The school don't see enough of me!

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Carla ChingaPhD Candidate in PedagogyProgramme for Teacher EducationNorwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU

The school don’t see enough of me! - Intersectional analysis of students social experiencesin the Norwegian upper secondary school

IntroductionIn the social democracy of the Norwegian society, parents are

obliged to send their children to school, and all students have

the right to get a proper education in accordance to specific

competence and expertise aims written in the national

curriculum of 2006, Kunnskapsløftet, LK06. The educational system

in Norway is organized to give equal opportunity and customized

training (Tilpasset Opplæring) to the students. The main goal of

the school in Norway is to give students an education according

to the student’s talents and individual efforts (Engen, 2007).

This paper is based on an intersectional analysis of social

categories of majority and minority students in the Upper

Secondary school in Norway. I use an inductive approach, where

the student’s own life world, life stories and counter

narratives form the basis of the research process (Christensen

& Qvotrup Jensen, 2012). The emphasis is on how students

perceive that social experiences and everyday life in school

affect their identity formation and the way they feel perceived

in schools (Dahlstedt, 2009).

The data material consists of in-depth interviews and life

stories, school observations and informal conversations with

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students with majority and minority background and Norwegian

teachers in three Upper Secondary schools during a period of 7

months.

This bottom-up perspective (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009) and the

intersectional approach is inspired by a theoretical framework

consisting on the construction of normality vs deviance and

power relations of majority and minorities in postcolonial

theory (Andenæs, 2010; Andreotti, 2011; Bhopal & Preston, 2012;

Foucault, 1980; Mc Call, 2005; Popkewitz & Brennan, 2000; Said,

2004).

One important objective of this paper is to destabilize the

notion of the ideal student and the dominant narrative of the

normal student in the Norwegian school (Gillborn, 2008). This

notion will be challenged by telling minority students' counter

narratives and analysing the complexity of the student social

experiences and everyday life in the Norwegian school

(Christensen & Qvotrup Jensen, 2012). The minority students

narratives will be put up against the “normal and dominant

majority narrative”, which consists of Norwegian majority

students school stories at the Upper Secondary school (Staunæs,

2004).

Another aim of this paper is to deconstruct the notion of the

concept of “minority student” as a homogeneous group, giving an

awareness of the complexity of these students’ life stories,

identities, reflections, self-understanding and the way they

feel defined within certain categories and stereotypes by being

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a minority student in the Norwegian school (A.-J. Berg,

Flemmen, & Gullikstad, 2010).

Other important goal is to discuss how the experience of being

the “Other” in the Norwegian school affects the minority

student opportunities for further identity formation in society

(Andreotti, 2011).

The research question in this paper is: How do different social

categories affect students' identity construction in school, and how do these

categories work in relation to the Norwegian notion of “the ideal student” at school?

In today’s late modern and multicultural Norway, it is

necessary to shake some of the ideas that the Norwegian school,

the teachers of minority students and some majority students

can hold towards minority students as a homogenous and static

group (Gillborn, 1995). Awareness of the historical background

of power relations between the majority and minorities are

important in the formation of the incipient multicultural

Norwegian society and educational system (Andenæs, 2010).

Contextualizing the Norwegian School The research presented here is contextualized in the Norwegian

Upper Secondary school (Den Videregående skolen), where most

youth between 15 – 18 (19) years spend three years of their

lives, after ten years in the primary school (Grunnskolen). The

Upper Secondary school prepares students for a life in the

workplace or for further studies at college or university. It

is the county council (Fylkeskommunen) which has the primary

responsibility for the operation of the secondary education.

The Upper Secondary school in Norway is mainly public. All

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youth that complete Primary and Lower Secondary school have the

legal right to admission to the Upper Secondary school,

regardless of grades.

The school as an institution is one of the nation state's most

important means of creating community and solidarity among the

population (Westrheim & Tolo, 2014). The Norwegian public

school emphasizes the educational goal that all students,

regardless of social and class backgrounds, are included in a

public school system where there is room for everyone (Lidén,

Lien, & Vike, 2007). It is in the spirit of this equal public

school that immigrant youth meet the Norwegian culture and

start socialization into the Norwegian way, history and culture

(Engen, 2010).

