Students’ Orientations Towards Multilingualism and Social Justice in a Swedish-medium University Degree Program in Educational Sciences in Finland

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on students’ orientations towards multilingualism in a Swedish-speaking educational degree program in Finland. Swedish is one of the two national languages in Finland and basic education is provided separately in Finnish and Swedish, even if the current national policies strongly support multilingualism in education. We analyzed the language orientations in the students’ coursework (N = 52) in an educational sciences degree program that has an emphasis on multilingualism and social justice. The results showed that multilingual identities and linguistic repertoires were presented as valuable, but the students rarely identified themselves as multilingual. They perceived multilingualism as a resource and a means for inclusion, but concurrently also saw challenges in balancing between protecting the minority language and multilingual practices. The connection between multilingualism and social justice was visible in the students’ multiple and sometimes contradicting views, but the texts hardly raised questions of broader language-related societal inequality or discrimination.

KEYWORDS:

• Language orientations
• minorities
• multilingualism
• social justice
• teacher education

Introduction

While multilingualism is an increasingly essential part of contemporary educational policies, the future educators’ perceptions and understanding of linguistic diversity have an indisputable impact on the establishment of multilingual practices in education. Particularly in minority education, the promotion of multilingualism does sometimes conflict with ideologies of purism, which are intended to protect the minority language (see e.g., Cenoz & Gorter, 2017; Hambye & Richards, 2012; Salo, 2012). This study aims to analyze students’ orientations towards multilingualism in a Swedish-medium university degree program in educational sciences in a bilingual university in Finland. The study program is delivered in Swedish, one of the country’s two official languages. It leads to a bachelor’s or master’s degree, qualifying students as teachers or other educational professionals, such as public educational administrators particularly in the Swedish-speaking educational domain. The setting is an interesting intersection for negotiating meanings related to multilingualism, since it on one hand takes part in the construction of institutional language separation in officially bilingual Finland, but also emphasizes multilingualism, diversity and social justice in the course curriculum (see From, 2020).

In this article, we analyze student discourses of multilingualism through course essays from a bachelor’s-level course dealing with multilingualism, diversity, and social justice in education and learning diaries from a master’s level course on diversity, multilingualism, and identity. The analysis is informed by a theoretical framework of orientations towards language as a right, a resource and a problem (Hult & Hornberger, 2016; Ruiz, 1984). We ask how students in the Swedish-speaking degree program perceive multilingual ideologies and practices in education and how the tension between language separation and promoting multilingualism emerges in the students’ language ideologies and perceptions of educational practices.

Background

Finland is a bilingual country where Finnish is spoken as the first language by 87.3% and Swedish by 5.2% of the population (Official Statistics of Finland (OSF), 2020). According to the Basic Education Act (628/1998) in Finland, basic education is organized separately for both national language groups. In the policies and discourses touching upon the separation of the national languages in education, monolingual Swedish-medium schools are presented as protecting the smaller of the national languages (Boyd & Palviainen, 2015; From, 2020). In compulsory education, the school system is divided into two separate, monolingual Finnish- and Swedish-medium strands. Bilingual education in the national languages is provided in language immersion and CLIL programs and is mainly aimed at pupils in Finnish-speaking schools (Sjöberg et al., 2017). Swedish-medium schools are often presented as vital in strengthening the linguistic and cultural identity of the Swedish-speaking minority (Kovero & Londen, 2009). In addition, the need to recognize pupils’ diverse linguistic backgrounds in Swedish-medium schools is increasingly discussed for example, in the most recent version of the national core curriculum for basic education (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2014). However, the ideology of Swedish-speaking schools as monolingual minority language spaces is part of political debate and educational discourse (Boyd & Palviainen, 2015; From, 2020; From & Sahlström, 2017). Despite the separation of the national languages in the educational system, the national core curriculum explicitly promotes language awareness and inclusive views of linguistic diversity (Paulsrud et al., 2020; Zilliacus et al., 2017). In the curriculum, multilingualism appears as a positive resource with multiple benefits linked to identity development, linguistic and multiliteracy skills, and linguistic awareness (see also García, 2017). The aim is to support linguistic rights and social justice in education and promote pupils’ multilingual identities. The policy changes in Finland are linked to European frameworks and research and similar developments are visible in the new early childhood education policy of 2018. The policies are currently translated into educational practice and imply substantial changes for instruction in schools in Finland (Paulsrud et al., 2020; Bergroth & Hansell, 2020).

In the ideological debates of the national languages in education, Swedish has often been portrayed as opposite to the idea of multilingualism. For example, Swedish as a mandatory subject in Finnish-speaking schools has been accused of standing in the way of a broader national language repertoire (Hult & Pietikäinen, 2014). In these discourses, a conceptual distinction between both individual and societal bilingualism and multilingualism has been made. Indeed, seeing multilingualism as a resource for minority languages is not always evident in educational practice even though multilingualism is strongly supported in policies (Gorter et al., 2014; Le Pichon-Vorstman et al., 2020). As Cenoz and Gorter (2017) argue with respect to the Basque minority, a reason for hesitancy is the vulnerability of the minority language and the fear that the language might disappear when it is mixed. There is also concern about the quality of the minority language when it is intermixed, in the Basque case with Spanish. The latter concern upholds an ideology of purism, which is also present in the debates of the status of Swedish in Finland (see e.g., Salo, 2012).

