Essentializing vs. non-essentializing students’ cultural identities: curricular discourses in Finland and Sweden

Abstract

This article examines how students' cultural identities are discursively constructed in the Finnish and Swedish national curricula for the compulsory school. The aim is to illuminate the manifold discourses on cultural identity which prevail within Nordic educational policy. The study employs a critical multicultural education and postcolonial perspective with a particular focus on essentialist and non-essentialist views of identity in the curricular discourses. Through discourse analysis, key terms such as 'cultural identity' and 'multicultural identity' as well as different aspects of cultural identities such as language, gender and religion are investigated. The results show diverging discourses, with distinct differences in their explicitness and implicitness in the two countries. A clear effort to see all students as having multi-layered and multicultural identities is evident in the Finnish curricular discourse whereas a more essentializing discourse emerges in the Swedish curriculum. We conclude with a discussion on the importance of addressing policy discourses on students' cultural identities in order to ensure non-essentialist and socially just teaching and educational practice.

Taking steps towards institutionalising multicultural education – The national curriculum of Finland

“…Through these changes in vocabulary, the experiences of students with immigrant or minority background are also seen as more equal to those of majority students (cf. Zilliacus, Paulsrud, & Holm, 2017).…”

Språkmedvetenhet i småbarnspedagogiskt arbete – Finländska daghemspedagogers reflektioner

“…globalisering, invandring och språklig mångfald i familjer (FOS, 2018). Denna förändring i samhället syns också i dokumenten som styr utbildning (Zilliacus, Paulsrud & Holm, 2017;Sopanen, 2018).…”

“…Den ökade mångspråkigheten i samhället syns i de nya läroplansgrunderna bl.a. genom användningen av begrepp som flerspråkighet, mångfald och språkmedvetenhet vilka diskuteras i större omfattning i de senaste styrdokumenten jämfört med äldre dokument (West, 2016;Zilliacus et al, 2017;Sopanen, 2018). I denna studie ligger fokus på begreppet språkmedvetenhet; hur det beskrivs i GPS2016, hur daghemspedagoger resonerar kring det och hurdana diskurser som uppstår kring det.…”

Negotiations on Inclusive Citizenship in a Post-secular School: Perspectives of “Cultural Broker” Muslim Parents and Teachers in Finland and Sweden

“…According to a recent comparative analysis of the current national curricula in Finland and Sweden, the Finnish curriculum employs a strong non-essentialist discourse of cultural identities by articulating diversity as a feature of all students, while the Swedish curriculum is surprisingly silent about diversity, and makes a distinction between the students' "own origins" and the "common heritage" (the latter including "basic values of Swedish society") in a relatively essentializing manner. Furthermore, the Swedish curriculum posits the students' cultural background as a potential hindrance to the students' education, and advises school personnel to resist, for instance, restrictions on the student's choice of study or vocation that may be based on his/her cultural background (Zilliacus, Paulsrud, & Holm, 2017); this reflects Sweden's intensified focus on reinforcing the "basic values" of Swedish society (Elander et al, 2015). It seems that multicultural education in both Finland and Sweden is mainly understood in terms of increasing language participation, and no other barriers to achievement are recognized, which is a common trend in the Nordic context (Osler & Lybaek, 2014).…”

“…It seems that multicultural education in both Finland and Sweden is mainly understood in terms of increasing language participation, and no other barriers to achievement are recognized, which is a common trend in the Nordic context (Osler & Lybaek, 2014). The trend towards referring to students through their language identities (see, e.g., Zilliacus et al, 2017) can also be interpreted as an attempt at political correctness. The Finnish curriculum demands the recognition of religious and cultural identities, but in practice the ideals of concentrating on commonality and restricting religion to the private sphere prevail in educational contexts (Rissanen, Kuusisto, & Kuusisto, 2016).…”