Eriksen (2010) mention that the school is one of the most

important means of cultural transmission in a nation, and at

the same time, students and teachers are in contact with other

cultures and with students from other cultures in schools

(Hylland Eriksen, 2010). However, this schooling context

creates one of the main challenges in the Norwegian school

today. The focus on sameness, equality and the Norwegian

cultural principle of equivalence can cause that the minority

students' cultural differences and ethnical peculiarities

become irrelevant and invisible at school (Lidén et al., 2007).

The increasing cultural and ethnical pluralism in schools can

challenge the equality principles enshrined in the foundation

of the Norwegian school system.

Kjeldstadli (2014) writes about the challenges the Norwegian

school struggle with regarding cultural diversity vs cultural

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unity. Modern migration, globalization and transnational

connections make the Norwegian society extremely complex and

diverse, today and in the foreseeable future. It is an

institutional challenge in the Norwegian multicultural school

to deal with the pedagogical contradictions in terms of

integration vs. differentiation, unity vs. diversity and

individual vs. community.

Not only because the students have a minority background, are

they doomed to fail at school. Complex social processes of

class, gender, religion and ethnicity get activated in the

everyday life of school. The image of minority youth and

education in the Norwegian society is first and foremost very

complex (Kjeldstadli, 2014).

This paper will have a closer look at these complex social

processes and discuss how the minority student’s experiences in

school are connected with social processes in the everyday life

at school (Gillborn, 2008).

It is in this discursive and historical school context most

immigrant youth meet the Norwegian culture and start

socialization into the Norwegian way, history and culture

(Engen, 2010).

“Normality” and Otherness - Social relations in the Norwegian schoolPsychological terminology has played a key role in designing

the pedagogical concepts of normality in school (Lunneblad &

Johansson, 2012). Psychology has established the norms of

childhood, providing a vocabulary for explaining normality and

deviance in the pedagogical field.

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Lunneblad and Johansson (2012) have conducted a study in multi-

ethnic schools in the suburbs of Sweden. The study emphasizes

how teachers and parents with immigrant background handle

parenting and collaboration in school. They found that although

teachers had good wishes and intentions, the immigrant parents

and teachers were unable to achieve good communication.

Teachers often use different strategies of governance to

implement their own values, norms and ideas. Teachers, often

educated in a Western understanding of a “good” childhood,

“right” development and “proper” learning, tend to generalize

these notions to include all children. If immigrants’ parents

do not understand these concepts in the same way, teachers use

“cultural value system” as explanation of communication failure

(Lunneblad & Johansson, 2012).

The consequence of using psychological standardized tests on

students with ethnic minority background, and the generalized

view that all students are autonomous, independent individuals,

has in Norway led to an increasing numbers of immigrant

students who receive special education and are regarded as

problems in schools (Pihl, 2010). Decisions about the right to

get special education are determined on the basis of testing

and evaluation that determine a “diagnosis” that give minority

students special education outside its own class, or another

form of treatment in school. Ethnic minority students seem to

“lack something” compared to other “regular” students, and this

creates a deficit notion that many minority student meet in the

Norwegian school today.

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The deficit notion in today’s Norwegian school is partly a

consequence of the Western psychological understanding of

normalization processes and diagnosis practice, using

intelligence tests and other types of tests that measure

learning disabilities, motivation problems and other forms of

deviation defined by a Western way of understanding individuals

and its “universal” development (Gillborn, 1990; Lunneblad &

Johansson, 2012; Pihl, 2010).

The dominant narrative of the “ideal and normal student” in the

Norwegian educational system is mainly framed by the middle

class hegemony (Dale, 2008), explained by Western psychological

ideas about child development and communication (Lunneblad &

Johansson, 2012) and regarded as ahistorical and universal

(Foucault, 1980).

Previous research on educational processes has shown how the

school as an institution reproduce gendered stereotypes of

girls and boys and how schools as institutions are incorporated

into middle-class hegemony (Dale, 2008; NOU & 15, 2012).

In this paper I want to show how Norwegian cultural notions

about the ”ideal student” frame the understanding of students

in the Norwegian school, and how Western psychological

terminology helps to enhance and universalize this kind of

thinking.

David Gillborn (1990) makes use of the notion of the “ideal

client” of schooling to explore how institutional and teachers’

expectations are implicated in the functioning of institutional

racism inside schools (Gillborn, 1990). Gillborn’s notion of a

client stem from psychological theory, where the hierarchical

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aspect in social relationships start in the encounter between

therapist and the client. The notion of the ideal client of

schooling allows us to begin to understand the exclusion of

certain groups from educational processes in terms of their

location outside the school formal, informal, explicit,

implicit and tacit assessments of who approximates this ideal.