Recent studies (see Bergroth & Hansell, 2020; Tarnanen & Palviainen, 2018) show that teachers are often reluctant to accept the multilingual turn of the curriculum. Common reasons for this lie in persisting discourses of school language and home language. In their study of Finnish teachers’ beliefs about linguistic diversity, Alisaari et al. (2019) concluded that even if Finnish teachers’ attitudes towards multilingualism are mostly positive there is a need for professional development to promote language awareness and multilingual educational practices instead of the still prevailing monolingual ideologies among educators. Over half of the participating teachers in their study (N = 820) reported feeling uncomfortable when surrounded with languages they did not understand, and over a third of the respondents felt that the use of pupils’ own home languages should be denied during lessons. While the reasoning behind these statements was ideological as well as related to faulty views on language learning, they indisputably conflict with the present version of the Finnish national core curriculum. Furthermore, Tarnanen and Palviainen (2018) found teacher discourses on multilingualism in Finland to have strands of monolingualism or even othering. Iversen (2019, 2020) also found in interviews with student teachers taking part in Norwegian mainstream educational degree programs, that multilingualism was associated with immigration, being thought of as different and non-Norwegian. A problem orientation and monolingual ideologies were present in how multilingual practices were considered acceptable if they did not challenge the position of Norwegian as the language of instruction. However, teachers who have experience in working with migrant pupils or have received training in linguistically responsive teaching most often support the use of other languages in classrooms (Alisaari et al., 2019). Gilham and Fürstenau (2020) have also pointed out the positive impact of teachers’ personal language experiences on their language attitudes. This evidence supports the assumption that including contents related to multilingualism in teacher education is likely to have an impact on educational practice. As Bergroth and Hansell (2020) argue in the context of early childhood education, the need for teachers to create language awareness does not necessarily require that they acquire proficiency in the languages in question but develop insight into language policies and learn to apply them. Moreover, they encourage viewing language awareness as “a democratic stance rather than an add-on activity to normal pedagogical routines” (Bergroth & Hansell, 2020, p. 86).

The empirical context of this study, a Swedish-medium degree program in educational sciences at an officially bilingual university can be considered a point of intersection of the language policies promoted in the national curriculum policy. The expertise and professional identity of the students might be simultaneously influenced by multilingual education policies as well as ideologies promoting a monolingual approach to protect the de facto minority language. The thematic focus emphasizing multilingualism, diversity and social justice is integrated into the entire program, covering both bachelor’s and master’s levels, and is explicitly or implicitly part of every course. In practice, this means that the teaching and course literature emphasize diversity in terms of, for example, language, social class, gender, and ethnicity as dimensions of social justice in education. The aim is to foster critical awareness among the students as future educators by encouraging them to learn about and reflect on these themes in their studies.

Theoretical framework

This article is informed by a critical multilingual education approach that emphasizes the connection between language and social justice (Paulsrud et al., 2020). A social justice perspective sheds light on how language operates together with other social differences, such as class and ethnicity (Piller, 2016). Moreover, the analysis of the students’ beliefs in this article is informed by a theoretical framework of language orientations that conceptualizes language as a problem, a right and a resource (Hult & Hornberger, 2016; Ruiz, 1984). Orientations can be understood as dispositions towards languages and their role in society and as a paradigm for analyzing the underlying values in language policy discourses. They have been widely applied and discussed in the fields of sociolinguistics and language policy studies in different national contexts (From & Holm, 2019; Hult & Hornberger, 2016; Paulsrud et al., 2020; Ricento, 2005; Vuorsola, 2019).

In the context of Finnish state bilingualism in education, the language orientations are an illuminative framework for analyzing how the national language policies shape student discourses. According to Ruiz (1984), the promotion of monolingualism and the prioritization of the majority language(s) are manifestations of the problem orientation. Moreover, in the problem paradigm, language problems are associated with social problems, bilingualism is connected to learning difficulties (see also, Baker & Wright, 2017), and minority languages are often considered a threat to social cohesion. Even if the national languages in Finland are of high social status, a problem orientation has been present in the debates promoting the separation of national languages and particularly the monolingualism of Swedish-medium schools (From & Holm, 2019). In the language as a right orientation, language is presented as a precondition for social participation and inclusion and linguistic inequalities are managed through legal mechanisms. In education, this is particularly considered to entail the right to access education in one’s own language. Finland’s parallel educational system is a manifestation of the rights orientation, considering that the right to access education in the national languages is safeguarded through legislation. Hult and Hornberger (2016) remark that the rights orientation may also promote national languages over minority languages if that is legally enabled in the national language policies of a particular state. Thus, there might be a considerable overlap between the problem and rights orientation. Finally, in the resource orientation, languages are understood as mutual resources and multilingualism is attributed both instrumental and cultural, identity-related value. Typically, Swedish has been recognized through its cultural value in the history of Finland, but it has also been seen as an asset as far as the labor market and Nordic collaboration are concerned (see From & Holm, 2019). In the context of education, the resource orientation particularly promotes the recognition of the advantages of bilingualism in relation to academic achievement (Hult & Hornberger, 2016; Ruiz, 1984).

