07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Paper
Integration of Foreign Researchers into University Community Institutional Politics and Researcher's Agency.
Anna Björnö
Tampere University, Finland
Presenting Author: Björnö, Anna
My research project focuses on how the use of Finnish, Swedish and English, as well as other languages, is argued in the Finnish academia. I explore this discussion in application to the everyday practices, teaching, research, and knowledge production. Looking at the documents, public discussions, and interviews, I describe a multilayered picture of the field and symbolic power of languages (Bourdieu, 2003). Ideas about power, equality and linguistic rights along with the internationalized university practices and lingua franca complicate the discussion about languages. The question of how to manage the linguistic situation on the institutional level also involves an ethical dimension and multiple ways of looking at it.
My goal is to explicate the positions of different actors within the university environment and justifications they utilize to argue about the actual and desired use of Finnish, English, Swedish and other languages. This analysis advances the understanding of how internationalization includes or could include national language protection. Moreover, how national language protection is linked to national interests in education and internationalization. At the same time, there is a rise of neonationalism in higher education (Saarinen, 2020; Brøgger, 2020), and part of the discussion about language protection also takes place in this sphere.
There is a growing debate about languages in higher education, and their impact on national academic culture, internationalization and multilingualism. During the panel discussions at the Language Awareness Campaign (KITI) at the University of Helsinki, various participants claimed that either Finnish, Swedish or English are not used sufficiently within the university, and that this deficiency has a negative impact on the academic life. What the audience has agreed on, however, is that multilingual academia would be a fruitful academic environment, and should be promoted (KITI, 2017). This demonstrates that debates about the place of different languages in academia are going to continue.
Lindstedt (2013) argues that increased use of English in Finnish universities discriminates Finnish candidates in the recruitment process and administrative duties within the university. He adds that current coexistence of languages within the academia is prone to multiple problems in the future. Heimonen and Ylönen (2017) write about university staff’s ideological preference of the use of multiple languages instead of “English only”. However, along with these concerns, there are also numerous problematic situations that international students and scholars encounter due to the lack of information in English, lack of social circle and challenges of learning Finnish (Medvedeva, 2018). Yet, another perspective states that it is crucial for the international students to be able to speak Finnish in order to find employment and stay in Finland after graduation (Shumilova et al, 2012). The article that I am going to present focuses on the international students’ and scholars’ voices in this debate. The discussion ranges from language speaking and learning in the neoliberal sense, as a form of human capital, which makes it solely an individual responsibility (see, e.g. Kubota, 2016) to the understanding of the institutional politics as advancement of English.
Research questions:
(1). What kind of power is ascribed to different languages by a variety of actors in the field?
(2). What kind of value, ethical claims are communicated by different respondents?
(3). What kind of practices are considered as the most valuable or problematic by different participants?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedAs a part of my research, I conducted interviews among the university community to reflect on perspectives on and experiences of language use in the academia. My goal was to have an input from a variety of disciplines, since the public discussions that I have followed, show a variety of language situations. I moved from the initial focus on the normative language positions into analyzing everyday situations and the cultural, pragmatic or power related aspect of the language choices.
The methodological approach to this research stems from Bourdieu’s analysis of language (2003). For my research data, meanings attached to the interplay of different languages reveal conceptions of symbolic ‘market’, ‘capital’ and ‘profit’ within a given field. I explore the dialogue on them, along with the latent conventions acknowledged by the participants. The conception on language, stemming from this approach, is referenced in the position of Wright (2015), who explores it not as a fixed notion, but as a ‘dialogic creativity’, also allowing for the interpretation of multiple languages’ position within the field. Yet, this perspective on the language itself does not denounce the consideration of the power issues, which stems from the ‘postcolonial performativity approach’ explored by Pennycook (2000).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWhile acknowledging the claims brought up by the critical theorists of the spread of English, the changing perspectives on the social aspects of language could be extended to the other languages as well. For instance, the fluidity of language (Jenkins, 2011) and functionality aspects, rather than norms (Cogo, Dewey, 2012) could advance the discussion on the learning of the national languages by the students and scholars from abroad. When applied to the national languages and minority languages in higher education, these perspectives allow tracing the positions of different speakers, and the relative power that is ascribed to the language competencies.
