As the number of multilingual students continues to increase worldwide, the role of languages in learning is taking center stage in education. Studies have shown a significant gap in learning outcomes between students with a migration background and majority-language speakers in many OECD countries (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), including Finland (Hiltunen et al., 2023). Students with a migration background often face a range of educational obstacles, including learning gaps, challenges in transitions, and lower educational attainment compared with the majority peers (Borgna, 2017). Thus, it is of utmost importance to find sustainable solutions to improve the learning outcomes of students with a migrant background.

Learning a new language takes time, and attaining academic language proficiency may take up to five to seven years (Cummins, 2021). In today’s linguistically diverse schools, we must look beyond traditional language teaching to gain a deeper understanding of the role languages play in all learning. Teachers play a significant role in making instruction comprehensible for their students. According to theoretical understanding, teaching language and content simultaneously is necessary in order to help students understand and produce language in the ways it is used in different subjects (Schleppegrell et al., 2004). Thus, the Finnish national core curriculum for basic education (Finnish National Agency for Education [EDUFI], 2014) requires language aware pedagogies from all teachers, which, for instance, leads to integrating language and content in teaching. According to our previous studies, this requirement falls under the theoretical framework of linguistically responsive pedagogy (Alisaari et al., 2019; Heikkola et al., 2022; Lucas & Villegas, 2013). The core curriculum (EDUFI, 2014) also encourages teachers to use their students’ all linguistic resources for learning, namely, use multilingual pedagogies in teaching.

Although the curriculum for basic education (EDUFI, 2014) requires linguistically responsive pedagogy and multilingual pedagogies from all teachers, there are studies indicating that Finnish teachers have not been sufficiently aware of how to teach multilingual learners, especially before the requirement came into force in 2016. For example, teachers were not aware of the role of language in learning subject content nor language dimensions, i.e. the ways language varies between everyday language, academic language and subject specific language (Alisaari & Heikkola, 2020). Studies from many other countries indicate that globally, teachers’ competencies in supporting multilingual learners are still developing (e.g. Agirdag et al., 2014; Iversen, 2019; Rodríguez-Izquierdo et al., 2020). However, more recent studies are needed to indicate what is the current state of Finnish teachers’ linguistically responsive knowledge. This study focuses on what kind of linguistically responsive knowledge do Finnish teachers have after the curriculum reform.

The data were collected in autumn 2021 using an online survey that included both Likert scale items and open-ended questions. The survey was developed based on a survey that we used in 2016 for a similar purpose. The link to the survey and a cover letter were sent by the Ministry of Culture and Education to all local education offices in Finland since it was part of a larger investigation of Finnish- and Swedish-as-a-second-language teaching in Finland. The school districts were asked to forward the survey to teachers working in basic and upper secondary education. In addition, the survey was advertised through social media. Information about the study, its purpose, and the protection of the data were included in the cover letter and on the first page of the online survey. Participants were informed that filling out the survey implied their consent to participate in the study. It was not possible to calculate a participation percentage, as the number of people who received or saw the survey link is unknown. A total of 1,035 teachers participated in the survey, 63% of which (n = 650) answered the open-ended questions. 72% identified as female, 17% as male, and 1% as other, and the mean age was 48. The gender and age structures correspond well with the Finnish teacher population (Kumpulainen, 2017). Finnish was the first language of 92.7%, Swedish of 5.8%, and 1.5% had other first languages. The respondents included primary school teachers (30%), subject teachers from lower and upper secondary schools (46.5%), special education teachers (15.9%), principals (3.2%) and study counsellors (1.9%) and others (2.5%), such as preparatory class teachers and supplemental teachers. All the aforementioned groups have teaching responsibilities in Finland. The data were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively: In analysing Likert-questions, we used statistical analysis, such as frequencies and factor analysis. For open ended questions, we used qualitative data-driven content analysis (Krippendorf, 2012). The participants’ background factors and their relation to the results of other analysis were investigated by using Cross tabs, Khi square tests, Cramér’s V and z-tests.

The preliminary analysis of the data indicates that there has been some positive development in Finnish teachers’ linguistically responsive knowledge after the curriculum reform. However, there are still many areas that need more attention and require improvement by the means of professional development. These will be discussed in more details during the presentation. Four different teacher profiles were identified from the data: 1) teachers that are aware of language learning, 2) teachers that take responsibility of language support, 3) teachers that encourage students to take more active role of their learning and 4) teachers that seek support from other teachers. Teachers’ reported linguistically responsive pedagogy differed remarkably between these four teacher profiles. Teachers’ background factors (e.g. their teaching area, training, teaching experience and the number of immigrant students in their schools) affected teachers’ knowledge and reported linguistically responsive pedagogy. More detailed analysis will be presented in the presentation. This study is relevant in the European context since linguistically responsive pedagogy is recommended in many countries as the European Commission recognizes it as one of the pedagogical approaches to be used in European schools. The results of this study bring valuable information on, e.g. what kind of understandings teachers have on linguistically responsive pedagogy and which teacher groups would benefit the most of professional training, or a more comprehensive change in teacher education.

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