Particularly the resource orientation that Ruiz proposed as vital in recognizing and promoting the individual and societal benefits of multilingualism, has been in focus in the more recent and at times critical examinations of the orientations. Even if the resource paradigm explicitly aims to acknowledge both material and cultural aspects of multilingualism, it has been criticized for recognizing the value of language and linguistic diversity within a neoliberal paradigm, as economically profitable, individual assets (see Petrovic, 2005). This, in turn, may contribute to the reconstruction of societal power inequalities, for example, if the problems related to the realization of minority language rights remain unrecognized (Ricento, 2005; see also From & Holm, 2019).

Method and materials

For this study, we analyzed altogether 52 students’ course assignments from two different courses in the Swedish-speaking educational degree program in a bilingual university in Finland. Both courses consisted of interactive lectures and individual coursework. Of the analyzed texts, 34 were reflective essays (referred to as E1–34 in this article) from a first-year bachelor’s-level course dealing with multilingualism, diversity, and social justice in education, while 18 of the texts were learning diaries (referred to as L1–18) from a fifth-year master’s level course on diversity, multilingualism, and identity. Most students on both courses were women of varying age, with a diverse work and study history. The length of the essays varied between four and six double-spaced pages, while the learning diaries were approximately ten pages long. The courses were organized during 2017–2019. For the bachelor’s level course, the students were asked to write a reflective essay where they discussed the course literature and its concepts in relation to a set of questions, one of which was to analyze the impact of multilingualism in their everyday lives as students or educators. In the master’s course assignment, the students were asked to reflect on the central themes of the individual lectures with accompanying literature. Moreover, the master’s students were asked to reflect on their own identity in relation to the course themes. Central themes and concepts in both courses were multilingualism, social class, ethnicity, race, gender, and norm criticality. All texts were written in Swedish, and the excerpts have been translated into English by the authors.

For the analysis, the categorization of the data and the selection of quotes for further analysis was carried out by the first author of the article. Using a software for qualitative data analysis, the data were coded according to the themes deriving from those concepts in the courses that were relevant in terms of our theoretical interests and research questions. Altogether 21 codes were identified and tracked, such as multilingualism, ethnicity, identity and inclusion. The categorization enabled an overall understanding of how the different meanings given to the course concepts and themes overlapped and intertwined in the data. For further analysis, such quotations were selected that were relevant and representative considering the analytical interest in language orientations. These quotations were discussed together with the other authors and more thoroughly analyzed by reading them side by side with the theoretical texts on language orientations in order to grasp and contextualize the meanings given to multilingualism in the material (see Gee, 2014).

Multilingual resources, monolingual, and bilingual identities

The analysis enabled us to trace a clear resource orientation towards multilingualism but also selective views of what and whom it covers. In reflecting on their understanding of multilingualism, the students referred to multiple perspectives and definitions, such as language repertoires, practices, or linguistic identification, deploying both individual and societal levels (see Aronin & Singleton, 2012; Hyltenstam & Lindberg, 2013; Weber & Horner, 2012). While discussing the question of the meaning of multilingualism in their lives in the bachelor’s course assignment, most of the students began by mentioning individuals’ linguistic repertoires and daily language practices. Rather than the level of proficiency of languages, the significant factor in defining multilingualism was the everyday usages of different languages. A broad linguistic repertoire was strongly regarded as an asset and thus reflected a positive resource orientation towards multilingualism, as in the following excerpt (see also Ruiz, 1984):

Multilingualism seems to have different meanings for everyone. I see it as having language proficiency in many languages and using more than one’s mother tongue. Multilingualism is a complex matter that affects at least me relatively much. It is a benefit that should be used and utilized similarly to all other benefits, especially since we live in a bilingual country. (E15)

Here, the student declares multilingualism to be a complex issue as well as a self-evident benefit that could be compared to any other utility. Language is seen as an instrument to be used, aligned with the resource orientation (Hult & Hornberger, 2016). However, no critical reflection on the complexity, such as who has the possibility to access these resources or how languages might benefit some more than others, is put forth (see also Ricento, 2005).

Following Ruiz’s (1984) specification of the resource orientation, multilingualism was attributed both extrinsic, that is, instrumental and material as well as intrinsic, that is, identity-related, and cultural value (see also From & Holm, 2019; Hult & Hornberger, 2016). Interestingly, most of the students were still very hesitant to call themselves multilingual even if they actively took part in multilingual communication in their daily lives. Furthermore, the students who identified themselves as having grown up with both Finnish and Swedish referred to themselves as bilingual rather than multilingual. Identifying as bilingual is common among the Swedish-speaking Finns and does not exclude a sense of belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority particularly in the more bilingual or Finnish-speaking areas of Finland (see also Henning-Lindblom, 2012; Mansikka et al., 2013). However, our data suggest that the students, who explicitly presented themselves as belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority, were also likely to define themselves as monolingual regardless of their linguistic repertoire:

Language is always one of the foundations in a person’s identity in addition to their cultural and social background. Since I represent a minority group in the language issue in Finland, it feels natural to use myself as an example in this context. Even if I have a relatively high proficiency in many languages, I count myself as monolingual since both of my parents come from a completely monolingual background (E8).

