As in many countries, internationalization and interculturality have become two key concepts in Finnish higher education. As such, several documents (often called 'survival guides') have been published by universities in this context to help international and exchange students to adapt to Finland and Finnish 'ways.' This article examines such a document dedicated to intercultural communication on Finnish campuses. We demonstrate by analyzing two different versions of the document that the constructed discourses contain rather culturalist, judgmental, and ethnocentric discourses about self and other. We argue that it represents a 'defeat of hospitality' or hostipitality. As such, interculturality and hospitality are reduced to 'educating' the students to adjust to certain stereotypical Finnish manners rather than teaching them to negotiate and co-construct new ways of being together. Our approach to interculturality is critical, constructivist, and relies on a pragmatic discursive analysis of two versions of the document.

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Purpose: Meeting “others,” especially so-called “local” students, is usually seen as a sign of success for intercultural learning and integration in research on study abroad and internationalization of higher education. Previous studies have focused on how international students themselves describe their (mis-)encounters. In this article, the authors consider lecturers’ voices about this phenomenon. Lecturers have an influence on the students’ experiences since they spend a lot of time together in and outside class. Design/Approach/Methods: Using a thematic analysis and social network analysis of interview data with lecturers, and a critical perspective toward the dichotomy of “local” versus “international” students, a university in Finland, a popular destination thanks to its positive image in global education, serves as a case study. Findings: The article identifies privileges, limits, and (missed) opportunities of encounters, as shared by the lecturers in focus group discussions. Furthermore, the lecturers created hierarchies in the way they describedthe encounters between different kinds of students. Some signs of pluralizing both local and international students were also found in some lecturers’ discourses. Originality/Value: The article ends with recommendations for institutions regarding the lecturers’ problematic role of gatekeepers in student encounters and the limiting categories used in institutions of higher education to refer to students.

Learning materials have become significant determinants of quality learning environments for young children. This study presents an example of such learning material in the Finnish context -a children's book entitled: Bibi muuttaa Suomeen (translated: Bibi Moves to Finland) by Katja Kallio and Maggie Lindholm (2005). The main concern of this article is how the 'us' and 'them' (Finland vs. Africa) meet or co-exist together in the book, which describes a young girl, Bibi, her life in a 'traditional' African village and subsequent move to Finland. The positive intention of the book is to familiarize Finnish children with different cultures and the life of immigrant children. In this study concepts such as 'Whiteness', normality and belonging are discussed within a critical approach to intercultural education. The data consist of a focus group interview conducted for student teachers and our own analysis as two experts in the book. The material was analysed with the help of critical discourse analysis and a critical incident approach. The results show that despite good intentions to educate children about immigration and other people in a more positive light, the book serves to maintain the social structure of Finnish society as White, modern and superior to 'others' in Africa. It is important that teachers and teacher educators are able to challenge this type of representation of the world and of immigration in children's books and learning materials.