diversity through intersectionality, taking into account both class, race, ability, language, gender, sexuality, religion, and other social categories that emerge as relevant in the specific context, and their relations to power (Collins, 2019).
Our research questions are:
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How do teachers talk about diversity in relation to inclusion and social justice?
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How are the pedagogical choices teachers make related to their understandings of diversity?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe data consists of interviews of 17 primary school teachers and four principals in Finnish schools in three different municipalities in Southern Finland. The interviews were semi-structured and done during 2022. All schools are Swedish-language public schools provided for the approximately 5,2% Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. In regard to linguistic and ethnic diversity the Swedish schools in Southern Finland are in general more homogenous and have less experience of pupils with immigrant backgrounds than the Finnish language schools, whereas segregation by class exists in both contexts (see Mikander & Mansikka, forthcoming). The schools are situated in different neighbourhoods with regard to both social class, ethnicity and language, some of which are situated in areas with an income above average and thus consisting of particularly many students from high SES backgrounds and with very few children with immigrant background or Swedish as a second language.
The interview data is analysed through discourse theory analysis (DTA) (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001). Within DTA, the interest lies in deconstructing what has been established as a seemingly natural, objective truth, through analysing discourse. DTA is particularly interested in political conflict and in deconstructing hegemony, and has been used also for analysing educational policies and interviews with educators (Hummelstedt, 2021). According to Laclau and Mouffe (2001), everything, also subjects, are constructed within discourses through articulations, and thus neither concepts nor subjects have fixed meanings or identities. When an element gets established with a certain meaning in one discourse it is called ‘moment’, and when a moment is established as the centre of a discourse it is called ‘nodal point’. Nodal points that many actors attempt to fill with different, competing, meanings, and that are particularly far from closure, are called ‘floating’ and ‘empty signifiers’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001). In this study we are interested in how the floating signifiers ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’ and ‘social justice’ are filled with meaning by teachers, as well as what kind of subject positions are given to those involved: teachers, pupils, families, and other actors in education.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe preliminary findings show that discourse of accepting diversity is dominant among the teachers, although the norm of (upper)middle class, white and Swedish language is still reproduced as an advantage in teachers’ discourses, particularly in schools mainly homogenous regarding home culture, social class and language. These norms become particularly visible through articulations of the newly arrived refugee pupils not fitting into these norms and making the teachers question their possibilities to support these pupils’ participation and reaching of the same outcomes. However, teachers working in schools in more diverse areas regarding ethnicity, language and social class, describe diversity as a richness and emphasize to see everyone’s strengths. Inclusion is viewed from a minority language perspective relevant in several European countries.
The pedagogical practices the teachers choose in relation to diversity and inclusion are mainly focused on two aims related to both full participation as well as equal access and outcomes (Ayers et al., 2008): creating an inclusive classroom culture where diversity and is accepted, as well as supporting everyone’s individualised learning development towards curricula goals. The individualised support such as differentiation seems to be focused more on ability and language than e.g. social class and varying possibilities for support at home. The realisation of the individualised support depends both on factors on the institutional and municipal level such as special education resources and group divisions, as well as the teacher’s autonomous choices in the classroom. Our findings suggest a need for a critical discussion on a national level about what the equality aims for education should consist of and how the distribution of resources and organization of teaching need to be done accordingly. They also show a need for critical reflection among teachers on how social class norms intersect with other aspects of diversity, affecting inclusion on the classroom level.
ReferencesAyers, W., Quinn, T., & Stovall, D. (2008). Preface. In W. Ayers, T. Quinn, & D. Stovall (Eds.), Handbook of Social Justice in Education (pp. xiii–xv). Routledge.
Bernelius, V., & Vilkama, K. (2019). Pupils on the move: School catchment area segregation and residential mobility of urban families. Urban Studies, 56(15), 3095–3116. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019848999
Collins, P. H. (2019). Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Duke University Press.
Corral-Granados, A., Rapp, A. C. & Smeplass, E. (2023) Nordic challenges related to exclusion and local responses in Swedish, Finnish, and Norwegian urban compulsory education, Education Inquiry, DOI: 10.1080/20004508.2022.2163002
Finnish Basic Education Act, 642. (2010). Finlex.
FNBE [Finnish National board of Education]. (2014). Core curriculum for basic education.
Frønes, T. S., Pettersen, A., Radišić, J., & Buchholtz, N (Eds.). (2020). Equity, equality and diversity in the Nordic model of education. Springer.
Hummelstedt, I, Holm, G., Sahlström, F. Zilliacus, H. (2021). Diversity as the new normal and persistent constructions of the immigrant other – Discourses on multicultural education among teacher educators. Teaching and Teacher Education, 108, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103510
Kosunen S., Bernelius, V., Seppänen, P. & Porkka, M. (2020). 'School Choice to Lower Secondary Schools and Mechanisms of Segregation in Urban Finland', Urban Education , vol. 55, no. 10, pp. 1461-1488. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916666933
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (2001). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics Second Edition. Verso.