To this student, belonging to a language minority is a factor that strengthens the significance of language as a part of their identity. Seeing monolingualism as a positive minority identity can be interpreted as an expression of the language as right orientation (Hult & Hornberger, 2016) but is also enabled by a strong societal status of the language in question. Even while considering their proficiency in many languages as relatively high, the student prefers to define themselves as monolingual due to a monolingual family background. This kind of distancing from multilingualism as an identity also appeared in the coursework in how linguistic diversity in school was discussed. The linguistic and cultural diversity within Swedish-medium schools was acknowledged but it was most often pointed out as deriving from such phenomena as immigration or globalization (see also Hummelstedt-Djedou et al., 2018; Iversen, 2019). Consequentially, speakers of other languages than Finnish and Swedish were often positioned as belonging to a particular culture or nation-state outside Finland. The following student as well as many other students see increasing linguistic diversity in schools as connected to globalization:

Overall in an ever-globalizing society, and as a result of the increasing number of children with other mother tongues, and multiple mother tongues than the language of the school also in our Finland-Swedish schools, multilingualism is very strongly connected to identity. The task of the school is to prepare pupils for their lives in society and in a multicultural society, where norms from all possible directions are combined. Thus, the teacher needs to be unprejudiced and teach norm critical thinking. How and what one speaks forms a major part of one’s identity. That is why it is important for the teacher to keep in mind that the pupils with another mother tongue than the language of the school need to have a possibility to express themselves and also have those parts of their identity taken into account. (E7)

Policy discourses often reconstruct a problem orientation particularly towards Finnish-Swedish bilingualism in stating that the primary task of Swedish-medium education is to protect the Swedish language in Finland (see e.g., Tallroth, 2012, p. 14). In contrast to the still prevailing discourses of Swedish-medium schools as ideologically monolingual spaces (Boyd & Palviainen, 2015; From & Sahlström, 2017), this student points out that linguistic diversity should be considered to shape pupil identities also in Swedish-medium schools. However, presenting multilingualism as a consequence of globalization implies a common stance also elsewhere in the data: the many bilingual pupils with Swedish and Finnish as their first languages did not count as representing linguistic diversity. In general, Swedish-medium schools were not seen as isolated from the multilingual development in Finnish society in the students’ assignments. Most importantly and contrary to the popular discourse, increasing linguistic diversity was rarely presented as a problem or a threat to Swedish. However, other discursive patterns in which multilingualism was distanced could be distinguished in the analysed texts. The frequently repeated statements of multilingualism as valuable or as a positive resource were not always put into specific terms, and thus often remained detached from the daily educational practices (see also Bergroth & Hansell, 2020, p. 89). Thus, even while recognizing multilingualism as a resource also in the Swedish-medium schools, the students considered it more as an abstract ideology than a collective identity. This raises a question of whether the dominance of the resource orientation and emphasis on the instrumental value of language in contemporary language policy discourses has toned down the debates of language, identity and language rights (From & Holm, 2019; Petrovic, 2005). The value of multilingualism was typically seen as emerging from communication between language groups, which implies an idea of an essential difference between speakers of different languages. The differences were not necessarily presented as problematic but were often pointed out. This resonates particularly with the previous Finnish national core curriculum for basic education from 2004, where “each individual is seen as belonging to a certain culture” (Tarnanen & Palviainen, 2018, p. 12). Compared to the current version of the curriculum from 2014, this seems an outdated perception, which many students still seemed to relate to in their assignments. As an example, the following student ponders on the connection between language and culture from an individual’s point of view:

It might feel reluctant and unnecessary to learn a new language that one has no feeling for and sometimes the related culture can feel strange and intrusive or even totally stupid and off-putting before one has gotten a genuine picture of the people who create it. It might also happen that one becomes scared of losing a part of one’s own culture because of learning a new language. In such cases, one is not happy to learn a new language. (E16)

Here, a problem orientation is constructed through how learning a new language is presented as a potential threat for the connection between a person and their cultural background (see also Ruiz, 1984). This discourse also questions the otherwise common resource orientation, which sees learning new languages as additive instead of alienating pupils from their linguistic and cultural background (see Hult & Hornberger, 2016).

From problem orientation to recognizing and valuing pupils’ linguistic resources

In this section, we look at how the underlying problem orientation towards multilingualism in education was constructed and challenged in student discourses. As pointed out previously, a discourse promoting monolingualism and language separation has traditionally been present when discussing Swedish-speaking education in Finland. To some extent, the widespread problem orientation has been fueled by outdated but persistent views that promote language separation as essential in language learning and bilingualism (see From, 2020; From & Holm, 2019). Many of the students brought up and critically discussed these beliefs in their assignments.

