Mångfald i en monokulturell kontext: hur förhåller sig lärare till det?

Abstract

Research on multiculturalism in homogenic schools appears to be a poorly codified phenomenon in the literature, hence the reason that founded the idea to dig deeper into the subject and to further challenge this research. Moreover, this empirical study aims to examine how middle school teachers are dealing with multiculturality in the school where the majority of the students are constituted by ethical Swedish pupils. The questions addressed in this study are: How does teachers relate to the concept of diversity? How can the students' background influence the teaching? What meaning and value does teachers assign to immigrant background or ethnicity? Furthermore, the study is founded on a fenomenografic methodical approach where qualitative interviews have been used in order to collect information. Four teachers who work in this environment of mainly ethnical Swedish pupils with some multiculturality has been interviewed. The completion of the empirical findings was conducted in line with the structures advocated by the fenomenografic approach. The conclusion of this empirical study displays that all teachers interviewed have an enriching way of thinking regarding the existence of minorities and cultural diversity. The reciprocal approach has been identified as the primarily way for teachers to manage this phenomenon. Important to mention is that the empirical information also displays a somewhat intercultural approach of dealing with this phenomenon, as it appears that some of the respondents doesn’t absorb all aspects of it. This study has contributed to insights that incongruities in these contexts does appears in reality, thus in reference that all students are not being treated or met by equality. This study also contributes to shed light on how the teachers can countervail these incongruities and how to approach the challenges that has been enlightened. Furthermore, the study demonstrates the importance of schools to develop an approach to work from a multicultural perspective and an approach where all education are grounded in the roots of the diverse cultures no matter the number of students with other ethnical backgrounds