During the 1990’s the amount of immigrants increased in the biggest cities and especially in the capital area of Finland. The recidents with foreign background are not, however, equally represented in all the residential areas of the city. There have emerged districts in, where the amount of foreign language speakers is over 20 percent and the amount of children under 7 years over 30 percent of the whole population in the district. On the other hand, in some districts the amount of foreigners is less than two percent. Koskela (2002) talks about a hypothesis of ”multicultural pockets” of Helsinki children living in them. By “multicultural pocket” she means that there are single small areas with a high proportion of residents with immigrant background situated in the middle of the area inhabited by the residents of the majority culture. Children who are living in these “pockets” have everyday encounters with people having various skin colour. They have grown up in a multi-ethnic environment and have a possibility to become ”colour blind” in a positive way in a sense that they do not see people of other skin colour somehow different. “Ethnic” residential segregation and its relationship with socio-economic issues have been in the focus of researchers during the last years. The influence of “ethnic” residential segregation on the segregation of pupil composition and on practices of schools has been a central topic of discussion in many European countries but nowadays also in Finland. The question of school segregation is vital for social justice but also for the future prospects of the residential areas and through it even for the whole city. In my presentation I will consider ”ethnic” residential segregation of Helsinki from the perspective of children, youth and schools in the light of the latest statistics. How segregation look like among young age classes? What the statistics tell about “multicultural pockets”? What is the connection between “ethnic” residential segregation and the segregation of the pupil composition of the schools and how the interaction between a school and its residential area look like? My data includes statistics about the linguistic background of 0 to 15-year-old children in the sub districts and small areas of Helsinki, the linguistic background of pupils in comprehensive school and the proportion of pupils in “Finnish as a second language” teaching: I also have statistics about the pupil streams: the proportion of pupils coming from their own and from other enrolment area in each schools (including primary, lower secondary and comprehensive schools, the latest give both primary and lower secondary education).

Analysis are based on visualising the statistics concerning on linguistic background of young residents and pupils and statistics about the proportion of pupils in each school coming from their own or other enrolment area. Conclusions are based on interpretation of these thematic maps.

The results reveal that among young age groups “ethnic” segregation is greater than among all the residents and exceed 30 percent on certain areas. The whole picture about the proportion of foreign language speakers in residential areas is mosaic, although in Eastern Helsinki there are more districts and larger areas having a lot of foreign language speakers. In the municipal comprehensive schools the proportion of foreign language speaking children is in some cases substantially higher than in the residential area of the school. In some schools a half of the pupils have Finnish as a second language. This is in congruence with international results. In these schools also the socio-economic background of the families is lower. In private, and Swedish speaking schools have much less foreign language speaking pupils. In some schools the majority of pupils come outside the enrolment area whereas in other schools, especially those situated in lower density and higher income areas pupils come mainly from the neighbourhood. I will consider these results both in Finnish and in international context.