Almost everyone in our group was uncertain of what is better for the child, to learn one language very well or two at the same time while growing up. One could tell that everyone had heard and thought at some point that it’s best for the child to learn a single language, that two languages would weaken both languages. The thought was that there is only the cognitive capacity to learn one language, which motivates the choice to teach the child one language. It was, however, comforting to read that no research supporting this assumption exists. (L6)

The student points out that conflicting knowledge about language learning came up in their discussion group during the course. Many of the students seemed to be familiar with the notion that the ability to learn a language is limited and that bilingual practices might thus be harmful. These beliefs reproduce a problem orientation by connecting bi- and multilingualism with learning difficulties (Hult & Hornberger, 2016; Ruiz, 1984). Many students wrote that in the course they absorbed new knowledge that made them reconsider or even abandon the idea of multilingualism as potentially problematic. This was often described as consoling or relieving particularly when connected to subjective experiences. The more general shift from the problem orientation to viewing language as a resource in society and education is also evident in the students’ reflections on their own linguistic identity and background, as in the following excerpt:

I remember back in my school hearing thoughts about semilingualism and insufficient language proficiency. Honestly speaking, I don’t remember who put this thought in my head that I am semilingual and don’t completely master any of the languages I speak. During my time in school, I have gone around thinking that I don’t speak any language well enough, which has felt frustrating. Despite this I have gotten good grades and the languages have not been an obstacle for learning. The idea itself has been the obstacle for me: I am not good enough since I don’t master languages as well as others. Nowadays, I tend to think that all the four languages I speak strengthen each other and I am very glad to have had the possibility to learn languages. Despite the fact that I still cannot write equally well in all the languages, I don’t consider languages to be an obstacle but a benefit. (L1)

This student considers that the prevailing discourses on semilingualism have had an impact on their language identity and linguistic self-confidence during the school years. They have also experienced the ideology of language purism as even more powerful than the impact of school assessment. The student does not specify the factors that have affected their thinking and identity over time but points out that nowadays they consider their linguistic repertoire as a whole entity instead of being deficient in some way. This reflects what Hult and Hornberger (2016) point out as a feature of the resource orientation: language learning is seen as additive and the different language resources as complementing instead of conflicting with each other. However, not all the students criticized or fully neglected the concerns typically present in the discourses on semilingualism but seemed to balance between the potential advantages and disadvantages as an ideological choice:

People often seem worried in some way that children become confused and will not master any language properly if two or several languages are mixed in teaching or in some activity outside school or even at home. I understand it and it might even be true to some extent but at the same time the benefits of bi-/multilingualism are so many and important that one should be able to get rid of such assumptions and fears. (L14)

This student acknowledges the concern people sometimes have towards mixing languages and the student does not entirely question this concern either. However, the student considers the benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism to be so significant that the potential disadvantages are overturned. This can be considered an ideological choice reflecting the resource orientation towards language and multilingualism and simultaneously an explicit rejection of the earlier problem orientation reproduced in popular and political discourses (see Hult & Hornberger, 2016; Ruiz, 1984). In many of the analysed texts, the problem orientation was discussed in relation to language management practices in schools. Several students had themselves, as pupils in Swedish-medium schools, experienced the banning of the use of the Finnish language outside the designated Finnish language lessons (see also From & Holm, 2019). These reflections were in many cases provoked by an article included in the course reading (Alisaari et al., 2019), which investigated Finnish teachers’ beliefs about linguistic diversity and concluded that banning pupils’ home languages in classroom is common even today:

While reading the article I came to think about how in the primary school we were prohibited from speaking Finnish during the school hours. We were told off if a teacher heard us speaking Finnish, even during the breaks. When I think about it now it feels strange not to be allowed to speak the languages one wants to. But we heard the same explanation back then, namely that other children might be excluded if they did not understand Finnish. In my opinion one should absolutely be allowed to speak the language they prefer but I do also in some way understand the other side of the issue, if the teacher does not understand the language it will complicate the situation and it’s obviously not okay if other languages are used for bullying or excluding someone. (L15)

Most of the students seemed to perceive the teachers’ language management policies at that time as in line with the prevailing understanding of language learning. Another motivation for language management was considered to be the teachers’ aim to prevent marginalization in social situations, as the student points out. Moreover, the teachers’ restrictive policies were at times understood as promoting Swedish as a minority language. Some of the students who criticized the restrictive language policies based on their own experiences pondered the possibility of having bilingual schools to tackle the problems of language separation:

Traditionally one language is used in school or at least the languages are strongly separated. I went to a Swedish-medium school and we only spoke Finnish during the Finnish lessons, otherwise we spoke only Swedish. Sometimes it was even prohibited to speak Finnish in the breaks, and one could end up on the “black list.” In bilingual schools both languages could be used in a more diverse manner and be less separated from each other. Children should be encouraged to use their full language repertoire but also steer them in the right direction and instruct them on how languages can be used. (L18)

After experiencing language separation and even punishments for using Finnish in school, this student considers bilingual schools as a potential solution for dismissing the problem orientation and recognizing pupils’ languages as resources. However, here the full repertoire of pupils’ languages seems to refer primarily to Swedish and Finnish, whereas a broader understanding of multilingualism remains undiscussed. In general, the students considered the banning of pupils’ own languages to be a questionable policy in the contemporary educational context. Nevertheless, the problem orientation was not exclusively a matter of retrospection in the data, as some students also mentioned a potential concern in balancing between multilingual practices and protecting a minority language, as in the following excerpt:

Regarding multilingualism I have had to think about how I as a teacher in Swedish-medium early childhood education will approach Finnish among the children. Not that I ever would have degraded or prohibited Finnish but am I ready to give it more space in the group of children? It feels difficult as a representative of a minority language (L13).

