Problematizing Finland’s pursuit of intercultural (kindergarten) teacher education

Abstract

The argument that teachers should become ethical intercultural teachers is increasingly recognized as legitimate. This article presents a case study in kindergarten teacher education in Finland, a country that has been at the center of global discussions about quality education. The authors question the agenda for studying and teaching in an intercultural kindergarten teacher education program. The adopted theoretical framework problematizes the discursive relationships between desire, politics of interculturality, and interculturality itself in teacher education. Interviews were conducted with seven student-teachers and three teacher-educators. The data were analyzed using critical content analysis. The research findings reveal unstable and often problematic discourses of interculturality in teacher education, and suggest some guidelines for strengthening it further in this context but also in higher education in general.

Keywords:

• Intercultural education
• multiculturalism
• critical social theory
• postcolonial theory in education
• critical content analysis

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Suomen Kulttuurirahasto