The notion of the “ideal student” allows us to identify the

discourses of the educational other in the Norwegian school.

Whiteness theory is an interdisciplinary arena of academic

research focusing on what is described as the cultural,

historical and sociological aspects of people identified as

white, and the social construction of whiteness as an ideology

tied to social status. Whiteness is not a biological category

but a normalized social construction; it is taken for granted

and therefore invisible. Whiteness theory has roots to

Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism refers to standards and values that

start from European-based culture and that either ignore or

denigrate other cultural values and experience. Whiteness is

tied to this type of thinking, and it relies on implicit

cultural dichotomies or oppositions between “White purity and

light = good” and “Black primitivism and dark= evil” (Jensen &

Kristín, 2012).

In this paper I want to use Whiteness theory to show how the

skin colour leads minority students consider themselves

different from "Norwegian" students, because dominant

discourses implicitly constructs the “normal” student as a

white student. The students’ narratives will also show how skin

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colour becomes relevant when majority students categorize

students from minority backgrounds as "The Other".

Based on the above, the notion of the “ideal student” is White

and from an academically middle-class family, and the qualities

of this “ideal student” have been empirically investigated by

many scholars in education, both in USA and in England

(Andreotti, 2011; Bhopal & Preston, 2012; Gillborn, 1990; Lynn

& Dixson, 2013; Youdell, 2003). In Norway there has not been

much research in this educational field yet (Chinga- Ramirez,

2014).

The notion of a “normal” and “ideal” student in the Norwegian

school is a collective and discursive construction given by the

mass media, the educational system and political discourses in

the Norwegian society (A.-J. Berg et al., 2010; Foucault, 1980;

Kjeldstadli, 2014). Who is a majority or a “normal, ideal”

student is thus constructed through historical and cultural

phenomena (Gillborn, 1990; Youdell, 2003). The definition of

normality in Norway is linked upon the values and ideas given

to education in the society and to the proper citizen. The

ideology of the “ideal” student provides an interpretive

framework that accommodates a range of meanings of being a good

student in the Norwegian school. There are many other things

that might be mentioned here; for example the support to women

liberation (which almost can be defined as a cultural value in

Norway); being an independent and autonomous individual, the

expectations that students take responsibility for their own

learning outcomes, students ability to argue and ask critical

questions in classrooms, having sufficient self-discipline to

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achieve certain goals in school, and being “modern” when it

comes to clothes, fashion and technical means such as the

“right” mobile telephone, etc. Generally; it requires that

students are “successful” within a well-defined interpretive

and general cultural framework (Collins, 1998).

To understand and recognize the diversity of students in

multicultural schools in Norway is it important to reconsider

this vision of the “normal”, “proper” and “good” student, to

gain an awareness of how this notion is socially and

historically constructed in society and to see ourselves as

cultural and historical human beings (Sleeter, 2013).

The intersectional approach The interest in intersectionality as an analytical approach has

been strong in two academic traditions; women and gender

studies, anti-racist studies and postcolonial research.

Intersectionality stems from black feminism in the United

States in the middle of the 1980’s, where black scholars’

criticized the universalism of the whites’ women feminism

(Crenshaw, 1990). It was argued that in a structural system

where being a man, white, heterosexual, Christian and wealth is

privileged; being a white woman is not necessary the same as

being a black woman (Collins, 1998). Black feminism wanted to

highlight the differences between women, since Western feminism

has tended to give the white, heterosexual, middle-class woman

precedence. This precedence works so that the experience of

this group of women appears to be universal and general for all

other women, something black feminists were critical to

(Crenshaw, 1989). Intersectionality as an analytical approach

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emerge as the solution, focusing on how different social categories

intersect framing individuals self-understanding and how they

get defined in different social settings (A.-J. Berg et al.,

2010).

A social category is a collection of people who occupy the same

social status, such as “woman” or “working class” or “Muslim”

(Desmond & Emirbayer, 2013). Social categories mark differences

and social hierarchies between groups of people and things, and

it is something actively created and recreated by societies.

Actors can create, recreate and resist definitions of social

categories, depending on the social ascription they get on the

social categories they are incorporated into (Desmond &

Emirbayer, 2013).