Finally, the discussion on the language dimensions of higher education should not be limited to the use of English or national languages in education, a more productive focus would feature the interaction of the national language and English, and also the overall arguments of linguistic diversity and its use in education. This focus on language opens a window on other aspects of the academic and institutional developments – power balance in the conditions of internationalization and national interests in marketization of education, as well as norm claiming impulses. It also allows me to trace the emerging ethical dimension, the normative argumentation of international scholars about the language use at the university.
ReferencesAirey, J., Lauridsen, K.M., Räsänen, A., Salö, L. and Schwach, V. (2017) ‘The Expansion of English-Medium Instruction in the Nordic countries: Can Top-Down University Language Policies Encourage Bottom-Up Disciplinary Literacy Goals?’, Higher Education 73.4: 561-576.
Brøgger, K. (2020). Chapter 4: A specter is haunting European higher education – the specter of neo-nationalism. In V. Bozalek, M. Zembylas, S. Motala, & D. Hölscher (Eds.), Higher Education Hauntologies: Speaking with ghosts for a justice-to-come: London: Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (2003). Language and Symbolic Power, Harvard University Press.
Heimonen, E., Ylönen, S. (2017). Monikielisyys vai "English only"? Yliopistojen henkilökunnan asenteet eri kielten käyttöä kohtaan akateemisessa ympäristössä. AFinLA Yearbook 2017. Suomen soveltavan kielitieteen yhdistyksen (AFinLA) julkaisuja n:o 75. Jyväskylä. 49–68.
Kubota, R. (2016). Neoliberal paradoxes of language learning: xenophobia and international communication, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37:5, 467-480, DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2015.1071825
Lindström, J. and Sylvin, J. (2014) ‘Local majority and minority languages and English in the university: The University of Helsinki in a Nordic comparison’, A. K. Hultgren, F. Gregersen, and J. Thøgersen (eds.), English in Nordic Universities: Ideologies and practices. Studies in World Language Problems, 5. John Benjamins, 147-164.
Lindstedt, J. (2013). English in Finnish Universities as a Means of Recruiting Teachers and Students. Languages and Internationalization in Higher Education: Ideologies, Practices, Alternatives. Nitobe Symposium, Reykjavík, July 18–20, 2013
Lähteenmäki, M., and Pöyhönen, S. (2015) ‘Language Rights of the Russian-Speaking Minority in Finland: Multi-sited Historical Arguments and Language Ideologies’, M. Halonen, P. Ihalainen, and T. Saarinen (eds.), Language Policies in Finland and Sweden. Interdisciplinary and multi-sited comparisons. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 90-115.
Pennycook, A. (2000). English, politics, ideology: From colonial celebration to postcolonial permormativity. Ideology, Politics and Language Policies: Focus on English. Ricento, T. (ed.). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Saarinen, T. (2020). Higher Education, Language and New Nationalism in Finland : Recycled Histories. Palgrave Macmillan. Palgrave Pivot. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60902-3
Shumilova, Y., Cai, Y., Pekkola, E. (2012). Employability of International Graduates Educated in Finnish Higher Education Institutions, VALOA-project Career Services University of Helsinki.
Wright, S. (2015). What is language? A response to Philippe van Parijs. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 18 (2), 113–130.
DOI:10.1080/13698230.2015.1023628
07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Paper
Social Mobility Through Education : the Aim for Higher Education Amongst Youths from Non-academic Families
Caroline Önnebro
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Presenting Author: Önnebro, Caroline
This paper explores conditions for social upward mobility through education. The social reproduction within the educational system globally sustains an unequal society. Amongst the students within higher education, there is an overrepresentation of students with at least one parent with a high school degree. The phenomenon of social reproduction through education is global and existing also in countries such as Sweden where there is a high level of formal equality in education. Previous research provides much knowledge on the relation between social structures and education, providing explanations on the mechanisms leading to a preservation and reproduction of hierarchic social structures in school and through the education system. There is less research on the exceptions, what enables students of non-academic backgrounds to reach success in school and what motivates them to aim for higher education. The majority of such studies are retrospective, based on interviews with adults that have experienced upward social mobility through education.
As a part of a monographic PhD dissertation in which thirteen high performing Swedish youths whose parents have no higher education, share their life stories once a year during a three-year period, this paper provides an overview of some of the upcoming results as two thirds of the empirical data has been collected. The aim of the study is to gain knowledge about how these youths, who are structurally less likely to attain higher education, have achieved success in school and strive for higher education. The research question is: What enables school achievement and aims of attending higher education, amongst youths whose parents do not have experience of higher education?
