Nordic Centre of Excellence Justice through Education

How equitable is access to Finnish higher education, and does money play a role in it? Assistant professor Sonja Kosunen discusses the topic in a podcast.

All Points North | How equitable is Finland's higher education system, anyway? Does status buy access into higher education in Finland? Our guests education sociologist Sonja Kosunen and Adina Nivukoski from the Union of Upper Secondary School Students explore the potential obst

Mixed classes And Pedagogical Solutions (MAPS, NordForsk) -project with members from Finland, Iceland and the Netherlands met for a conference and a seminar in Reykjavik to discuss the research area of inclusive education, social segregation and urban development. Interesting progress and good discussions!

Discrimination, marginalization and segregation are common in the Nordic schools of today. JustEd researchers recently published 3 guidelines for policy makers to create a more equal and equitable educational system in the Nordic countries. 💝

Check out the guidelines and read more here ➡️ http://www.justed.org/how-to-promote-equality-and-equity-in-nordic-education/

Doctoral student and Teacher Educator Ida Hummelstedt-Djedou recently visited Nigeria, as an academic volunteer and lecturer. 🇳🇬 During her stay, Ida shared ideas around equity and inclusiveness, non violent communication and sustainable leadership with school leaders, teachers and students.

Peter Ogudoro, Project Leader for the 'Nigerian Schools Enhancement Project', was very pleased with Ida’s contribution:
“After the workshop, many of our participants have confirmed that they are adopting new and better attitudes towards their relationships with their communication partners and are making significantly improved choices in line with the school leadership, stakeholder management, classroom-management and communication principles that Ida shared with us during her presentations."

Read the article here:
http://www.justed.org/justed-doctoral-student-sharing-ideas-on-equity-and-inclusiveness-in-nigeria/

Gender in education is often a controversial topic. It is discussed at many levels in the society, but an existing body of research literature can sometimes be difficult to locate.

The GENTE website offers a collection of the research that have been conducted in the field of gender and education in the Nordic countries. The collecition is organized into the following themes: Early Childhood Education, Secondary Schooling, Academic Achievement, Educational Choices and Teacher Education.

Check out GENTE's new editorial here:
http://nordgente.org/index.php/collection/

“It is unfair to give writing home assignments without spending time talking about writing in the classrooms, providing examples and actually writing. The problem is that it only benefits the students who already know how to write well and who can rely on the help of their parents. It is very important in a literacy and democratic perspective that students actually are taught how to do what the school is expecting of them”, JustEd researcher Marte Blikstad-Balas says. She is part of a Norwegian classroom study focusing on writing exercises.

Read the whole article here:
http://www.justed.org/teacher-student-interaction-in-writing-exercises-contributes-to-social-justice/

What kind of citizen is fostered in the vocational programs and how is it impacting and constructing power relations related to class and gender? Together with a team of researchers, JustEd researcher Mattias Nylund has compared the vocational and academic programs in Sweden. The team found some problematic trends when it comes to social justice in education:
"We found a very clear gender divide where the girls got more theory than the boys, but the boys got more socially accepted knowledge and labor market relevant knowledge", Mattias says.

Read the whole article here: http://www.justed.org/vocational-programs-fostering-unequal-citizens/

Is there space for epistemological diversity and alternative ways of thinking in teacher education?

Intercultural bilingual teacher education in support of epistemological justice : Justice Through Education JustEd Coordinator Tuija Veintie defended her doctoral dissertation “Revival and regeneration of Indigenous knowledge in intercultural bilingual teacher education – A study in the Ecuadorian Amazonia” on Friday 23 November 2018 at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. Pr...

“It is difficult to discuss social class in Iceland because people think we do not have social class issues. However, we can see a strong segregated effect in our data when it comes to ethnicity. We can almost call it ‘a white flight or native flight' from certain schools”, says JustEd researcher Berglind Rós Magnúsdóttir.

She has studied how the marketization of schools in Iceland is related to segregation trends:

"We are having more and more groups that are isolated in terms of religion, ethnicity, special needs and social class. We cannot allow that to happen, then we are just going back to the 60’s again."

Read the whole interview with Berglind here: http://www.justed.org/emerging-segregation-in-schools-in-iceland/

“Equal opportunities are a prerequisite for further studies and employment. Employment is in turn a prerequisite for social, economic and health benefits for all individuals in a society”, says JustEd researcher and Professor Joanna Giota at the University of Gothenburg.

Giota's recent research findings show how young adults with intellectual disabilities or students with other difficulties in Sweden are facing long-term consequences in education and working life, due to a lack of equal opportunities.

Read the whole interview with Joanna Giota here: http://www.justed.org/sorting-out-students-with-special-needs-has-long-term-consequences-for-their-lives/

Did you attend ECER 2018 🔎 in Bolzano, Italy? So did many of JustEd’s PhD students from the University of Helsinki – we asked them about their biggest key takeaways and the overall experiences from the conference. 😋

One of them, Ida Hummelstedt-Djedou, particularly appreciated the keynotes by Marco Catarci and Thomas Popkewitz:

“Catarci showed how brutal life can be for refugee and immigrant children growing up in Italy but never getting Italian citizenship, pleading for more humanity. I was also inspired by examples on ‘translanguaging’ from Luxemburg and Holland, where children get to use all their languages in kindergarten or school. It showed me how much still remains to be done regarding multilingualism in the Finnish context.”

Read the whole article about the key takeaways from our PhD students here: http://www.justed.org/justed-doctoral-students-key-takeaways-from-ecer-2018/

In our new online series 'Eye on the researcher', we are presenting some of our researchers in the Nordic countries. 😛🔎 In the first part, Joke Dewilde (JustEd researcher, University of Oslo) shares the latest findings from her study on multicultural events.

Are multicultural events reinforcing differences or building bridges? The research community is usually critical, arguing that the events may further division between people from different cultures, but Joke Dewilde tends to disagree to some extent:

“Most of the literature isn’t based on actual observations but on a theoretical perspective. I agree that culture may be portrayed very statically in these events, but when we talk to people and we sense the atmosphere we get a different view of it all. For the school we studied, the international week was seen as an important opportunity to focus on students from a minority background. The school management used the event to acknowledge these students and make them proud of their heritage.”

Read the whole article about Dewilde's research findings here: http://www.justed.org/multicultural-events-reinforcing-differences-or-building-bridges/