Session Information
13 SES 12 C, Educating with Newcomers in Mind: Session 2
Symposium
Contribution
International research has highlighted how refugee children and young people in exile struggle with emotional and behavioral difficulties such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression (Pastoor, 2015). Arguably, students with these types of problems require that school leaders and teachers possess high levels of psychosocial competence, both skills and knowledge, to meet them in the best way possible. Also, as will be evident in this chapter, it requires teachers to act as leaders in handling emerging situations of uncertainty when educating students who struggle emotionally and with behavioral difficulties. However, despite of the challenges, I argue there are also immense opportunities for teachers responsible for introductory teaching groups as they work in the 'front line' when educating this student group; they possess rich experiences and are highly knowledgeable in educating newly arrived students (Wigg & Erlin, 2021). The current chapter illustrates stories of ethical decision-making based on innovative pedagogical approaches when including students from different backgrounds in an introductory teaching group in a Norwegian lower-secondary school. Although there are several studies on educating newly arrived students (e.g. Catarci, 2014; Pastoor, 2015; Wigg & Erlin, 2021), we know less about how school leaders and teachers make ethical decisions in situations of uncertainty when working with this student group. Thus, this chapter aims to provide insight into school leaders and teachers' ethical decision-making in emerging situations characterized by high levels of uncertainty when educating newly arrived students. More broadly, the aim is also to contribute to the knowledge base on how school professionals' face uncertain situations in introductory teaching groups. Three research questions are addressed: 1) What characterize school leaders' ethical decision-making in situations of uncertainty when educating newly arrived students? 2) What challenges and opportunities emerge in including all newly arrived students in a special introductory class? 3) What contextual factors enable and constrain ethical decision-making? Methodologically, the chapter draws on empirical data from a Ph.D.-project that was completed in spring 2022 (Larsen, 2022), which consists of interviews with a principal and two teachers granted special responsibility for an introductory teaching group ("mottaksklasse") in a Norwegian lower-secondary school. Theories on democratic leadership (Woods, 2004), ethical decision-making (Birmingham, 2004; Smith & Riley, 2012) and different forms of professionalism (Anderson & Cohen, 2018; Green, 2011) serve as the overarching framework for analysis.
References
Anderson, G., & Cohen, M. I. (2018). The new democratic professional in education. Teachers' College Press. Birmingham, C. (2004). Phronesis: A Model for Pedagogical Reflection. Journal of Teacher Education, 55(4), 313–324. Catarci, M. (2014). Intercultural education in the European context: key remarks from a comparative study. Intercultural Education, 25(2), 95–104. Green, J. (2011). Education, professionalism, and the quest for accountability: Hitting the target but missing the point. Routledge. Larsen, E. (2022). Leading Education for Democracy in an Age of Accountability -Contextual changes and tensions in the case of Norway [Ph.D.]. University of Oslo. Pastoor, L. D. W. (2015). The mediational role of schools in supporting psychosocial transitions among unaccompanied young refugees upon resettlement in Norway. International Journal of Educational Development, 41, 245–254. Smith, L., & Riley, D. (2012). School leadership in times of crisis. School Leadership & Management, 32(1), 57–71. Wigg, U. J., & Ehrlin, A. (2021). Liminal spaces and places – Dilemmas in education for newly arrived students. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 2, 100078. Woods, P. (2004). Democratic leadership: drawing distinctions with distributed leadership. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 7(1), 3-26.
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