The classic definition of intersectionality, represented by

Crenshaw (19900), points out how different social categories

can represent a road, and how these different roads (social

categories) intersect, providing various social experiences for

individuals, depending on which intersections they find

themselves in. Crewshaw (1990) writes about additive

intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989), a concept showing a

structural picture about how different social categories

intersect with each other and mutually construct each other,

creating interlocking systems of oppression or privilege;

giving double, triple or multiple experiences of suppression or

privilege, depending of the intersections individuals cross in

social life (Collins, 1998).

McCall (2005) distinguishes between different approaches to

intersectionality by emphasizing how they relate analytical and

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methodological to social categories and categorization

processes in social life. She defines three different

approaches:

a) Anticategorical complexity is based on a methodology that

deconstructs analytical social categories. b) Intracategorical

complexity is based on examining the processes and categories

that unfold in different social contexts and that mark and

define the boundaries. c) Intercategorical complexity presupposes

that one uses already existing categories to document

relationships of inequality among social groups.

These approaches distinguish methodologies from one another in

that they oscillate between a continuum from an inductive,

wait-and-see approach, and a deductive, more theory driven

basis. Where intercategorical complexity takes certain social

categories for granted as existing and departure the research

from these categories (e.g. gender, social class and

ethnicity), the anticategorical complexity emphasize the

deconstruction of predetermined categories, problematizing the

existence and the validity of social categories and processes.

The intracategorical complexity is in the middle of this

continuum between the rejection of categories and the approach

that uses them strategically (Mc Call, 2005). Categories are

not taken for granted in this approach, but they are emphasized

to the extent they are relevant in a given context (A.-J. Berg

et al., 2010).

In this paper I use the intracategorical approach from McCall’s

(2005) theoretical and methodological framework using the

intersectional approach. I want to explore which social

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categories frame students’ reflections on social experiences in

school, and how these categories frame the way they perceive to

be defined in relation to the notion of “normality” in school.

Social categories are not taken for granted in this

intracategorical approach, but they are emphasized to the

extent they are relevant in a given context. I want to examine

processes where social categories establish the boundaries

drawn between “an ideal student” and the Other in school, and

also examine who is considered to belong to first and the

second category.

Minority and majority students' social experiences in the

Norwegian school are determined by several identity dimensions,

and these dimensions interact with each other, providing

different self-understandings in school (Bhopal & Preston,

2012). Identity dimensions such as class, religious

affiliation, ethnicity and gender may constitute how teachers

and students interpret different minority students in Norwegian

schools. For Muslim girls may visible religious signs such as

hijab, also give certain experiences of being defined

negatively or positively in the social setting of the Norwegian

school (Andenæs, 2010).

In this paper I want to analyse which social categories are

important in making the discourse of “the ideal student”.

Further, I will explain the processes of othering from this

ideal, defining in certain negative ways students who do not

fit into a dominant concept of “normality” (Bhopal & Preston,

2012).

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Dominant narrative and counter narrativesThe empirical part of this paper consists of one dominant

narrative of a Norwegian student, and two counter narratives of

two students with immigrant background from Sri Lanka and

Rwanda.

Counter-narratives only make sense in relation to something

else, that which they are countering. Counter Narratives can be

defined as positional life stories, in tension with another

dominant narrative. They are personal histories that alter our

understanding of dominant and naturalized cultural narratives

(Giroux, Lankshear, McLaren, & Peters, 1996).

The existence of counter narratives functions as a critique of

the modernist notion of “grand”, “master”, and “meta”

narratives. They challenge the narratives that have come to us

as part of the culture of the Enlightment. They function as a

critique for the grand claims concerning Man, Truth, Justice

and Beauty presented by Western society, often viewed as the

most evolutionary and developed cultural civilization in the

world (Giroux et al., 1996).

The majority narrative in this paper shows us what Norwegian

students are measured up against in upper secondary school

(Gillborn, 1990). This majority narrative is only one example

of a life story of one Norwegian student. It cannot be

generalized to all students, and it can only give us a blurred

picture of what is considered normal in the Norwegian school.

The same criteria can be applied to the other two counter

narratives.

