This study presents how humour is used as a strategy to deal with, reinforce or resist racialisation in 8^th-grade classes (14-15 y/o) in Finnish schools. As part of the project RILSE (Racism and antiracism in lower secondary education), it offers an ethnography-based qualitative analysis of the everyday practices, discourses and experiences of racialisation and antiracism in Nordic education. The theoretical framework for this study is critical race and whiteness studies and antiracism approached through an intersectional understanding of power in the context of critical education in Nordic.

School serves as a place of informal racialised segregation; thus, schools are both racialised and racialising places (Phoenix 2008, 27). Several studies of racism in Finland conclude that racism is apparent in education and in schools (e.g., Helakorpi 2019; Non-Discrimination Ombudsman 2020). However, racism in schools is often only acknowledged as physical, ill-meaning violence (Souto, 2011). It might prevent recognising the subtle processes of racialisation, for example how whiteness intertwines in constructing an exclusive category of Finnishness (Hummelstedt et al. 2021). This article approaches racialisation from two different perspectives: first, from the processes of racializing as white, and second, processes of racializing as non-white, other or e.g., as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of colour), as the importance of recognizing both is highlighted by several scholars on the field. Since the processes of racialisation simultaneously occur and are challenged in schools, everyday antiracist strategies contesting racism are developed, especially by pupils racialised as non-white (Vertelyté & Li 2021, 108). One of the possible strategies is humour. The research about humour in schools often approaches it in relation to masculinities. In Finnish schools, humour is studied as the boys’ strategy to gain status and resources in their peer groups (Huuki, Manninen, & Sunnari 2010), a requirement for pupils to tolerate verbal violence and take them as jokes, or at least pretend to do so to avoid risking their position in the classroom hierarchy (Paju, 2011), and as one of the strategies used to construct whiteness, Finnishness, and masculinity (Peltola & Phoenix, 2022). This study aims towards an intersectional reading since different subject positions, e.g., the school hierarchy, gender, and race, affect the available strategies to deal with racialisation. To expand the scope, this study connects to European, particularly Nordic, studies about racialising humour in schools, e.g., in Norway (Johannessen, 2021) Sweden (Odenbring & Johansson 2021) and England (Doharty, 2020).

Humour in relation to racialisation functions in different ways. First, it is used for racist purposes and to minimise racism. For those racialised as others, their role is to “get” the joke and not show any offence (Urciuoli 2020, 118-119). Different youth groups create different rules for what kind of jokes are allowed, and thus it is challenging to recognize jokes from bullying and harassment (Paju, 2011.)  Therefore, it is crucial to analyse what kind of racialising discourses are upheld in schools as “jokes”. Second, humour can be used as one of the antiracist strategies for dealing with or resisting racialisation (Weaver, 2010). Verbal identity play with stereotypes may appear to the outside as heavy racialisation but it could be an insider discourse when among peers (Urciuoli 2020, 121). However, the joke is only funny when interpreted and recognized as such by the audience (Johannessen, 2021). The research question emerges from the above-presented as:

How is humour used in schools as a strategy to deal with, reinforce or resist racialisation?

The results of identifying different ways how racialisation is dealt with via humour have significance in recognizing different challenges and possibilities for antiracism and thus reinforcing structures supporting antiracism in education theoretically and practically.

The data is from two lower secondary schools in southern Finland, consisting of participant observations (50 days), interviews with 8th-grade pupils with different backgrounds (N=40) and interviews with school staff with varying roles, such as subject teachers, administrative staff, and health care professionals (N=32). Observations and interviews were conducted in two different classes per school during 2022: school A during the spring, and school B during the autumn. Schools are approximately the same sized, and the pupil population is heterogeneous, including pupils from varying racial, language and socioeconomic backgrounds. Observations (N=50) from the schools are saved as written field notes and photographs. As traditions of ethnographic research and feminist research conclude (Bilge, 2013; Linabary & Hamel, 2017), it is crucial to reflect on and acknowledge different social locations of power and their impacts on knowledge production. These remarks are acknowledged, especially since the topic has a risk of essentialising the same categories that it aims to dismantle. Observations were conducted during the formal lessons and the informal events and interactions in schools, following how humour is utilized for different purposes. Since humour is often marked as such by physical framings, such as body movements and laughter, it is inevitable to observe the body language and interactions between different actors. Thus, observations aim to provide descriptions enriching and elaborating with other data, e.g., the interviews. Interviews provide valuable insight into the events and interactions observed. It is crucial to combine observations with interviews since understanding lived experiences demands an understanding of moods and motivations framing and enabling those (Trondman et al., 2018). Conducting interviews with 8th-grade pupils (N=40) and school staff (N=32) with various roles allows elaboration on events and connections from different viewpoints. Pupils participated in interviews individually or in small groups. An interview guide covered topics such as interviewees’ experiences in observing racism in school and practical examples of tools for antiracism. A voluntary, informed consent was given by all participants, from minors a guardian consent as well. The data is pseudonymised. The data is analysed via thematic analysis, where it was coded to search for themes together with research questions and theoretical bases, then grouped and defined together (Koski, 2011; Mann, 2016). Thus, codes are both theory and data-driven, and the combination of different data sources, classroom practices and literature are analysed and discussed in line with literature with our commentary and participants’ voices (Xu & Zammit, 2020).

The expected result is that pupils intentionally use racist jokes to provoke their peers and minimize its’ violence by framing it as a “joke”. This is in line with the previous research, as humour is used to normalize violence but is often not recognized as such (Huuki et al. 2010). Humour targets racial origin, ethnicity, nationality, and/or language skills, combining other factors, e.g., sexuality and gender. Humour, even as discriminatory language, may be crucial in adolescents’ socialization (Johannessen 2021) and can be used as an antiracist strategy. Pupils use humour as a counterstrategy to racialisation by making fun of stereotypes and constructing shared identities among peers. However, playing with identities might produce racist and anti-racist meanings simultaneously (Jonsson 2018, 333). Thus, similar-seeming vocabulary can be interpreted as antiracist or racist and hurtful. The reception is affected by the position of the person telling the joke. Due to the shifting locations of “insiders” and “outsiders” in the hierarchies of classroom situations, dealing with racialisation with humour is a subtle strategy with a risk of “going too far” and this article intends to analyse if it might contain a risk to pupil’s position in the classroom. Many events of racializing humour occur during the formal lesson time. Thus, the appearance of differently racializing humour in the classroom spaces is possible by the school staff’s reactions to it. Teachers might feel insecure and uncomfortable when faced with stereotypes and prejudiced expressions by their pupils (Myrebøe, 2021). Some teachers attempted to utilize humour as their response to racialisation or racism among their pupils. For some teachers this strategy was successful – for some, it was not. Some teachers reacted to racism by framing it as humour. These themes will be elaborated on in the full-formed article.

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