Interkulturell undervisning i praktiken. Lärares uppfattningar om interkulturell undervisning.

Abstract

In recent decades, society has become increasingly globalized and today school is a place where people with an infinite variety of backgrounds, experiences, cultures and religions meet and influence each other. Intercultural education has become increasingly relevant due to these changes. Despite national corporate decisions and policies, previous research shows that there is a gap between theory and practice. There is a lack of research on how teachers perceive these cultural encounters and what they do to teach intercultural. Therefore this study explores how practicing teachers perceive intercultural education; what they find to be important circumstances for having successful intercultural education and what they find to be challenging. The result was the identification of three important aspects; the teachers’ attitude, the hands-on work teachers do in the classroom and lastly communication and interaction with both pupils and parents. Challenges were identified in all the categories, but particularly communication and language barriers appeared to create challenges. Overall the study shows that teachers are unfamiliar with the concept of intercultural education, but they are fully aware of what it means in the hands-on work. It is something they do every day, in every subject. It comes natural to the teachers to teach interculturally.