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Two counter narratives:

RegineRegine is a 16-year black girl from Rwanda. She lives with her parents and siblings. Her family immigrated to Norway seven years ago because of the war in Rwanda. Her father is highly educated andworked at the Ministry. Her mother has also higher education and worked as a teacher in Rwanda. Regine tells me that she had several servants in the house back in Rwanda and that the family also had a chauffeur. She does not know why she lives in Norway now. Regine attend the minority class at her school. She has the subjectsNorwegian, English and career counselling with other students with minority background, and all of the other subjects with her regular Norwegian class.She says that she enjoys the Norwegian school and that she gets the help she needs. But she does not like that teacher’s start talking about Africans in the Norwegian class. She feels that once Africa as a theme shows up, she gets questions about war, starvation, murder and poverty. And she does not like it at all. She experiencesthat when Norwegian students talk about Africa, they only think of the negative parts there. And it's not like that she remembers Africa. She feels that the Norwegians think she also starved and waspoor, only because she is African. Regine tells me that the Norwegian school does not see enough of her, and that she gets lazy. She feels most comfortable in the minority class, because “I can be myself there”. In the minority class all the other students are foreigners, so they use to joke and have fun of the Norwegians. In the Norwegian class, Regine feels defined as an African girl and she experiences that the teachers does not push her and that they give up too fast on her both academically and socially. She thinks that teachers do not believe she can do better.So she gets lazy.

Regine experience being socially defined within certain

stereotypical notions of being an African girl in the Norwegian

school. Although she comes from a very wealthy family, with

both servants and chauffeurs, she experiences being defined in

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negative stereotypical way she does not recognize herself in.

In the reflections of her schooling experiences, Regine

emphasize how the Africa she remembers and grew up in, does not

match with the Africa both the students and the teachers

associate her with. Her wealthy background is not considered at

school, and she is socially defined based on stereotypical

notions of African people starving, experiencing distress, war

and misery. For Regine, this negative association leads to the

experience of being lazy in the Norwegian school. She feels

that teachers give up pretty fast when she does not understand

something. She feels that if teachers do not have expectations

for her to do well, and that they feel sorry for her. This

bothers her; she gets lazy and gives up school.

In the intracategorical intersectional analysis of Regine’s

social experiences in school, we see that social class and

“African ethnicity” are important social categories in

understanding her experiences in school. Why should all

Africans who come to Norway automatically be starving and poor?

Why does Regine experience that teachers have low expectations

of her? Why do they assume that she is socially deprived? Such

questions asked Regine during her interview, and this suggests

that, no matter what she does or behaves, she often experience

that the teachers and the school have certain stereotyped

notions of being African, poor and needy of help. Why is there

in the Norwegian society a strong connection between African

ethnicity, and poverty/starvation?

The question here is how Regine’s short time in Norway affects

the experience of being stereotyped. Will she be defined

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differently when she master the Norwegian language better and

gain more knowledge about the Norwegian way and culture after

some years in Norway?

From the story of Regine we can see how the intersection

ethnicity and immigrant status intersect reinforcing the

stereotypes many Norwegians have on African refugees.

It may be later in the future, when Regime has learned the

Norwegian language and culture; that she will use more of her

privileged social background. But now, since she has not been

so long in Norway, since she speaks Norwegian with accent and

do not know the Norwegian culture so well yet, her immigrant

status reinforce the stereotypes the school and the teachers

have about her ethnicity and race.

Berg (2010) writes in his doctoral thesis how the refugee

experience changes with time. When do you stop being a refugee

and start being a citizen in the society? What are the

requirements to become a full member of society? Her conclusion

is that the time aspect is very important in this process, and

that time lived in Norway and knowledge about the Norwegian

society are crucial to the integration process (B. Berg, 2010).

Nevertheless, the question here is how Regine’s social

experiences at school today, with teachers and majority

students definition of her own identity, will set the framework

for her own subjective self-understanding and identity

construction in school. Her experience of being defined by

others in school by certain negative stereotypes can have

important implications for her perception of freedom to define

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herself. How will schools and teachers definition of Regime

affect her identity construction later?

Gillborn (2008) argue that all the social experience students

receive in school will have important implications for the

opportunities they can get later in life (Gillborn, 2008).

