In recent years, the rise of antiracist movements globally has prompted deep reflection on the dynamics of race, power, and social justice in diverse contexts. Finland, with its unique historical and social backdrop, presents an interesting case study. According to the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (2023), racism in Finland is a serious issue. Racism is often recognised and discussed on an individual level as a part of a personal belief system or attitudes but not recognised as systemic processes where racialization and whiteness are embedded in the education systems in Finland (Kurki, 2019), and across Europe (Fylkesnes, 2019; Monteiro, 2024; Tate & Page, 2018). Finnish teacher education and the professionalisation of teachers have been praised globally. However, scholars have noted that Finnish multicultural education at schools has laid the foundation for categorising racialised children and youth as immigrants or Finnish as second language speakers despite their language or nationality (Layne, 2016, 2021; Paavola & Pesonen, 2021; Rissanen et al. 2023). In a similar manner, racism as a structural issue (Keskinen, Seikkula & Mkwesha, 2021) and part of the everyday experiences in school practices (Peltola & Phoenix, 2022; Souto, 2013) and whiteness continues to be the norm in higher education (Souto & Leppänen, 2024), including teacher education. Antiracism education has been extremely limited in Finland, especially in teacher education (Aminkeng Atabong & Seikkula, 2018), so it is crucial to understand how student teachers view racism and antiracism, and how it is part of their everyday experiences. Beyond antiracism pedagogy, curricula that recognise Finnish/Euro/Western centrism is paramount. This paper presents results from a research project on antiracism pedagogy in teacher education that has been conducted in four Finnish universities. 

The research applies critical social sciences approach to identify themes of antiracism in teacher education curricula in four universities in Finland, with reference to similar studies in teacher education in Europe (e.g. Fylkesnes, 2019; Monteiro, 2024; Tate & Page, 2018). Student teachers' understanding and experiences of racism is studied using a survey with closed and open questions that was collaboratively designed by the team of teacher educators/researchers from the participating universities and based on a pilot questionnaire used in one of the universities. The data includes teacher education curricula and student teachers’ survey responses (N=88) from the participating universities. The data were analysed using applied segmented thematic analysis (Guest, MacQueen & Namey, 2012).

The results indicate that student teachers recognize the existence of racism but can only largely observe it as outsiders without noticing the majority (white) privilege and the structural racism that exists in education. This raises a concern over the gap between teacher education and the reality in schools. Moreover, the results suggest means to tackle racism are necessary and emphasize the importance of including antiracism pedagogies in teacher education. Interpreting our findings in the light of previous research from other European contexts, antiracism in teacher education requires creating spaces for critical border-thinking (Windle & Afonso, 2022), active reflection and working on (un)conscious biases with student teachers (Tate & Page, 2018), addressing micro-aggressions (Pérez Huber & Solorzano, 2014), and moreover, and making teacher educators responsible for transforming teacher education (Fylkesnes & Mayora Synnes, 2025).

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