The inclusion of minority language students (MLSs) has become a significant aim of Norwegian educational reforms since the 1970s (Vislie, 2003). Nevertheless, educational research indicates that recent Norwegian educational policy documents on inclusion still embed unresolved normative tensions and employ “technocratic” – or “efficiency-oriented” – narratives (Rompianesi & Hilt, in review). Not surprisingly, Norwegian teachers appear to have ambiguous representations of inclusion and cultural diversity (Burner et al., 2018) and may employ diverse and not always coherent inclusive practices (Andresen, 2020). Thus, this paper aims to investigate how Norwegian upper secondary school teachers narratively construct the inclusion process of MLSs and to discuss the analytical results within the context of Norwegian inclusion policies. The theoretical framework of this study is based on Bruner’s socio-constructivist perspective and narrative theory (Bruner, 1996, 2004). In this work, public and life narratives are understood “as a mode of thinking, as a structure for organizing our knowledge” (Bruner, 1996, p. 119), and thus as one of the ways we make sense of reality and our own experiences. Since public and life narratives are formed in a shared symbolic space, where knowledge is constructed through interactions with others, narrative research is an appropriate approach “to capture something of the multiple realities and visions which contribute to the realization and enactment of inclusion” (Lawson et al., 2006, p. 65). The study employs qualitative research methodology and methods. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews have been conducted with eight Norwegian upper secondary school teachers. The informants, selected through purposive sampling (Cohen et al., 2018), worked in multicultural classrooms and were from three different schools in the same municipality in Norway. In the first phase, the informants’ narratives will be analyzed using narrative content analysis with an inductive approach (Riessman, 2008). In the second phase, the themes and contents of the narratives will be discussed within the context of Norwegian inclusion policy narratives, as investigated by Rompianesi & Hilt (in review), to identify common patterns, differences, and similarities. The results are expected to provide new insights into how teachers make sense of educational inclusion and how they narratively construct the inclusion process of MLSs. The analysis will also offer new perspectives on how teachers navigate the tensions and paradoxes inherent in policy narratives on inclusion. A deeper understanding of the connections between policy and life narratives on inclusion will contribute to generating new insights valuable for teacher training and policymakers.

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