Teachers’ Perceptions and Experiences of Working with Linguistically Diverse Student Groups

Author(s):

Gunilla Holm(presenting / submitting)Monica Londen Jan-Erik Mansikka

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

07 SES 05 A, Intercultural Education and Schoolculture

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-19

11:00-12:30

Room:

ESI 3 - Aula 4

Chair:

Dana Moree

Contribution

This paper is based on a multi-sited ethnographic study of four Swedish-speaking junior high schools in the predominantly Finnish-speaking metropolitan Helsinki region. The schools are minority Swedish-speaking schools but the majority of the students come from Finnish-Swedish bilingual homes. The schools’ task is to support and develop the Swedish language but also the Swedish cultural heritage in Finland. The school’s task is thus very difficult since it should according to the national curriculum focus on the Swedish language and culture even though most of the students are bilingual and bicultural. Is what is considered a Swedish identity and community being redefined because of who the students are or is the school ignoring who the students are? Our focus in this paper is on how the teachers view the role of their own minority language and the Swedish-speaking schools in working with students who are either Swedish-Finnish bilingual and bicultural or monolingual Swedish.

Our theoretical starting-points are framed by the discourse on critical multicultural education. According to critical multicultural education, teaching in culturally diverse classrooms requires that teachers who have only taught in homogenous settings rethink their own work and position. A curriculum based, for example, entirely on the majority culture is usually problematic for the minority students and contribute to the achievement gap that commonly exists between majority and minority students. Likewise, teachers learning about families and communities from their students as well as affirming the students’ families and communities constitute crucial support for students (Ladson-Billings, 1994; Cummins, 2000; Moll & Gonzalez, 1997). Hence, in our case the questions becomes how teachers can support the bilingual and bicultural students or if the Swedish cultural discourse dominates in school to the extent that teachers fail to validate the bilingual and bicultural students, their families and communities.

With regard to the teacher-interviews we focus on the following three themes:

(a) What role can the school have in creating a sense of belonging in a cultural/language minority setting for all students – in this case monolingual Swedish students, immigrant students or students from Finnish-only homes?

(b) What role should the school have in supporting the Finland-Swedish culture and the Swedish language?

(c) How are the two language cultures visible in the everyday work of the teacher and how is the teacher navigating between the two languages (Swedish and Finnish) spoken in school?

Method

For this multi-sited ethnography (refer to Lahelma etc.) four Swedish-speaking junior secondary schools were chosen. They are all located in predominantly Finnish speaking areas but the schools vary from a school where the majority of the students come from Swedish-only families to schools where well over two thirds of the students come from bilingual homes and where about seven percent speak only Finnish at home. We conducted participant observations during the fall semester and did altogether 93 interviews with teachers and students in the winter and spring. Our findings discussed here are mostly based on the 31 interviews with teachers. In the study we also used over 400 photographs taken by students and student diaries with a small group of students as data. The data are analyzed separately for each school and then for all schools, teachers and students together. Some basic categorizations are used, but mostly we are relying on an interpretive analysis of the data.

Expected Outcomes

Our findings indicate that the schools and teachers acknowledge that a large proportion of the students are bilingual and bicultural but that they do not support and foster the students’ bilingualism and biculturalism because it is not the school’s mission. The school’s official mission is to support the Swedish language and culture. The Swedish-Finnish bilingualism is not always seen as an asset in the school context but as a problem, or at least a potential problem, that requires extra work because many of the students have relatively weak Swedish skills. This is especially the case for the students who speak only or mostly Finnish at home (Harju-Luukkainen & Nissinen, 2012). In light of other research on language support and school achievement an interesting question emerges, would the bilingual and especially those with mostly Finnish at home perform better if their bilingualism and biculturalism would be considered an asset in school and brought forth and supported in school? Even though this paper is focused on particular language situations in Finland, the issues and results are relevant for other countries with minority language schools as well.

References

Cummins, Jim. 2000. Language, power and pedagogy. Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. Great Britain: Cambrian Printers. Harju-Luukkainen, Heidi & Kari Nissinen. (2012). Ruotsinkielisen koulun suomen kieltä kotonaan puhuvat oppilaat. In S. Sulkunen & J. Välijärvi (Eds.) Kestääkö osaamisen pohja? National Board of Education. Ladson-Billings G. 1994. The Dreamkeepers. Succesful Teachers of African American Children. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass Publischers. Liebkind, Karmela, Mia Teräsaho & Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti, 2006. Upplevelser av hot mot den finlandssvenska identiteten – orsak till identitetsförstärkande stategier? I Karmela Liebkind & Tom Sandlund (red.) Räcker det med svenskan? Om finlandssvenskarnas anknytning till sina organisationer. Skrifter utgivna av Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. Nr 684, s.89-122. Moll, L. C., and N. Gonzalez. 1997. Teachers as social scientists: Learning about culture from household research. In Race, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism Vol 1, ed. P. M. Hall, 89-114. New York: Utbildningsstyrelsen, 2004. Grunderna för läroplanen för den grundläggande utbildningen. www.oph.fi

Author Information

Gunilla Holm (presenting / submitting)

University of Helsinki

Faculty of Behavioural Sciences

University of Helsinki

Monica Londen

University of Helsinki, Finland

Jan-Erik Mansikka