SaranganSarangan is 16-year old boy. He is a Norwegian boy born from immigrant parents from Sri Lanka. Both his parents have higher education and they come from a middle class family. He also has two elder brothers studying at the university. Sarangan has attended the Norwegian school his entire life, and he is in a regular Norwegian class in the Upper Secondary school. He tends to do well in school and he works hard to achieve good grades.Sarangan is happy at school and he believes that it is up to him to get good grades and enjoy school. He has several Norwegian friends and he does not feel different from other Norwegian students. Sarangan speaks Tamil at home with his family and he practices the Tamil culture at home. He sometimes feels pretty torn between who he is home and who he is in school, but this is no problem for him. He is used to switch according to the social context, and it feels natural for him. He sees this condition as positive, because he gets the best from both cultures, as he mentions.Sarangan feels that he can be more foolish with his mates at school than he can be at home with his brothers and parents. He also mentions that it is expected that he treats others Tamil adults withrespect and courtesy, something that is not so clearly emphasized inschool in relation to teachers. Since he is the youngest of three brothers, he has gotten easier with regard to boundaries to go to parties and stuff with Norwegian friends. However, he feels he has to be very respectful with his parents, because the Tamil culture isstricter and it is very present at home.Sarangan feels that the school has taught him much about the Norwegian culture and the Norwegian customs. He believes that he hasbecome Norwegian by attending the Norwegian school and having Norwegian friends there. He feels formed and socialized in the Norwegian school, and he feels Norwegian inside, even if he does notlook like one, as he mentions. Sarangan speaks perfectly Norwegian,

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he acts like a Norwegian and there is no difference between him and other majority students, except his physical appearance. At the same time he does not like to bring Norwegian friends to his home. It smells much spice in his house, and he is embarrassed of what the others will think of him when they smell so much spice. He brings friends only when they know him very well and he can trust them.

With Sarangan we meet a different story. Sarangan was born and

raised in Norway; he speaks perfectly Norwegian and he acts and

behaves like a Norwegian. Although he may be comfortable at

school partly because of his cultural assimilation to the

Norwegian culture, he must think twice before he takes his

friends visiting him at home. He mentions that he's a bit

embarrassed by all the spices smell found at his home, and it

suggests that he is aware of the stereotype that exists about

Eastern cultures when it comes to food and spices (Said, 2004).

He is certainly aware of the misconceptions many Norwegians

have about cultures with different eating habits; especially

for garlic smell and “Pakistanis” (Hylland Eriksen, 2011). He

does not want to be associated with these stereotypies, and

he's trying deliberately to under communicate his Tamil ethnic

background in the public domain in school.

Sarangan also mentions that he must adapt his identity

depending on the social context he participates. I interpret

Sarangans identity formation as an adaptation to Østbergs

conception of a plural identity (Østberg, 2003, 2011), where he

changes his behaviour and self-understanding depending on the

relevant cultural and social context.

Østberg definition of a plural identity is:

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“A personal identity can also be plural, and it allows, among other things, that one can present itself in different ways or bring out different sides of oneself, depending on the socialsituation.” (Østberg, 2003) p.104.

This is somehow a straightforward solution to Sarangans

identity formation in school, where he adapts his social

behaviour to the relevant context.

Much of the research on identity work among minority concludes

with the creation of multiple identities depending on the

particular social setting (Fangen, Alghasi, & Frønes, 2006;

Hvistendahl, 2001; Hylland Eriksen, 2011; Sam & Berry, 2006;

Straume, 2011; Vedder & Horenczyk, 2006; Østberg, 2011).

However, few researchers have problematized the underlying

reason why the minority ethnical part of the plural identity is

often subordinated the western part in the plural identity.

Østbergs (2011) term plural identity does not discuss why the

minority ethnical identity of the students with minority

background is subordinated the Norwegian identity in the

Norwegian school. Why does Sarangan under communicate his Tamil

identity at school in benefit of his Norwegian identity?

Littman & Andersson (2005) have a more critical focus on a

plural identity formation of minority youth in Western

societies (Lithman & Andersson, 2005). They explain that a

plural identity formation involves a dichotomous and

hierarchical understanding between “us” and “the others”. They

integrate the power aspect in the discussion of the plural

identity, and they claim that the various cultures are placed

in a hierarchical position to another, where the Western

culture represents modernity, individuality and freedom, and

the other non-Western culture often represents the traditional,

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the past and the collective (Lithman & Andersson, 2005; Said,

2004).

Andersson (2000) argue that having plural identities, which

Østberg argues, leads one to consider the concept of "culture"

as something static and unchanging. She writes that "culture"

in this perspective is considered a holism, a kind of holistic

and static definition of the concept of culture where there is

a simple dichotomy between ethnic origin (the country of

immigrants originally came from), and the new host country

(Andersson, 2000). Much of the research on plural identities

argues for cultural conflicts and the creation of a double or a

hyphenated identity (tamil-norwegian), where several of the

dichotomies involving values creates conflict between the

ethnic country of origin and the new host country. Through the

psychological process of acculturation (Berry, Phinney, Sam, &

Paul, 2006), minorities should be integrated into a new social

context, and these new social and cultural forms of expression

were seen as an attempt to survive in this dichotomy, and

resolve the conflicts that arose in the light of this situation

(Sam & Berry, 2006). In this type of research, there are no

question marks for the hierarchical positioning of the

cultures, where old historical events have led to the

subordination of non-western cultures in relation to western.

