With the usual one the class studies “masses” and “wannabe types”.
This is how Emma, who studies in a weighted class, describes her classmates from the general education class. At the same time, he also breaks up with some of his classmates.
Some in the emphasized teaching reportedly wear “Gant's hoodie and Marco Polo's cap and Helly Hansen's jacket”. For Emma, who was interviewed by the researchers, it represents inauthentic elegance, when she herself says that she wears clothes she sews and flea market finds.
“Although Emma's style does not require large amounts of money, it requires cultural capital and is based on a middle-class concept of individuality,” says the university lecturer and docent Marja Peltola.
Middle schoolers talk to researchers in fresh School and inequality – in the book are startlingly perceptive about social class, even though they don't use that word themselves.
Class should be talked about more than currently in the discussion about school segregation. This is what Peltola and the professor of general education who edited the new book say Sonja Kosunen.
So it is not enough to talk about the children of immigrants and the challenges they face. We must also talk about the children of native Finns and the visibility of their socio-economic background in the school world.
Coming out on March 11th School and inequality does exactly this. The book, which is based on extensive research, examines the manifestation of inequality in the everyday life of schools in disadvantaged areas of the capital region, as described by the students and staff themselves.
The book one message is that talking about a unified Finnish primary school is not enough in general. We should talk about certain schools in certain regions and their special features.
The idea is common sense, but radical. The Finnish school debate has been dominated by a strong ideal of equality and equality based on the principle of universalism.
So: the same amount of cake for everyone.
“In the interviews conducted in the schools, it was clear that the school staff want to believe in equality. However, social class was not discussed,” says Peltola.
On the other hand, from the interview quotes in the book, you can see that even though the term social class may not be used in schools, its existence is recognized.
This is how the principal interviewed for the book describes the situation at his school:
“If I buy books for everyone, is that right? Because the school has Kalle, who lives with his mother and father in a multimillion-dollar house and gets the same book as his friend, who lives with his 11 siblings in a rented apartment…”
Young people according to Kosusen, the interviewees were “very aware” of even subtle distinctions related to social class.
“Adults may think that young people don't notice these differences, but they do,” he says.
The distinction can be seen between students attending weighted and general classes. There are also typically differences between students in terms of social class: the parents of students in focused education are typically well-educated and/or in well-paying professions.
Emphasized class-based teaching has been in the headlines again this year, the mayor of Helsinki Juhana Vartiainen (cook) suggested giving it up.
In the book students differentiate based on, for example, clothing style and leisure activities.
The two girls in the general class, Nura and Irina, think about how the students in the special class differ from them:
Interviewer: What are they? [painotus]classes, do they have their own story?
Nura: They're on their own planet somewhere. […] We don't talk like that or like that.
Irina: Okay, I can say, it's really wrong to say, but that's just the way they are [harrastus], [toinen harrastus]and all.
Nura: Yeah. They all look exactly the same and they all –
Irina: Yes, they all look exactly the same.
According to Peltola, the class divisions within the school were also reflected in the research interviews in how the young people saw their future.
Some of the young people interviewed had low incomes and substance abuse problems in their families, and these young people themselves had mental health problems.
“The future horizon of underprivileged young people could reach the next day, just as middle-class and working-class young people were thinking in a variety of ways, for example, about going to high school and its benefits in terms of future work.”
The school According to Kosusen and Peltola, the hierarchies that arise inside can influence how teachers relate to students. The same goes for how students see themselves.
There is less public talk about segregation within one school than segregation between schools. Kosunen and Peltola emphasize that the class plays a big role in that as well.
Highly educated families seem to be in the most important position in the migration that differentiates schools. This was shown, for example, by a study by Venla Bernelius and Katja Vilkama in 2019.
The highly educated have the knowledge and skills to make an active choice between schools. Often, instead of a nearby school, a school with a better reputation is chosen.
The researchers remind us that, of course, families operate within the limits that urban education policy offers them. So you can't blame only the good ones.
While some well-to-do Finnish- and Swedish-speaking families avoid certain areas in the capital region, some of these areas are concentrated in poorly educated, low-income and foreign-speaking populations.
In Helsinki, the number of children from families with higher education in elementary school student areas varies from less than 10 percent to more than 50 percent. The difference in the proportions of children who speak a foreign language is even greater.
“The housing of families with children is regionally more differentiated according to social class than the housing of the urban population in general. This is also related to the differentiated everyday realities of schools,” says Kosunen.
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