Participatory photography: Language minority teenagers’ sense of belonging?

Peer reviewe

Justice through education in the Nordic countries: critical issues and perspectives

Non peer reviewe

Language crashes and shifting orientations : the construction and negotiation of linguistic value in bilingual school spaces in Finland and Sweden

This article analyses the construction of linguistic value and recognition of linguistic resources in educational spaces in Finland, where Swedish is the second national language and in Sweden, where Finnish is one of five official minority languages. Drawing on ethnographic methods, critically informed notions of language policy and spatial theorisation, we argue that linguistic hierarchies created through language and education policies manifest themselves in the discursive construction of linguistic value in the everyday educational spaces. In Finland, the strong societal and political status of Swedish and the monolingual school institutions enable the recognition of language as a right and a resource but potentially present linguistic diversity as a problem within those spaces. In Sweden, the historical traces of a problem orientation towards Finnish language remain, despite the aimed improvements in educational language rights and the shifting orientation on Finnish being recognised as a resource in the market-oriented educational system. Pupils in both countries mostly considered language as a communicative resource in their everyday social spaces but the negotiation of the societal value of language and bilingualism was rather controversial. Discussing linguistic disadvantage in relation to educational spaces will bring new perspectives to language and minority policies in linguistically diverse societies.Peer reviewe

Constructing threats and a need for control: textbook descriptions of a growing, moving world population

Peer reviewe

Migrant stay-at-home mothers learning to eat and live the Finnish way

Peer reviewe

Multicultural education as policy and praxis in Finland: Heading in a problematic direction?

Peer reviewe

Intercultural education in transition : Nordic perspectives

Over the last several decades intercultural education has played a key role in many educational policies and practices, both across the Nordic countries and internationally. In this article we examine current conceptual discourses on intercultural education with an emphasis on developments in the Nordic research context. The analysis shows how the concept of intercultural education and its focus on “culture” has been criticised in the Nordic countries and internationally for the pitfalls of essentialism and relativism. This criticism is linked to a perceived lack of focus on power issues in education, which undermines the development of a social justice-orientated intercultural education. However, the analysis within the Nordic research context shows signs of re-conceptualisations, which includes a widening of the field and the emergence of new and more critically-orientated approaches.Peer reviewe

Anxious girls and laid-back boys : teachers' and study counsellors' gendered perceptions of students

Efforts to reach gender equality in education in Finland have been extensive. Both teacher education and policy documents for schools have focused on gender equality and gender-neutral treatment of students. The aim of this study is to explore if and how these efforts are manifested in upper secondary school teachers' and study counsellors' perceptions of students' self-belief, academic emotions, study habits and behaviour at school. Twenty-three interviews were conducted and analysed qualitatively through inductive content analysis. The results revealed that teachers and study counsellors perceive that girls' low self-belief and high achievement expectations affected their academic performance, while boys' insecurity or need for support was rarely mentioned. The teachers ascribed the students several gender-stereotypical attributes: girls were perceived as diligent and hard-working while boys were perceived as being indifferent towards school and achievements. The implications of these results for students' self-belief and for teacher education are discussed.Peer reviewe

Participatory Photography: Language Minority Teenagers’ Sense Of Belonging?

This article discusses the different ways of using photography as a research method in social sciences, especially how using participatory photography with young people and children is explored. The advantages of making teenagers and children co-researchers as well as some of the issues that emerge, like lack of control over the data collection and ethical issues, are examined. A case study on language minority teenagers’ identifications with and sense of belonging to the language minority group is offered as an example of participatory photography. The interplay between the photographs and the texts produced by the teenagers exemplify the necessity of using several kinds of data instead of only photographs.171211-22