Abstract: This thesis wishes to challenge the predominant Danish understanding of the concept integration within the context of the Danish primary school (‘folkeskole’). By focusing on how teacher-ethnicities are constructed in relation to their daily work with children, parents and each other as colleagues, the thesis aims to contribute to a culturally more inclusive primary school and thereby a more socially equal society. The research question is: How are teacher-ethnicities constructed within a multicultural Danish primary school? - and how do these teacher-ethnicities affect cultural inclusion within the school? The thesis looks into the understanding of cultural diversity within the Danish primary school, and finds the school multicultural but dominated by a monoculturalist pedagogy with the same ideal as the over all understanding of cultural diversity within Danish society that is: to assimilate different cultural communities into Danish mainstream culture. Denmark is a multicultural society but with historically relatively little experience regarding the inclusion of ethnic minorities and as a result the concepts to grasp this new diversity are few. The main concept used is ‘integration’ that usually reflects the predominant monoculturalism. In order to find more inclusive perspectives on cultural diversity and ethnic identity the thesis looks to a British and North-American context where the historical experience with ethnic minorities are greater and the theorising of cultural diversity more developed and discussed. There multiculturalism is a central term in the pedagogical discussions, signifying an ideal of welcoming and cherishing cultural diversity and making it central to the self-understanding of society. Thus the thesis explores the British historical development in predominant pedagogical discourses on the multicultural – from monoculturalism’s deficit-view on minority cultures, to plural integration’s problem-perspective, to multiculturalism’s appreciative understanding, to anti-racism’s critical focus on the majority culture and its (educational) institutions – and finds a new and useful normative and theoretical standpoint: Critical Multiculturalism. Critical multiculturalism draws upon a critical pedagogical understanding of the educational system as a societal space of both cultural reproduction as well as change towards greater social justice; in the sense that it is seen as a space of identity-production and processes of both in- and exclusion of different cultural groups within society. Furthermore it has an anti-essentialist and identity political understanding of its two central concepts: ‘cultural identity’ and ‘racism’. And within a globalised world it aims for contributing to generally more inclusive societies within the frame of the traditionally monoculturalist nation-states – amongst other things by marking and naming dominant national ethnicities. From this critical multiculturalist standpoint the thesis goes on to theorising the key concept of the research question: ethnic identity or ethnicity – in a social constructivist and discourse psychological perspective. On this ground it formulates the concepts for analysing the construction of teacher-ethnicities. This dynamic understanding of ethnicity also forms the methodological basis of the thesis’ production of empirical data. Thus it uses a qualitative free association narrative interview method letting the teachers define their own individual understanding of ethnicity and its meaning within their daily work in the school. The field work takes place in one of the few schools in Denmark that has several minority teachers employed, and thus has an explicit multicultural self-understanding. This – in a Danish context – pioneering school was chosen to get an understanding of how minority teachers can help strengthening the processes of cultural inclusion within the school. Interviews with five minority and five majority teachers form the basis of the thesis’ analysis. Despite the school’s explicit multicultural self-understanding, the analysis shows cultural marginalisation of minority teachers, and thereby a reproduction of the predominant monoculture. The majority teachers construct different inferior minority-teacher-identities by essentialising and othering different minority cultures: Firstly, the othering and essentialisation of a minority school culture as authoritarian and violent is used to create a stereotype of an angry and violent authoritarian male minority teacher who has no other way to discipline the pupils than violence, and because this is forbidden he is assumed to be a powerless authority. Likewise a stereotype of an oppressed and weak female minority teacher is created as incapable of gaining respect neither from pupils, parents or teacher-colleagues because she is regarded a passive victim of this authoritarian minority school culture. Secondly, the othering and essentialisation of a minority religious culture (Islam) as totalitarian is used to create a stereotype of a female minority teacher who is sexually oppressed, symbolised by the coverage of her body, especially by the muslim head scarf. She is regarded as incapable of stepping out of this culture and therefore potentially passing on its sexual oppression to minority-girls, unless she clearly distances herself from this culture. Thirdly, the othering and essentialisation of a more general minority origin, language and culture as backward is used to create a stereotype of a minority teacher who lacks both language and culture, and therefore is less capable of cultivating the pupils. This is especially seen as symbolised by speaking Danish with a minority accent. Fourthly, minority teachers who use a minority language when teaching are connected with having no education, which is used to develop the stereotype of minority teachers as backward and to exclude them from the teacher-category as such. According to the majority teachers’ construction of these inferior minority identities it is possible for minority teachers to step out of the positions, but only if they disclaim these different minority cultures: either by not having a school experience in a minority country as a child, by distancing themselves from Islam, by speaking Danish fluently with no accent, or by not using their minority language while teaching. The analysis also shows how this construction of inferior minority teacher identities is dependent on the majority teachers’ un-marking and un-naming of their own ethnicities as normative non-ethnic identities that the minority teachers deviate from because of what is marked as their ethnic cultures. They implicitly construct superior majority-teacher-identities as if they are non-ethnic and thereby individually determined instead of the collective determination they put into the minority-cultures. Thus the majority teachers construct themselves as: human male teachers who do not need to use violence because they are individuals and not determined by an ethnic school culture; independent female teachers who gains the respect of pupils because they have developed an own personality instead of being determined by an ethnic school culture; sexually emancipated individuals because of a secular/non-religious Christian culture that puts the individual higher than religion; fully and highly cultivated individuals because of a culture that focuses on developing the individual (symbolised by middleclass culture); and undoubtedly as teachers because of an assumption of education no matter what. In this way the different majority cultures – a Danish school experience, a Christian religious culture, a Danish origin, language and (middle class) culture, teaching by only using the Danish language – are normalised and made the dominant norm instead of being understood as cultures. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the minority teachers, in trying to step into a position as legitimate teachers and become accepted, reproduce the hierarchy between minority and majority cultures. Thus they distance themselves from the different minority cultures - both in relation to themselves, each other, pupils and parents - and thereby presence in the school does not seem to create a greater cultural inclusion, but instead a reproduction of the dominant monoculturalism. The thesis goes on to discussing the analysis in a critical methodological perspective challenging its narrow focus on cultural/social reproduction, that overlooks the minority teachers’ ways of resisting and challenging the dominant monoculture by creating new ethnicities transgressing the dichotomization between majority and minority cultures. And it finishes with a discussion on how the school with such a focus on its everyday work could become more aware of how minority teachers actually contribute to a greater cultural inclusion of different minority cultures. Thus the thesis suggests that the school, teachers and administration together decide on becoming more aware of how greater cultural inclusion actually is created within the teachers’ and the school’s everyday lives – and suggest a co-operation with researchers who can take part in and qualify this development within a critical multicultural perspective.
Processing Request
No Comments.