How Teachers Balance Language Proficiency and Pedagogical Ideals at Universities in Indigenous and Postcolonial Societies: The Case of the University of Greenland

ABSTRACT

Based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this article explores pedagogical ideals and educational policies in teachers’ everyday practice in a postcolonial bilingual university setting in Greenland. Greenlandic and Danish teachers’ teaching ideals were explored during a one-year pedagogy qualifying course for assistant professors organised by the (Danish) authors in cooperation with University of Greenland. The overall pedagogical agenda placed an emphasis on student activity. Both Greenlandic and Danish teachers’ representations of their practice accounted for the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of their indigenous students, but they did so in different ways. Whereas Greenlandic teachers tended to emphasise formal correctness in the use of Greenlandic language and student understanding and translation of the learning objectives, Danish teachers tended to lower their own perceived academic norms and graded certain students more leniently in order to compensate for both their dominant role as teacher and for postcolonial dominance.

KEYWORDS:

• Bourdieu; first-generation students; higher education;  indigenous communities; language use; progressive pedagogy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anette Lykke Hindhede

Anette Lykke Hindhede is an Associate Professor of Education at Aalborg University in Denmark. Her field of research is mainly within the sociology of knowledge, inequality, communication of risk, health and knowledge in organisations, and the social and symbolic categories and hierarchies within and among these. Her work primarily uses qualitative methods.

Karin Højbjerg

Karin Højbjerg is a lecturer and senior researcher at University College Absalon, Roskilde, Denmark. Her field of research is within the sociology of higher education and health, i.e. profession pedagogy, profession strategies, and the relation between theory and practice in teaching and learning. Her work is primarily based on ethnographic fieldwork.