In Finland, the teaching force is rather uniformly gendered, raced, and classed. Like other highly educated professionals, most teachers come from white, middle-class communities, sometimes with little or no experience in working with diversity. Furthermore, learning in Finnish schools is generally discussed as a neutral activity without a socially, historically, culturally or institutionally defined context (Simola, 2021), although many challenges in school are inevitably intertwined with wider societal challenges, such as racism, sexual inequality, gender inequality harassment, heteronormativity, economic or geographical inequalities (Väisänen & Lanas, 2021). Problems tend to be framed as individual deficiencies, thus psychologizing education (Ecclestone & Brunila, 2015). This paper discusses how Finnish educators talk about teaching refugee students, focusing on the issues they identify as problematic and the solutions they propose. The article draws on a questionnaire answered by 267 teachers, principals and teaching assistants in Finland, as well as thematic group interviews with 15 teachers. Critical discourse analysis of the data shows that educators draw from individualizing discourses as they talk about refugee students’ education. Many of the teachers perceived refugee students as subjects lacking skills. For instance, although Ukrainian refugees are often portrayed as “worthy” refugees in public discourse, many teachers discussed them as unmotivated, illiterate, and unwilling to learn the Finnish language, and were often unmotivated to teach them. Teachers framed racism as bullying and disturbing behavior, thus attaching a structural problem to the individual. As a solution, they proposed practices of positive pedagogy, stemming from individualistic positive psychology. This paper argues that supporting the educational paths of refugee students requires attention on the condition of possibility. Teachers do not create these conditions alone, but their role is crucial. Societal factors also matter, as sanctuary cannot be offered by a society that keeps portraying refugees as a disturbance, a problem, and keeps speaking and enacting refugees into existence through othering discourses. Living a safe life is not a trade, but a human right. The “worth” of the people arriving cannot be measured by how “fast integrators”, active learners of the Finnish language, or skilled in whatever is beneficial for Finnish society, they are. This paper calls for a continuous systematic effort of antiracist education as well as curricular structures that support teachers in understanding and challenging contexts, such as white normativity.

Ecclestone, K. & Brunila, K. (2015). Governing emotionally vulnerable subjects and ‘therapisation’ of social justice, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23(4), 485-506, https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1015152 Simola, H. (2022). Dekontekstualisaation lyhyt historia. Kasvatus, 52(4), 380–387. https://doi.org/10.33348/kvt.112371 Väisänen, A.-M., & Lanas, M. (2022). Dekontekstualisaatio kiusaamiskirjallisuudessa. Kasvatus, 52(4), 438–449. https://doi.org/10.33348/kvt.112377