This student has felt an urge to reflect on language ideologies and language management practices in relation to the majority language Finnish as an educator. According to this student, this has not directly affected their ideologies or practices, but their minority language identity makes them hesitate to allow more space for the majority language in daily educational activities (see Cenoz & Gorter, 2017, on the potentially complex relationship between multilingual practices and minority languages). Again, the discussion of multilingualism is restricted to Swedish and Finnish. Moreover, the orientations to language as a right and as a problem become intertwined in how the writer presents Finnish as a potential threat to Swedish in institutional education. A similar overlap or contradiction of these orientations is present in the following excerpt, where the student ponders on language proficiency:

I think that the foundation, full proficiency in one language, feels important in the primary classes, while dialects and, for example, translanguaging or Finlandisms [the special characteristics of the Swedish spoken in Finland] can be considered as super fun workshops, challenges, and feasible entities in the higher grades. I think these will also become increasingly topical in cross-curricular teaching or projects in school. At the same time, I do question the idea of supporting one specific language, and acknowledge that this might just happen to be the way I have learned to consider languages. There has been talk about semilingualism for so long, especially in the Swedish-speaking media here in Finland—whose agenda partially always is to protect or maintain Swedish. But on some level, I do support the idea of speaking one language well, preferably more—but above all one language well since it has proved to support other factors in for example, learning and understanding of one’s own and others’ thinking. (L10)

The student presents the idea that elementary education should focus on learning one language “as a whole,” while multilingual educational practices are considered something additional, more of a curiosity. At the same time, the writer questions the monolingual ideology and is aware of how it has been politicized in the media debate in Finland and how it might have influenced one’s own language ideologies. However, the student ends up concluding that they have decided to stress the importance of full proficiency in one language, since it has been shown to support learning in general (see e.g., Cummins, 2017). This also resonates with Iversen’s (2019) interpretations of the remaining problem orientation: multilingual practices are considered acceptable if the position of the primary language of instruction is not challenged.

Even though the shift from problem orientation to viewing multilingualism as a resource is prominent in the students’ talk, the negotiation between these orientations is constant and the traces of the problem orientation appear in more subtle ways. The persistence of the monolingual norm in instruction shows how the resource orientation towards multilingualism is still defined under certain restrictive conditions. In the earlier, more reserved, or contradictory stances towards multilingualism in education, the norm is a monolingual pupil who speaks the language of the school as their first language. This assumption is tightly connected with the typical characteristics of the problem orientation through the normalization of monolingualism (Ruiz, 1984) and a view of languages as separate, manageable systems that can be learned either partially or completely (see also From, 2020).

Inclusion through multilingual educational practices

Finally, we move on to examine how the intersections of multilingualism and social justice, deriving from the course literature and the thematic focus of the program, were constructed in our data. Most often, social justice was discussed in relation to inclusion and marginalization. While discussing multilingualism in schools and in relation to the teaching profession, inclusion of pupils from other linguistic backgrounds than the language of the school was often mentioned. In principle, the emphasis on inclusion and participation promotes an idea of language as a right (Ruiz, 1984). However, within the rights orientation, linguistic inclusion would also entail an access to education in the pupils’ own languages. In the students’ writings, inclusion in multilingual classrooms was typically understood as the recognition and acceptance of the non-Finnish- or Swedish-speaking pupils’ linguistic and cultural background, while the actual means for promoting linguistic inclusion remain on an abstract level:

For me as a student, multilingualism means tolerance, inclusion, and co-operation between groups. People with diverse cultural belongings should feel heard and included in the classroom. Thus, it means that people from diverse cultural backgrounds should feel safe and be listened to and accepted (E32).

Here, the student starts by defining multilingualism as tolerance, inclusion and co-operation between groups but then moves on to discuss cultural belongings and backgrounds, making an implicit connection between multilingualism and multiculturalism. The liberal approach to multicultural education is well meaning but reproduces a notion of fixed cultural and linguistic groups and essential differences between them (see Hummelstedt-Djedou et al., 2018). The course literature was mostly built on critical contributions in the study of multilingual and multicultural education, where for example, the idea of tolerance was presented as reproducing a problematic power relation between the majority and minorities. Despite the literature, a typical view of multilingual inclusion in the data was phrased as tolerance between language groups. However, some of the students did not settle for demanding tolerance but presented the use and inclusion of pupils’ languages in the classroom as a necessary element:

As an elementary teacher, it is extremely important to be open to all pupils’ languages and cultural traits. All teachers are language teachers, even if the lesson fundamentally deals with something else. Pupils’ home languages should be supported, and it is also important to encourage pupils to use their home languages in the school environment. At the same time, while supporting multilingualism and home languages, also the language of the school, Swedish, should be strengthened. The class teacher must perceive multilingualism as a resource to be benefited from. (E10)

