Intercultural education in transition: Nordic perspectives

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• intercultural education
• diversity
• social justice
• intersectionality
• cultural essentialism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pia Mikander

Pia Mikander is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of education, University of Helsinki. She teaches history and social studies didactics. After her doctoral dissertation Westerners and others in Finnish school textbooks (2016), her research interest has focused on critical literacy and the concept of West, as well as democracy and worldview in school.

Harriet Zilliacus

Harriet Zilliacus is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. Her research interests centre on intercultural and multilingual education, and minorities in religious and worldview education. Her latest research focused on discourses on cultural identity in the Finnish and Swedish national curricula.

Gunilla Holm

Gunilla Holm is professor of education in the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki and director of the Nordic Centre of Excellence “Justice through Education”. Her research interests are focused on justice related issues in education with particular focus on the intersections of race, ethnicity, class and gender. She is also interested in and writes on photography as a research method.