This article examines educational, political and philosophical perspectives on the concepts of worldview and religion in the context of multicultural education. Using a postcolonial and post-structural approach combined with theories that analyse the politics of secularism, we attempt to pinpoint key perspectives in the recognition of worldviews in the current discourse on liberal multiculturalism. We suggest that the liberal-secular foundation of multicultural education is blind to practices, which, while supposedly based on political neutrality, are discriminating and 'Othering' towards religions and non-Western worldviews. Through theoretical and contextual analysis, we aim to deconstruct the 'Otherness' of religious worldviews at the epistemic level.

Interreligious dialogue is a central objective in European and UNESCO policy and research documents, in which educational institutions are seen as central places for dialogue. In this article, we discuss this type of dialogue under the conditions of asymmetry and categorisation in two Finnish schools. Finnish education has often been lauded for its successful implementation of equity and equality by the thousands of 'pedagogical tourists' who visit the country's schools to witness the so-called miracle of Finnish education due to Finland's excellent results in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study. Through theoretically informed reading of ethnographic data, we examine how Self and Other are constructed in everyday encounters in school and how religions, religious groups and individuals become regarded as Others. We also ask whether the aims of interreligious dialogue in schools represent a viable way to learn about each other and to increase mutual understanding. The theoretical and methodological approaches derive from post-colonial, post-structural and related feminist theories as well as from recent research on intercultural education and communication.Uskontojenvälistä dialogia pidetään keskeisenä tavoitteena monissa eurooppalaisissa ja UNESCOn poliittisissa dokumenteissa ja tutkimusasiakirjoissa, joissa koulutusinstituutiot esitetään näissä usein keskeisiksi dialogin paikoiksi. Artikkelissamme tarkastelemme arjen kohtaamisiin liittyvää uskontodialogia sekä kohtaamisissa läsnä olevaa epäsymme-triaa ja kategorisointia kahdessa suomalaisessa koulussa. Suomalaisten koulutusjärjestel-män yhdenvertaisuutta ja tasa-arvoisuutta ovat kehuneet ne tuhannet 'koulutusturistit', jotka ovat vierailleet Suomen kouluissa tutustumassa OECD: n Programme for international student assessment (PISA) -arvioinnin erinomaisiin tuloksiin perustuvaan suomalaisen koulutuksen menestystarinaan. Tarkastelemme etnografista aineistoamme teoriasta ammentavan etnografisen luennan avulla analysoiden sitä, kuinka itse ja toinen rakentuvat koulun arjen kohtaamisissa ja kuinka uskontoja, uskonnollisia ryhmiä ja yksilöitä pidetään toisina. Pohdimme, pystyykö kouluihin sijoittuva uskontodialogi edistämään tavoitteidensa mukaisesti keskinäistä oppimista ja lisäämään keskinäistä ymmärtämistä. Artikkelimme teoreettiset ja metodologiset näkökulmat perustuvat jälkikoloniaalisiin ja jälkistrukturalistisiin feministisiin teoretisointeihin sekä viimeaikaiseen interkulttuurisen kasvatuksen ja vuorovaikutuksen tutkimukseen.

The purpose of this article is analysis of discursive marginalisation through education in Nordic welfare states. What knowledge do Nordic research discourses produce about marginalisation through education in Nordic welfare states? What are the Nordic contributions to research discourses on marginalisation through education? We apply a discourse theoretical approach and analyse 109 peer-reviewed publications on marginalisation by the Nordic Centre of Excellence "Justice through education in the Nordic countries" (NCoE JustEd) between 2013 and 2017. The publications are from Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. Four critical Nordic research discourses reconceptualise marginalisation in relation to dominant educational discourses on marketisation, Eurocentrism, gender equity and ableism. These Nordic research discourses document discursive effects of the dominant, normalising discourses in terms of stigma, segregation and exclusion of poor, working-class students, non-white and immigrant students and descendants of immigrants, as well as sexual minorities and disabled students. Based on ethical, epistemological and methodological considerations, the critical Nordic research discourses produce knowledge about marginalisation as a relational, intersectional and interdiscursive phenomenon. The critical Nordic research discourses de-and reconstruct knowledge about marginalisation in Nordic welfare states.

This paper reviews discourses on multicultural education and the concept of intercultural competencies in the European and Nordic country of Finland. We focus on their present uses and perceptions by decision-makers, researchers, and also student teachers. Some prognosis for the future is made based on a short case study from art teacher education in this context. The case study represents an approach that replaces an understanding of intercultural competencies only grounded in knowledge with an approach grounded in criticality. In this way, the article represents an attempt to evaluate how intercultural competencies can and should be reconceptualised in global scholarship today. Policies on Multicultural Education in Finland Intercultural Competences Renewing the Competencies Perceptions of Intercultural Competencies Creating Glocal Meanings in Finnish Art Education Conclusion Notes ReferencesVol. 14, No. 3

Although Finnish basic education is based on inclusion, 37% of students receiving special support still study in either separate schools or separate classes in comprehensive schools.In this study we explore how policies of inclusion are implemented in a school with separated special educational needs (SEN) and general education (GE) classes. More specifically we conducted a two-year ethnographic study focusing particularly on exclusion and the sense of belonging in a lower secondary school (students aged 13-16) in the capital region of Finland. During the fieldwork, several students attending the SEN-class expressed an interest in changing from the SEN-class to a GE-class, or in breaking the borders between SEN and GE classes in other ways. As part of the negotiations with the school, students who criticised the GE-and SEN-class division were offered an opportunity to transfer to GEclasses but in the end, all of them wanted to stay in the SEN-class. In this investigation, we focus on the students' reasoning and the teachers' reactions when students negotiate the borders between SEN and GE-classes. In this study we found a clash between integration and inclusive thinking.