To this student, linguistic inclusion in the classroom does not only imply an awareness of pupils’ linguistic backgrounds but also a possibility for the actual use of these languages in the classroom. Thus, the resource orientation and the idea of languages as common resources is put into more specific terms simultaneously with a language as a right orientation (see also Hult & Hornberger, 2016). The need for linguistic inclusion was also seen by the following student as covering the communication with pupils’ families with another home language than the language of the school:

By improving the connection between the school and home, multilingual pupils’ education and especially multilingual development are supported. The curriculum for comprehensive education declares that all classrooms are multilingual and therefore it is necessary to create social practices with a multilingual perspective as their starting point. A possible step is to provide parents with insights into the teaching by means of multilingual homework instead of considering parents’ restricted proficiency in the language of the school as an obstacle to co-operation (L2).

By referring to the progressive notion of multilingualism in the present version of the Finnish national curriculum, this student suggests that multilingual practices can also be viewed as broader social practices that function as a means for including families in the school community by recognizing their linguistic resources as well as their linguistic rights (Ruiz, 1984).

Despite the strong emphasis on inclusion, multilingualism was also presented as a potential problem associated with marginalization or social differentiation in education (see Hult & Hornberger, 2016; Ruiz, 1984). In the analyzed texts, multilingualism in education was typically presented as valuable per se but at the same time understood as potentially contributing to marginalization of some pupils or as creating tensions between language groups. Some of the students also suspected that a lack of professional resources in multilingual classrooms might lead to marginalization of some pupils or groups. Multilingual practices were understood as requiring additional resources and professional skills as well as termed as a “challenge,” a “complicated dilemma,” and an “additional burden” for educators, who were already seen as struggling with their resources:

I cannot help but admit that I do find multilingualism in my classroom to be one of the biggest challenges. I am going to have a very responsible role and a lot is going to be expected of me. Multilingualism brings along difficulties in teaching. Linguistic obstacles might surface between teachers and pupils but also between the teacher and the parents. Sociocultural obstacles might occur, such as discrepancies in customs and differences in social class. It can cause misunderstandings. Awareness is needed from the teacher. (E21)

After pondering on the benefits of multilingualism earlier in their essay, this student continues by admitting that potential difficulties related to multilingualism could emerge in their future work as a teacher. In line with this reflection, Bergroth and Hansell (2020) also found that multilingual practices are considered to require outstandingly competent teachers. According to the student, the expected difficulties could be communicational and either related to insufficient language skills or seen as “sociocultural obstacles,” that is, differences in customs or social class. Here, and in many of the analysed texts, it seems that language is often considered as a category that implies a variety of other social differences, such as ethnicity or social class. Thus, multilingualism is expected to bring along other diversities, such as a variety of nationalities and cultural backgrounds. In this discourse, languages are consequentially positioned as a means for communicating across these expected social barriers between nationalities or “cultures.” Thus, multilingualism is simultaneously seen as a resource but also as a problem, while it is considered to create potential issues which teachers are expected to solve. In the following excerpt, the student connects linguistic diversity with social issues by presenting language groups as a basis for a division into “us and them,” which can lead to the differentiation of pupils’ social spaces in school (see also From & Sahlström, 2017):

It is common that us-and-them relations among pupils occur, which means that grouping occurs in the school environment. Language can be a factor that divides pupils into different social groups. It might not be that common yet in early childhood education, but the climate can be tougher in school. The pupils who speak Russian gather on one side of the corridor while the Finnish gather on the other (E6).

On one hand, the discourses of potential problems related to multilingualism as a threat to social cohesion reproduce traces of a problem orientation towards linguistic diversity (Hult & Hornberger, 2016; Ruiz, 1984). However, as Hult and Hornberger (2016, p. 34) point out, the fact that debates on multilingualism are sometimes centred around issues that require attention in educational practice, does not necessarily indicate a problem orientation. Quite the contrary, these concerns can also be understood as an awareness of the language-based power relations in the classroom as well as a need for extra support for pupils according to their linguistic backgrounds. To be able to provide support for linguistic inclusion, it was considered important for the educators to have competence in multilingual education as well as an awareness of how to recognize and challenge language-related power relations:

Multilingual classrooms offer possibilities and ought to be seen as a resource. They can provoke uncertainty among us future class teachers and that is why competence in this topic is important. The teacher ought to make use of horizontal communication, that is, communication where both sides (teacher-pupil as well as teacher-parent) are equal in order to avoid power imbalances. The privileged shall not exclude the minority or create an us & them setting in the school world. The school is an important venue for creating equality between groups and when this happens successfully it will take us far in the future society. (E21)

Instead of pointing to the potential difficulties in language practices in multilingual classrooms, this student presents language awareness as an essential competence for an educator. A competence that enables them to reflect on the linguistic power relations in the classroom and take them into account in their linguistic practices and communication. Here and in the following excerpt, language awareness and linguistic inclusion are connected to broader patterns of social justice and participation in society (see also Bergroth & Hansell, 2020). They call for a critical examination of what is considered normal and who is to be included in the norm:

The world we live in today is increasingly pluralistic and this also shows in school. The diversity of languages, cultures and religions showing in our schools today is not going to disappear, but it is up to us teachers and other educators to present it as the “norm,” as the normal, to create an environment where diversity is not considered exotic and not contrasted to a threatened monoculture. (E25)

This is a view that was not often explicated in the material but resembles the aims and representations of linguistic diversity in the current national curriculum for basic education. In the curriculum, linguistic diversity is part of what is considered the norm that defines every pupil and adult in school (see also Zilliacus et al., 2017). According to this view, educational inclusion requires a more profound deconstruction of the dichotomy between what is excluded from and included in the idea of a nation-state.

