International Journal about Parents in Education Parental perspectives on Danish full-day schools for ethnic-minority students (original) (raw)
Related papers
Parental perspectives on Danish full-day schools for ethnic-minority students
International Journal about Parents in Education, 2023
With regard to ethnic-minority students, different education-policy strategies have been discussed and tested in Denmark over the past 30 to 40 years. The most recent are the socalled "full-day schools", which have been established in a number of municipalities that have areas with a high concentration of ethnic-minority students. Based on an understanding of full-day schools as an education-policy strategy, I use a policyethnographic perspective to analyse a trial that took place in the three local schools in the area of Vollsmose in Odense, Denmark. One class from each school was selected for the three-year research project. Using qualitative data from the research project I describe and analyse parents' reactions to and interpretations of the full-day school trial. These insights illuminate not only the different attitudes of an often overlooked group of actors in response to a trial at their local schools, but also the contradicting values and norms that apply to schooling ethnic-minority students on a more general level. The findings suggest a need for a highly differentiated and "non-ethnicised" view of ethnic minority parents..
Working Paper for TOLERACE - EU project. The aim of this case study is to analyse how discrimination and racism are formulated in the context of the Danish public school, the Folkeskole. The paper is based on a case study comprising policy studies and interviews with school leaders and teachers from the Folkeskole, as well as representatives from national and local authorities and Danish NGO´s. Research about school performances show that ethnic minority children perform significantly worse than ethnic majority children; between 47 to 55 pct. of ethnic minority children in the 9.th grade are considered ‟functional illiterate‟ compared to only 14 pct. of ethnic majority children. Research about in- and exclusion of ethnic minority in Folkeskolen to a very small degree focuses on discrimination or anti-racism when exploring and discussing the legal, social and emotional conditions for and school results of ethnic minority students. There has been an obvious lack of interest in multicu...
Researching Extended Schooling Ethnographically – With Danish All-Day Schools as Examples
International Journal for Research on Extended Education, 2015
The aim of this article is to discuss and demonstrate how ethnographic-oriented research might contribute to broadening the research interest in extended education. Extended education might be seen as a societal investment in education. This perspective calls for different kinds of school effectiveness research that generates useful and relevant knowledge about how and to what degree extended schooling effects academic achievements seen from a general societal perspective. Extended education might, however, also be seen as a new school strategy-as a new way of organizing pupils, teachers and parents everyday-life. Ethnographic-oriented educational research seeks to examine how an implementation of extended education in a local area impacts actors' everyday-life and generates new discourses and struggles over values and concepts in education. This is illustrated through an analysis of the dynamics created by the implementation of all-day schooling in a specific residential area in Denmark.
Dealing with diversity, hoping for inclusion. Parents’ involvement in urban schools in Norway
Ethnicities, 2019
This paper investigates parents' involvement in multi-ethnic and class-differentiated urban public schools in Bergen, Norway. It examines how some parents deal with diversity and social inequality in a socially mixed urban area in Norway and Europe today. With the help of the concept of conviviality-the capacity to live together peacefully while negotiating tensions-we focus on the hope of inclusion when people are sharing a place that is important to them in everyday life. Existing research shows how parents engaged in schools are concerned with ensuring the academic success of the school thereby reproducing classed privileges. We find that parents engaged in public bodies in schools act on hopes of social inclusion of the diversity of children and their parents more than they pursue academic success. We argue that, rather than aiming at reproducing classed privileges, some parents aim for a politics of inclusion, leveling out social differences. Using the concept of conviviality, we explore how this has, simultaneously, both inclusionary and exclusionary consequences.
Revista Internacional de Educación para la Justicia Social, 2024
Swedish schools and teachers are responsible for implementing policies that promote social justice. Based on qualitative data from observations, interviews and students' reflections and perspectives on intersectionality, the study critically analyses how students and school staff participate in the ethnicised and racialised oppression of Swedish compulsory school students. The interplay between different bodies in the school context and children's capacity to resist oppression is of particular interest. The findings suggest that oppression and control of body space based on ethnicity and race are often intertwined with different power structures, such as social and economic background, age, religion and masculinity. In addition, the silence of the majority plays a crucial role in perpetuating oppression. However, students who experience oppression have the capacity to resist the coercive power of their peers and adults. The article suggests that students and school staff should increase their capacity to recognise and identify oppressive power dynamics in their local contexts. By developing these skills, individuals can reflect on their role in perpetuating oppression, performatively open up new possibilities, and learn how to take transformative action and promote social justice.
Parental Responsibilization: Involving "Immigrant Parents" in Swedish Schools
Guo, Yan (ed.) Home-School Relations: International Perspectives, Singapore: Springer, 2015
Since the 1990s, Swedish education policy has been striving for a more far-reaching partnership between schools and parents. By analyzing interviews with principals and teachers in a multi-ethnic suburb in Stockholm, this chapter focuses on the involvement of “immigrant parents” in partnership with the school. The analysis shows that principals and teachers employ two main lines of argument in their talk about how to involve “immigrant parents” as “partners”, with the one focusing on the parents’ language and culture, and the other on the parents’ social exclusion. These lines of argument provide seemingly different ways of understanding parent involvement, at the same time as they come together in viewing the family as the main cause of various social problems. In the partnership “immigrant parents” are by various techniques being “measured” and exhorted to adapt to an imagined “Swedish normality”, in order to become a “responsible” parent and equal partner.
Parents and Schools as Partners in a Multicultural, Multireligious Society
Journal of Empirical Theology, 2007
In recent years Dutch society has had to deal with an influx of large and highly divergent migrant groups. Dutch education faces the task of accommodating these differences. Parental involvement and participation are increasingly seen as important elements in the interplay of upbringing and informal and formal education. In this respect it appears that immigrant parents' involvement and participation lag behind that of Dutch parents. Th is article deals with recent trends in the relationship between schools and parents, its significance for children's development and how it links up with aspects like norms and values, religious education and identity development. Th e article presents the results of an extensive empirical study conducted in Rotterdam, a city which for some time now has been confronted with the aforementioned demographic phenomena on a massive scale and tries to allow for it in its educational policy. Th e study focuses particularly on differences and similarities in ideas about the parents-school relationship among ten ethnic groups.
Somali Parents and Parental Involvement in Compulsory Schools in Flen, Sweden
2013
Departing fromcommonly held fact that parental involvement increases students' academic achievement; The Swedish Schools and parents are required to have close relations with each other. However, low parental involvement becomes obvious norm in Swedish schools nowadays, especially immigrant parents. The aim of this qualitative study is to identify, from the participating parents' perspective, the challenges that face Somali parents in their interaction with compulsory schools in Flen, Sweden. It will also elaborate on the role of mother tongue teacher as mediator in home-school interaction. The data collected through interviews with sixteen Somali parents in the city shows that understanding Swedish school system, language, parents' education level, integration, social background, gender role, and communication methods are some of the main challenges that face these parents in their interaction with their children's schools. Majority of the parents were socially excluded from major culture and lacked understanding towards different social, economic and organizational phenomenon in the Swedish society. The segregation resulted in parents' disengagement from school and created distrust towards school, mother tongue teachers, social workers and authorities in general. Knowledge generated from this study may givepolicy makers, school, and interested institutions the needed theoreticalfoundation to design action plans, programs and policies in order to increase the level of participation ofSomali parents.