Maloutas, T., & Ramos Lobato, I. (2015). Education and social reproduction: Educational mechanisms and residential segregation in Athens and Dortmund. Local Economy, 30(7), 800–817. https://doi.org/10.1177/0269094215601817
Musterd, S., Marcińczak, S., van Ham, M. & Tammaru, T. (2017) Socioeconomic segregation in European capital cities. Increasing separation between poor and rich, Urban Geography, 38:7, 1062-1083, https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2016.1228371
Nieto, S. (2018). Defining multicultural education for school reform. In S. Nieto & P. Bode (Eds.), Affirming diversity: The sociopolitical context of multicultural education. Pearson.
OECD. (2019). PISA 2018 Results (Volume II): Where all students can succeed. https://doi.org/https://doi: 10.1787/b5fd1b8f-en
Peltola, M. (2020). Everyday consequences of selectiveness. Borderwork in the informal sphere of a lower secondary school in the metropolitan area of Helsinki, Finland. British Journal of sociology of Education, 42(1), 97-112.
UNESCO. 1994. The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education.
P. Seppänen, M. Kalalahti, R. Rinne, & H. Simola (Eds.). (2015). Lohkoutuva peruskoulu – Perheiden kouluvalinnat, yhteiskuntaluokat ja koulutuspolitiikka [Segmenting comprehensive school – Parental school choice, social classes and education policies] (pp. 325–370). Finnish Educational Research Association.
07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Paper
Narrating Inclusion. A Comparative Study of Secondary Education Teachers’ Narratives in Norway and Italy
Tommaso Rompianesi
University of Bergen, Norway
Presenting Author: Rompianesi, Tommaso
Research questions, objectives, and theoretical framework
This paper compares secondary school teachers’ narratives on the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds in Italy and Norway. The research question is:
How do secondary school teachers narrate the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds in Italy and Norway?
Since the 90s, Italy and Norway have considered inclusion a core value of their educational systems. The two countries share, in some respects, a common migration history, starting to turn from emigration countries to immigration countries at the end of the 20th century. Following the international policy pathways of inclusion (Caputo, 2012; Hilt, 2020) and in response to the increasing migration flows, the contents and principles of the Salamanca Statement (Unesco, 1994) have been gradually translated within the Italian and Norwegian national educational systems (Caputo, 2012; Nilsen, 2010). Despite these similarities, the two countries have developed different policy narratives on the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds. Italy embraced a so-called “intercultural” approach where the policy narrative is based on explicit ideological instances and employs normative-laden language (Caputo 2012; Rompianesi & Hilt, in review). On the other hand, the Norwegian “inclusion” approach seems to turn towards a de-politicization of the terms employed in education policy documents and to develop more “technocratic” narratives (Burner et al., 2018; Rompianesi & Hilt, in review). In this regard, Norway and Italy represent a good example of how common international principles can be differently translated and narrated in their travel from the international sphere to the national dimension, even in countries with a similar migration history (Robertson & Dale, 2017).
In this peculiar scenario, it becomes relevant for international educational research to study from a comparative perspective the narratives on inclusion, not just at the macro (policy) level but also at the meso (school/institution) and micro (teacher/student) levels. Regarding teachers’ practices, Italian and Norwegian teachers seem to have ambiguous representations of inclusion and diversity (Arnesen et al., 2007; Burner et al., 2018; Tarozzi, 2006). Many Italian teachers underline the existence of a “gap” between inclusive/intercultural principles and practices (Tarozzi, 2012) and perceive inclusion as a “ghost model” (Tarozzi, 2012, p. 399) promoted by national policy narratives but hard to put into practice. In this regard, there is a lack of studies that address how secondary school teachers narrate their experiences with inclusive/intercultural education. There is also a lack of studies on how such narratives are structured in countries that share a common set of core educational principles but have developed different public narratives on the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds.
The theoretical framework of the study is rooted in Bruner’s socio-constructivist perspective (Bruner, 1977) and narrative theory (Bruner, 1996). Narratives are understood “as a mode of thinking, as a structure for organizing our knowledge, and as a vehicle in the process of education” (Bruner, 1996, p. 119). Personal and collective narratives take shape in a shared social, cultural, and symbolic space, where knowledge is constructed through interactions with others. They can embed stories – with a beginning and an end – as well as arguments, concepts, and representations of the world. In this regard, Bruner’s so-called narrative principle highlights the narrative nature of human discourse and allows us to investigate narrative thinking as one of the ways we make sense of reality and our own experiences (Bruner, 1991, 2004).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study employs a comparative qualitative research method. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a sample of 8 Norwegian and 8 Italian upper secondary school teachers who work in a multicultural classroom environment. The informants will be selected via purposive sampling, that is, on the basis of “their typicality or possession of the particular characteristic(s) being sought” (Cohen et al. 2018, p. 218).
Interviews are considered in this study as a research method through which it is possible to build meaning in a dialogue between interviewees and interviewers (Brinkmann & Kvale, 2015). The interviews will last between 45 and 60 minutes and will be divided into two parts.
