RLE-lærere som bibellesere

This is an article originally published in Prismet.In this article I present and discuss the findings from an empirical study on RE teachers as readers and interpreters of religious narratives, in this particular case, the biblical parable The Prodigal Son. I explore and describe the role of the RE teachers and the role of this particular text, and most importantly, the transaction between the two in the process of meaning-making (Rosenblatt, 1994). The main purpose is to expose the complexity in meaning-making processes and from that basis discuss what could be the implications for engaging in religious narratives, and also subject matters in general, in school and in teacher education

Juleavslutninger i skolen - et inkluderende fellesarrangement?

I denne artikkelen rapporteres det fra en kvalitativ studie om juleavslutninger ved en norsk barneskole. Basert på observasjoner og lærerintervjuer undersøker den hvordan juleavslutninger foregår og hvilke refleksjoner de ansvarlige lærerne har om deres betydning og rolle som fellesarrangement. Observasjonene viser at arrangementet involverer alle elevene, og lærerintervjuene gjenspeiler en utelukkende positiv lærergruppe. Men til tross for full elevdeltakelse og lærernes opplevelse av juleavslutningen som viktig felleskapsarena, viser dataene at det er verdt å rette også et kritisk blikk på arrangementet. I et inkluderingsperspektiv vil vi fremheve to funn: 1. Assimilerende praksis. 2. Humorpreget formidling av religiøst innhold. Artikkelen diskuterer til slutt hvilken betydning disse funnene har for oppfatningen av skolens juleavslutning som inkluderende fellesarrangement.publishedVersio

Multicultural School Festival as a Creative Space for Identity Construction – From a Minority Parent Perspective

acceptedVersio

Multicultural school festivals as a creative space for identity construction – the perspective of minority parents

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any wayIn this article, we explore how minority parents construct and promote cultural identities through a multicultural school event in Norway. Such events respond to the call for diverse and inclusive initiatives to facilitate learning, belonging, and cohesion in schools. Interestingly, while schools see these events as helping further inclusion, prior research on the subject has criticized such events for promoting essentialist understandings of cultural identities, hence regarding them as counterproductive to the aim of promoting inclusion. This research has directed scarce attention to the participant perspective, among them minority parents. Using the stall of the Kurdish parents as an example, we conducted fieldwork applying the method of Linguistic Landscaping. In addition, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the parents asking questions about the festival and the meaning of the displayed representations in their stall. The findings indicate that the Kurdish parents involved view the event as an important space for creative construction of transnational and diasporic identities, as well as an opportunity for a minority group to strive for acceptance for its cause. We end the article by reflecting on the pedagogical potential in multicultural school events as tools for creating inclusive school practices.publishedVersio

Young people’s experiences and meaning-making at a multicultural festival in Norway

© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.This article explores young people’s experiences and meaning-making at a multicultural festival. Multicultural festivals aim to promote inclusion and challenge problem-oriented discourses in current debates on diversity and migration. Listening to youth voices from such a festival gives a sense of how young participants perceive representations of cultural difference, and how they relate these representations to their own identity and sense of belonging. The participants in our study are 86 young people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds between the ages of 12 and 20. They recorded answers to our questions about what they did at the festival as well as the memories that participation evokes using a specially developed app. Interpreting the broad spectrum of their reflections in the light of theories about intercultural learning and citizenship, we found that the young people were eager to learn about the Other by experiencing cultural differences and engaging with traditions different to their own. In addition, they experienced the festival as an inclusive space, open for transnational identities, and evoking a sense of safety and belonging. We conclude by arguing that the young participants take with them experiences and memories of diversity as the norm rather than the exception.publishedVersio

RLE-lærere som bibellesere

In this article I present and discuss the findings from an empirical study on RE teachers as readers and interpreters of religious narratives, in this particular case, the biblical parable The Prodigal Son. I explore and describe the role of the RE teachers and the role of this particular text, and most importantly, the transaction between the two in the process of meaning-making (Rosenblatt, 1994). The main purpose is to expose the complexity in meaning-making processes and from that basis discuss what could be the implications for engaging in religious narratives, and also subject matters in general, in school and in teacher education

Juleavslutninger i skolen - et inkluderende fellesarrangement?

I denne artikkelen rapporteres det fra en kvalitativ studie om juleavslutninger ved en norsk barneskole. Basert på observasjoner og lærerintervjuer undersøker den hvordan juleavslutninger foregår og hvilke refleksjoner de ansvarlige lærerne har om deres betydning og rolle som fellesarrangement. Observasjonene viser at arrangementet involverer alle elevene, og lærerintervjuene gjenspeiler en utelukkende positiv lærergruppe. Men til tross for full elevdeltakelse og lærernes opplevelse av juleavslutningen som viktig felleskapsarena, viser dataene at det er verdt å rette også et kritisk blikk på arrangementet. I et inkluderingsperspektiv vil vi fremheve to funn: 1. Assimilerende praksis. 2. Humorpreget formidling av religiøst innhold. Artikkelen diskuterer til slutt hvilken betydning disse funnene har for oppfatningen av skolens juleavslutning som inkluderende fellesarrangement

Multicultural school festivals as a creative space for identity construction – the perspective of minority parents

In this article, we explore how minority parents construct and promote cultural identities through a multicultural school event in Norway. Such events respond to the call for diverse and inclusive initiatives to facilitate learning, belonging, and cohesion in schools. Interestingly, while schools see these events as helping further inclusion, prior research on the subject has criticized such events for promoting essentialist understandings of cultural identities, hence regarding them as counterproductive to the aim of promoting inclusion. This research has directed scarce attention to the participant perspective, among them minority parents. Using the stall of the Kurdish parents as an example, we conducted fieldwork applying the method of Linguistic Landscaping. In addition, we conducted semi-structured interviews with the parents asking questions about the festival and the meaning of the displayed representations in their stall. The findings indicate that the Kurdish parents involved view the event as an important space for creative construction of transnational and diasporic identities, as well as an opportunity for a minority group to strive for acceptance for its cause. We end the article by reflecting on the pedagogical potential in multicultural school events as tools for creating inclusive school practices