The selection of these students is based on the criteria: they attend upper secondary school; they finished 9th grade with high grades; their parents did not attend university; they strive for higher education. The interviews are unstructured life story interviews which are analysed both biographically and narratively, i.e., both what is told and how it is told. The research procedure follows the guidelines for Interpretative Grounded Theory according to Strauss. Theoretical concepts will be articulated based on the empirical data rather than using the data in order to verify or test already existing theories. Several theoretical frameworks have been studied as part of developing a theoretical sensitivity, frameworks that might be applicable to the results presented in this paper. However, the current research phase explores the contents of these interviews by letting them speak for themselves before applying already existing theories or framing a new substantial theory upon these life stories. The results provided here are not seen as ‘discovered’ nor ‘constructed’ but ‘interpreted’.
An overview of the results from the so far 25 interviews made with 13 youths, provides a picture of a diversity of sources for motivation, both between and within interviews. Frequently mentioned sources of motivation are the following: giftedness/ ability; vocation/ interest; making parents proud; expectations; a stable economy in the future; norms given by siblings or peers; caring for the mother in the future; teachers’ influence/ encouragement; avoiding their parents’ destiny and; escaping a situation.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe data consists of unstructured life story interviews with 13 youths, all attending upper secondary school by the time of the first interview made in 2021. The selection of these students was made in several steps. As a first step, the average number of elementary school grades (as summarised in numbers) needed for admission to all upper secondary school in a specific region in Sweden, were analysed. The 10 schools with highest numbers were contacted in order to give a brief presentation of the study and ask students to answer a minor questionnaire including questions regarding the parents’ educational background and whether they strived for higher education or not. Out of these 10 schools, 6 schools accepted to participate. Based on the students answers in the questionnaire, which also included questions of gender, country of birth (both student and parents) and the area where they lived, 26 students were contacted. Out of these 26 students, 13 agreed to participate in the study.
The interviews began with a short reminder of the purpose of the study, after which the student was asked to talk about their life, not only about school achievement and their strive for higher education but their life in general. The life stories are analysed both biographically and narratively, i.e., both what is told and how it is told. The narrative is not an exact presentation of the past but an adapted story, for example in relation to the purpose, audience and points of view. A narrative is also a way of presenting aspects of oneself, which is central in the analyses presented in this paper. In Life Story interviews, the story is about the past but created in the present. Hence, it is a present product and not an identical reflection of the past.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe results of the so far 25 interviews made with 13 interviewees show a diversity regarding the main motivation and enabling events in these young people’s lives. Frequently mentioned sources of motivation are the following: giftedness/ ability; vocation/ interest; making parents proud; expectations; a stable economy in the future; norms given by siblings or peers; caring for the mother in the future; teachers’ influence/ encouragement; avoiding their parents’ destiny and; escaping a situation. However, these sources of motivation are not solely one-sided but often appear as complex and even somewhat contradictory. Some of the interviewees touch many sources of motivation in their stories while others have fewer but often more distinguished sources of motivation.
The youths sharing least reflexion upon the topic are the ones also revealing how attaining higher education has become a norm although their parents have not attained higher education. Reasons for perceiving higher education as an obvious choice after finishing upper secondary school are either older siblings school achievement and choice of career or following the general perception of peers who have parents with an academic background.
All the interviewees but one, have parents who support their ambition to attain higher education. In the remaining case, a father discourages the daughter’s ambitions, but the mother is supportive. In three cases though, including the already mentioned, the fathers’ opinions have no impact or a contrary impact on the daughters’ ambitions.
ReferencesArcher, L., Hollingworth, S., & Mendick, H. (2010). Urban youth and schooling : [the experiences and identities of educationally 'at risk' young people]. Open University Press.
Ball, S. J., Bowe, R., & Gewirtz, S. (1995). Circuits of Schooling : A Sociological Exploration of Parental Choice of School in Social Class Contexts. The Sociological Review, 43(1), 52–78.
Bourdieu, P. & Passeron, J.-C. (2008). Reproduktionen : bidrag till en teori om utbildningssystemet. Arkiv Förlag/A-Z Förlag.