1. The first part will focus on how the informants give meaning to educational phenomena related to inclusion in their teaching practice. The dialogue with teachers will focus on stories and experiences they perceive as relevant and/or meaningful in relation to themes such as inclusion, interculturalism, intercultural dialogue, multiculturalism, and cultural diversity. The interview guide includes broad questions which are intended to help the respondent to focus on their personal experience, such as:
a. As a teacher, what do you think when you think about the “inclusion” of students with migrant backgrounds?
b. When and how would you define your classroom as “inclusive”?
c. Is there an episode that you feel to be related to the “inclusion” (or “exclusion”) of students with migrant backgrounds? Would you like to tell me about it?
d. How did you act in such a context?
e. Is there anything you would have done differently?
The semi-structured interviews will be carried out with a high degree of flexibility. That will allow the informants to answer the questions at their own pace and limit any unintentional directivity of the interviewer (Cohen et al., 2018).
2. The second part of the interview will consist of the discussion of two cases – that is, plausible everyday classroom situations in which the topics of inclusion and cultural differences play a relevant role in the educational processes. The cases will be cross-nationally comparable by ensuring a culturally sensitive perspective (Osborn, 2004). Reflexivity as a research practice will play a pivotal role. Attention will be paid “to the way different kinds of linguistic, social, political and theoretical elements are woven together in the process of knowledge development, during which empirical material is constructed, interpreted and written” (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009, p.9).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsBy investigating teachers’ narratives on inclusion, I will collect new insights into how they make sense of “inclusion” and “interculturalism” in their teaching practices. From the perspective of constructivism and narrative theory (Bruner, 1991, 1996, 2004), the informants’ stories, episodes, and narrative plots will shed new light on how teachers represent the inner tensions and paradoxes that characterize inclusion and interculturalism. One expected outcome is that such concepts might be narrated as loose constructs with blurred conceptual outlines. At the same time, as concepts characterized by a certain degree of inner vagueness, they can leave space for teachers to create their inclusive practices with a higher degree of autonomy (Hilt & Rompianesi, forthcoming).
In this regard, the comparative perspective adds an additional layer of complexity and can lead to valuable insights. As mentioned above, Italy and Norway share a similar migration history and inclusion as a core value of their educational system; nonetheless, they developed different national policy narratives regarding the inclusion of students with migrant backgrounds. Comparing teachers’ narratives in both countries can highlight similarities and differences at the meso and micro levels. Furthermore, the results can provide insights in relation to the national policy narratives (Rompianesi & Hilt, in review) to understand if – and to what extent – public and teachers’ narratives share some common traits.
ReferencesAlvesson, M., & Sköldberg, K. (2009). Reflexive methodology: New vistas for qualitative research (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Arnesen, A., Mietola, R., & Lahelma, E. (2007). Language of inclusion and diversity: Policy discourses and social practices in Finnish and Norwegian schools. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 11(1), 97–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603110600601034
Brinkmann, S., & Kvale, S. (2015). InterViews. Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Bruner, J. S. (1977). The Process of Education. A Landmark in Educational Theory. Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1991). The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry, 18, 1–21.
Bruner, J. S. (1996). The Culture of Education. Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (2004). Life as Narrative. Social Research, 71(3), 691–710.
Burner, T., Nodeland, T. S., & Aamaas, Å. (2018). Critical Perspectives on Perceptions and Practices of Diversity in Education. Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education (NJCIE), 2(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.7577/njcie.2188
Caputo, M. (2012). Interculturalità. Pedagogia Oggi, 1, 199–230.
Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2018). Research Methods in Education. Eight Edition (8th ed.). Routledge.
Hilt, L. T. (2020). Integrering og Utdanning. Fagbokforlaget.
Hilt, L. T., & Rompianesi, T. (Forthcoming). Multicultural tact: representing the world in multicultural societies. In Kalisha, W. and T. Szkudlarek (Eds.) (forthcoming) Nextgen Children. Springer Philosophy Series.
Nilsen, S. (2010). Moving towards an educational policy for inclusion? Main reform stages in the development of the Norwegian unitary school system. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 14(5), 479–497. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603110802632217
Osborn, M. (2004). New Methodologies for Comparative Research? Establishing ‘Constants’ and ‘Contexts’ in Educational Experience. Oxford Review of Education, 30(2), 265–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305498042000215566
Robertson, S., & Dale, R. (2017). Comparing Policies in a Globalizing World: Methodological reflections. Educação & Realidade, 42, 859–876. https://doi.org/10.1590/2175-623670056
Rompianesi, T. & L. Hilt (In review). ‘Heroes’, ‘Victims’, and ‘Villains’: Policy Narratives on Inclusion in Norwegian and Italian Educational Documents. Intercultural Education.
Tarozzi, M. (Ed.). (2006). Il senso dell’intercultura. Ricerca sulle pratiche di accoglienza, intercultura e integrazione in Trentino. Provincia Autonoma di Trento - IPRASE del Trentino.
Tarozzi, M. (2012). Intercultural or multicultural education in Europe and the United States. In B. Della Chiesa, J. Scott, & C. Hinton (Eds.), Languages in a Global World: Learning for Better Cultural Understanding (pp. 393–406). OECD Publishing.
Unesco. (1994). The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. Unesco.
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