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Multicultural Educational Research Research seminar at Gardermoen November 13th 2000 |
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Joron Pihl Oslo University College, Department of Teacher Education, Oslo, January, 2001 |
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division for Culture and Society
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| The initiative
committee of the network invited to a research seminar at Gardermoen
outside Oslo in November 13th 2000. The topic for the seminar was "The
state of the art" within multicultural educational research in the Nordic
countries. Twelve members from the initiative committee: Anton Hoem, Christian
Horst, Asle Høgmo, Jan-Erik Johansson, Pirjo Lahdenperä, Elina
Lahelma, Kaija Matinheikki-Kokko, Bolette Moldenhawer, Joron Pihl, Annick
Sjögren, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Mekonnen Tesfahuney, Sissel Østberg.
Also one PhD student participated, Lutine Pastoor. Their addresses
are available here.
Representatives from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden made presentations, and outlined major characteristics within the field in each country. This illuminated differences as well as similarities. Research in Denmark has focused on the influence of immigration on education. There has been an emphasis on evaluation of education and teacher practice. Elementary education is decentralised to a considerable extent. This policy is gradually being criticised, because one effect of "free choice" is "white schools." In Finland, the ideology of appropriate education for ethnic minorities has been in the focus of analyses on educational policies, curricula and educational philosophies. Finnish educational policies have also been compared with five other European countries: Germany, Greece, Israel and the UK. Although Finland has always been a country of many cultures, strict policies have limited immigration until the 1990s when refugees from Somalia and Vietnam and immigrants from the former Soviet Union have increased the proposition of foreigners. Multicultural classrooms are, then, new challenges for Finnish teachers, educational authorities and researchers. There is a tradition of research on bilingualism in relation to the Swedish speaking minority, and educational policies, curricula and educational philosophies have been analysed. Empirical research on processes of inclusion/exclusion, racism and educational experiences of immigrant youth is emerging, partly supported by the 3-year research program of the Academy of Finland ‘Marginalisation, inequality and ethnic relations'. In Norway multicultural educational research has been developed in relation to Sami children on the one hand, and children with an immigrant background on the other. In relation to the latter, research focused initially on how the immigration process influenced processes of learning and teaching. Bilingualism has been a major research focus, as well as studies of ethnic identity development and socialisation and integration processes. The lack of transfer of knowledge between research concerning education of Sami children and children with an immigrant background is a striking in Norway. The fact that ethnic minorities with immigrant background have no official status as ethnic minorities in Norway structures the development of educational policy towards these pupils. Research in Sweden has focused on bilingualism and the development of intercultural pedagogy. Over the past 30 years there has been a development from an ideology of "generous multiculturalism" at policy level, towards a "selective multiculturalism" which applies to specific ethnic groups. Multiculturalism is increasingly being defined as a threat to the unity of the nation. Drop out in suburbs with a concentration of ethnic minority children is high, and frustration among youth is increasing. The discussion at the seminar illustrated the conflicts within the educational field, represented by educational policy on the one hand, and multicultural research on the other. The political situation was more favourable to multicultural educational development in the 1980’s than in the 1990’s in several of the Nordic countries. Policy makers to a considerable extent disregard multicultural educational research findings. Multicultural educational research has low priority within educational research in general, and within the institutions which provide research grants. This was a common concern among the participants, and illustrated similarities between the situation in the Nordic countries. The participants welcomed the Nordic Network for Multicultural Educational Research (NNMER) as an important forum for theoretical discussions and development and Nordic co-operation in this situation. The initiative committee discussed the multicultural symposium at the Nordic Educational Research Association, NERA, in Stockholm 15 – 18 March 2001. Some of the topics suggested for the symposium were inclusion and exclusion in relation to diversity and the development of the Pre School and school and religious education in a multicultural context. The leaders of the network (Pihl and Johansson) will prepare the symposium and find keynote speakers to the opening sessions at the symposium. They have also invited the participants at the Gardermoen seminar to publish papers from the seminar in a seminar report. The NNMER network provides researchers within the Nordic countries with the opportunity to meet and develop the multicultural educational research and discourse related to the educational system in the Nordic countries. The participants agreed that this is important. The participants underlined that the further development of the network will depend on how strongly the researchers within multicultural educational research participate in the development of research co-operation and network development. |