Bryant, A., & Charmaz, K. (2019). The SAGE Handbook of Current Developments in Grounded Theory. SAGE Publications Ltd
Christodoulou, M., & Spyridakis, M. (2017). Upwardly mobile working-class adolescents: A biographical approach on habitus dislocation. Cambridge Journal of Education, 47(3), 315-335. Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (2006). The discovery of grounded theory : Strategies for qualitative research.
Harrison, B. (Red.). (2008). Life Story Research. SAGE Publications.
Ingram, N., & Tarabini, A. (2018). Educational choices, aspirations and transitions in Europe : Systemic, institutional and subjective challenges. Routledge.
Joselsson, R. (2011). Narrative Research: Constructing, Deconstructing and Reconstructing Story. I F.Wertz (Red.), Five ways of doing qualitative analysis. Phenomenological psychology, grounded theory, discourse analysis, narrative research, and intuitive inquiry (s. 224-242). Guilford Press
Kupfer, A. (2012). A theoretical concept of educational upward mobility. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 22(1), 57-72.
Reay, D. (2007). 'Unruly Places' : Inner-city Comprehensives, Middle-class Imaginaries and Working-class Children. Urban Studies, 44(7), 1191-1201. Reay, D., & Lucey, H. (2003). The Limits of `Choice' : Children and Inner City Schooling. Sociology, 37(1), 121-142.
Rosenthal, G. (2011). Biographical Research. I C. Seale, G. Gobo, J. F. Gubrium & D. Silverman (Red.), Qualitative Research Practice (s.49-65). SAGE Publications Ltd
Sohl, Lena. (2014). Att veta sin klass : kvinnors uppåtgående klassresor i Sverige. [Doktorsavhandling]. Uppsala Universitet.
Spiegler, T. (2018). Resources and requirements of educational upward mobility. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(6), 860-875.
Statistiska centralbyrån. (2016). Samband mellan barns och föräldrars utbildning. SCB.
Strauss, A., Corbin, J., & NetLibrary, Inc. (1998). Basics of qualitative research techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Thompson, R. (2019). Education, inequality and social class : expansion and stratification in educational opportunity. Routledge.
Trondman, Mats. (1994). Bilden av en klassresa : sexton arbetarklassbarn på väg till och i högskolan. Carlsson Bokförlag AB.
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07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Paper
Along came Spivak: Ethical Research in India by a Minority World Doctoral Student
Sinead Matson
Maynooth University, Ireland
Presenting Author: Matson, Sinead
A doctoral study was interrupted when Spivak stepped in to ask if the subaltern could speak (1992); what resulted was a productive undoing (Spivak, 2012) of the original research study in order to seek to understand how a research study conducted by a white, middle-class, Western doctoral student from a Western university, could be carried out in a more ethical and equitable way when researching in the Majority World.
The original research study intended to develop a rich, nuanced understanding of children’s play and early learning in the early childhood classes of an NGO run school in India while simultaneously problematizing the universal, uncritical application of dominant Western discourses and research to the lives of marginalised children living diverse childhoods. Combining Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological systems theory and Vygotsky’s socio-cultural historical theory, with postcolonial theory the study was designed to collect data by ethnographic observations in the school and wider society, along with participatory methods with the children, and interviews with teachers and parents. Three years in, after fieldwork had been completed, along came Spivak, demanding to be heard; prompting questions about voice, power, authority, agency, ethics, and equity. Was the voice of the researcher taking up space that wasn’t hers to take? Was her voice colonizing the research space?
After a process of hyper-self-reflexivity (Kapoor, 2004) and critical consciousness (hooks, 1989), the research study was productively undone which allowed for every choice that was made: the methodology, the theoretical framework, the research tools, the ethical approval application, as well as the research questions and motivations, to be seen as data that was plugged in (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012; 2013) to multiple theories and interdisciplinary perspectives to allow for an interrogation from a multi-perspective analysis. Post-colonial theories, de-colonial theories, anti-racist theories, and feminist theories were used for the plugging in process.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedDrawing on an ethnographic tradition, four research trips of between one and three weeks were carried out over three years. A case study approach was taken in order to explore the lived experiences, behaviours, emotions, interactions, and the impact of culture and society on the play and early learning experiences of children. Arts-based methods were also employed to build a ‘living picture’ (Clark & Moss, 2005; 2011) the children’s experiences of play and early learning, as well as the attitudes of the parents, teachers, school managements, and the wider community. One hundred and ten children aged between five and eight years of age took part in the research. Photographic observations, field notes, and formal interviews were conducted as well as drawing and a photovoice exercise with the children. A guide and interpreter was employed in the field.
