Education without a shared language: dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in Norwegian introductory classes for newly arrived minority language students

ABSTRACT

Based upon fieldwork in two upper secondary schools in Norway, this article offers an analysis of inclusion and exclusion processes for newly arrived minority language students. Minority language students are defined by policy as students who have a different mother tongue than the Norwegian and Sami languages, and students who are newly arrived in Norway are considered especially at risk for marginalisation. This article explores processes of inclusion and exclusion in two schools with segregated classes for this group, called introductory classes. The analytical framework is Niklas Luhmann’s theory of autopoietic social systems, where inclusion is defined as the requirements for participation set by a system, and exclusion accordingly as being unable to meet these requirements. The article displays different constellations of inclusions and exclusions for newly arrived students in the educational system: in school organisations, organisation-based interactions and informal networks of students. It will be showed that introductory classes erect several barriers towards newly arrived students’ inclusion, especially towards those students who are placed at the basic level of the schools’ hierarchy of performances. As a consequence of multiple educational exclusions, informal networks emerge as alternative socialities that include and exclude students on the basis of mother tongue.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• immigrant students
• minority language
• systems theory
• exclusion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Line Torbjørnsen Hilt has recently received her Ph.D. from Department of Education, Faculty of Psychology, University of Bergen. This article is a part of her Ph.D. thesis. She now works as Associate Professor at NLA University College, and as Associate Professor II at University of Bergen.

Notes

1. In Norwegian, the term elev, translated as ‘pupil’, is also used for students in upper secondary school.

2. The classes are categorised differently in the different regions of Norway, but will be called ‘introductory classes’ in this article.

3. The topics that were indicated in interviews with teacher were: communication, understanding, languages, organisation, differentiation, competencies and available resources, use and sanctioning of mother tongue languages, student- and teacher-roles, descriptions of newly arrived students, for example school-background and academic differences. For the interviews with students, the following topics were indicated: communication, understanding, languages, school-background, contentment, friendship and inclusion in networks of students, educational expectations and differences between schools in Norway and in home countries.

4. I used the following codes: ‘organisation’, ‘differentiation’, ‘networks of students’ and ‘communication-media’. The latter code had the following sub-codes: ‘power’, ‘social media’, ‘digital media’ and ‘language’.

5. Despite the fact that a great deal of the students had a sufficient educational background and in some cases were on a higher level than students in the mainstream.

6. Although work had started on the regional level to develop a local curriculum for introductory classes.