Conclusions and implications for education degree programs

The students’ definitions of multilingualism in the Swedish-medium study program were narrower than the one in the Finnish national curriculum. However, their views on working in linguistically diverse classrooms and settings move in the same direction as the vision in the national curriculum, including an emerging interest in multilingualism and social justice, also emphasized in the study program. Even if the students sometimes expressed challenges in balancing between promoting Swedish and multilingual practices, the discourse of multilingualism in contemporary classrooms, including Swedish-medium schools, reproduced an orientation towards language as a right and a resource.

A central conclusion regarding our research interest is that multilingualism was not presented as a threat towards Swedish. Linguistic diversity in general was not perceived as problematic in a minority language context, but more specifically bilingualism regarding the national languages (see also Bergroth & Hansell, 2020). Compared to the more reserved attitudes of Finnish-speaking teachers (Alisaari et al., 2019), it can be assumed the linguistic minority position and the experiences of bi- and multilingualism in their own lives has a positive influence on the Swedish-speaking educators’ views. As research shows, experiences from linguistically diverse settings influence the views on multilingualism (see Alisaari et al., 2019; Gilham & Fürstenau, 2020). The students show an awareness of multilingualism in educational settings and have reflected on what it might mean for them and other educators. Moreover, multilingual ideologies and practices are seen as essential in promoting inclusion in classrooms also in minority education contexts. Nevertheless, in the training of future education professionals, it is increasingly important to highlight the link between language equality and broader social justice. Even if multilingualism was considered a means for promoting inclusion in the classroom, the idea of the implementation of multilingual educational practices was sometimes perceived as challenging. As discussed previously, this should not simply be taken as a token of a problem orientation but also as an awareness of the potentially problematic language-related power relations that need to be addressed in the classrooms.

Analysing data consisting of two types of texts by students who are in different phases of their studies and have different study orientations has certain restrictions in terms of identifying broader patterns. However, the results show that first-year bachelor’s-level students and fifth-year master’s-level students think very much alike on multilingualism, which indicates trustworthiness in our findings. Moreover, the courses shared the central themes, theoretical approaches and both assignments required a personal reflection of the students. As a connecting theme, multilingualism and social justice were presented particularly through inclusion and marginalization in classroom practices even if language policies were less discussed in relation to broader societal inequality or discrimination. Topics related to language ideologies or language-based discrimination were typically viewed as linked to individual attitudes, behaviours or people’s tendency to rely on categorizations or stereotypes. Students’ talk about multilingualism had connections to combating marginalization, but not explicitly to issues or experiences of direct or structural discrimination. This might also be interpreted as the domination of a resource orientation over the rights orientation in the contemporary discourses on multilingualism, with an emphasis on the individual resources and “celebrating multilingualism” rather than on collective rights and power inequalities (see also Ricento, 2005). To highlight the complex questions of whose languages are recognized as valuable and who has access to linguistic resources through education, the findings demonstrate a need for the implementation of critical multilingual education theories in education degree programs.

In this article, we have analyzed the potential tension that is created when multilingual policies are brought into minority language schooling. The results are not restricted to schooling and teacher education in Finland but will be relevant particularly in other officially bi- and multilingual national contexts, where questions of language separation and multilingualism are topical (see, for example, Hambye & Richards, 2012, for similar discourses in Canada and Belgium). The students whose assignments were examined in this article will not only be working as teachers in early childhood or primary education but also as educational planners and administrators in the public domain. Thus, when considering language policy as ideology and practice carried out by various instances in society, the future impact of the orientations emerging in educational degree programs is not only on schools as venues for policy implementation, but also on other domains of educational language planning and management. One suggestion for further study is to investigate how the students would implement their thoughts as teachers or educational administrators. However, the foundation for working in linguistically diverse classrooms and settings is already visible.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland (grant number 144018). 

Notes on contributors

Tuuli From

Tuuli From, PhD, is a project researcher at the Faculty of Education and Welfare Sciences, Åbo Akademi University. Her research focuses on language policies and linguistic diversity in education and is informed by critical and ethnographic perspectives.

Harriet Zilliacus

Harriet Zilliacus, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her research focuses on intercultural and multilingual education as well as minority perspectives in worldview education.

Gunilla Holm

Gunilla Holm is Professor of Education in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include diversity issues and social justice in education as well as photography as a research method.

Kirsi Wallinheimo

Kirsi Wallinheimo, PhD, is a University Lecturer in teaching foreign language didactics, multilingualism and the intercultural dimensions in language education at the University of Helsinki. Her pedagogical and research interests include the implementation of digital learning environments in language teaching and learning and Swedish as L2.