Rather than analysing the original data for themes, trends and results, the data and individual pieces of the research study were taken apart and played with. They were pushed, pulled, unthreaded, ripped, braided, and re-ruptured. The data was then viewed from different theoretical perspectives (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012; 2013; Mazzei, 2014) and interdisciplinary perspectives, before gently, and with productive intention, put back together to offer possible insights and considerations for more ethical possibilities when researching in the Majority world for educational researchers. Format, form, and voice were played with using a narrative inquiry approach (Clandinin, 2013;2016) to the writing process allowing the authority of the researcher’s voice to be interrupted, challenged, or joined by the voices of children and the interpreter /co-researcher.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe doctoral study was put back together at the end of the process to produce ‘learnings’ rather than findings. The learnings built on a rich tradition of questioning the privileged voice and authority of the ethnocentric researcher and the (re)production of inequalities, inbuilt systemic oppression, and privilege of the Academy (Andreotti, 2006; hooks, 1994; Kloß, 2017; McIntosh, 2012, Patel, 2014; Tuck, 2009). Data was not created, ‘collected’, or analysed in isolation. The children, the school, and the interpreter/guides were co-researchers and co-creators of knowledge. The school and children, as co-researchers wanted equal recognition and as such, after a revision of the Maynooth University Ethical Approval application, the children and staff of Emmanuel Public School, Pune, India are now named in the dissertation and any further publications. Suresh, the interpreter/guide is recognised and acknowledged as a co-researcher.
The observations of, and interactions with, the children, when seen through de-colonial and children’s rights lenses highlighted the children’s successful attempts to decolonize the research process by turning the gaze and camera lens back on the researcher and by setting their own agenda and researching a topic they were interested in researching. No longer seen in a deficit lens, children are seen as agentic. By not privileging adults’ ways of doing things - training in research methodology - their natural method of researching, that of playing, is acknowledged, and given due weight. By de-centering the adult researcher, this study centers the children’s inherent ways of being and researching, and it values them.
ReferencesAndreotti, V. (2006). Soft versus critical global citizenship education. Policy & Practice (Centre for Global Education), 3, 40-51.
Clandinin, D. J. (2016;2013;). Engaging in narrative inquiry. Routledge.
Clark, A & Moss, P. (2011). Listening to young children: the mosaic approach (Second ed.). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Clark, A. & Moss, P. (2005). Spaces to Play, More listening to young children using the Mosaic approach. London: National Children's Bureau.
Hogan, D. (2005). Researching 'the child' in Developmental Psychology. In S. a. Greene, Researching Children's Experiences: Approaches and Methods (pp. 22-41). Sage.
hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Jackson, A. & Mazzei, L. (2012). Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research - Viewing data across multiple perspectives. London and New York: Routledge.
Jackson, A. Y., & Mazzei, L. A. (2013). Plugging One Text Into Another: Thinking With Theory in Qualitative Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 19(4), 261–271.
Kapoor, I. (2004). Hyper-self-reflexive development? Spivak on representing the Third World 'Other'. Third World Quarterly, 25(4), 627-647.
Kloß, S. T. (2017). The global south as subversive practice: Challenges and potentials of a heuristic concept. The Global South, 11(2), 1-17.
McIntosh, P. (2012). Reflections and future directions for privilege studies. Journal of Social Issues, 68(1), 194-206.
Mazzei, L. A. (2014). Beyond an easy sense: A diffractive analysis. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6), 742-746.
Patel, L. (. (2014). Countering coloniality in educational research: From ownership to answerability. Educational Studies (Ames), 50(4), 357-377.
Spivak, G. C. (1992). Can the Subaltern Speak? In P. Williams, & L. Chrisman (Eds.), Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory (pp. 66-111). New York: Columbia University Press.
Spivak, G. C. (2012). An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press.
Tuck, Eve. 2009. “Suspending Damages: A Letter to Communities.” Harvard Educational Review 79: 409–427.
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