This research has neither debated the possibility of a cultural

mixed identity, where one does not split the identity in

different cultural parts, but where one gets a new whole by

mixing different cultural identities (Bhabha, 2004).

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A way of coping with this dichotomous and hierarchical

understanding of cultures is the way Sarangan often does. He

under communicates his Tamil ethnicity in school and "changes"

in various contexts. He over communicates his Norwegian part

and under communicates his Tamil ethnicity in school. Although

he mentions that he struggles with this condition a few times,

it feels normal for him to do so. He was born into a minority

in Norway and he believes that this is a natural social

condition. Sarangan does not show knowledge about the

historical power relations between majority and minorities and

he does not question why his Tamil ethnicity must be repressed

in the social Norwegian school setting.

Since constructing a plural identity is a natural explanation

for Sarangan, the static understanding of cultural belonging is

intact. He is either Norwegian or Tamil, depending on the

social context he participates in. His understanding of being

Norwegian or Tamil is static, because he uses different

stereotypical and static notions related to both cultures. The

question here is how his cultural identity formation in school,

where a part of him is subordinated the other, will have

implications for his identity formation in the future.

Postcolonial theory view the colonial period in the World

history as crucial for the creation of dichotomous

understandings of power relations between majority and

minorities, and for the West's hegemonic power (economic,

cultural and social) in the world. This historical epoch have

created the dichotomies between the Western and Eastern

cultures, where the Western culture is regarded as the natural

23

and right position, superior to all the other cultures in the

world (Spivak, 1988; Young, 2003).

A dominant narrative:RonjaRonja is a 16-year old Norwegian girl, born and raised in a city in Norway. She comes from a middle class home, with both of her parentsworking at the public hospital. Ronja has two smaller siblings. WhenRonja talks about the school, she feels very comfortable with it. She emphasizes that she is happy because there are many other students similar to her in school, so it is easy to meet new friends. She also talks about how Upper secondary schools have different “profiles”, and she is happy because she chose the right school for her. She also talks about the pressures on appearance, fashion and being “right” on school. She says that this pressure is very strong, and often something that adults do not notice. Ronja tells in her story that the students who do not slip into what is expected of them in terms of the social pressure to be correct and right, tend to be kept outside the school community. They get frozen out. She mentions foreign students as an example, and how they are “different” and do not understand the expectations to be “right” in school. She seems in a way sorry for them, but she still thinks they are different, especially the Muslim girls with hijab.Ronja also mentions that her self-esteem also declined at the start of the Upper Secondary school. She often felt she was not good enough. She had to find out what was “right” and what was socially expected of her to fit into the school setting. She says that she had to learn to dress appropriately according to the school codes, and to behave more grown to become part of the “right” gang at school.

With the history of Ronja we meet another form of school

narrative. She is already located in a privileged Norwegian

majority, and she reflects about social experiences in school

from this position. She comes from a middle class nuclear

24

family and she is happy in Upper Secondary school. She

experiences, however, a very significant pressure from peers

and school to fit in and to be right, both in terms of social

codes, clothing, fashion and appearance. This affects her

experiences at school as she emphasizes that she wants to be

part of the appropriate student group and gain the proper codes

to fit in the right group at school.

Ronja emphasized that learning the correct codes was very

important the first period after she started Upper Secondary

school. She also mentioned that her confidence and self-esteem

took a beating this first period, when she did not know what

was expected of her. Fortunately, it did not take long time

before she realized what was expected of her. She learned the

social codes, and she experiences to fit better in school now.

She also mentioned that the students who do not master what are

expected of them socially, ends up as outsiders in school. She

says that this may be applied to foreign students since they do

not know the right social codes, especially Muslim girls with

hijab. She mentions that especially these girls are very

different from the friends she tends to be with. She thinks

this is silly, but that's the way it is. From my school

observations and the interview with Ronja I was surprised when

I noticed her attitude toward minority students' otherness as

“natural”, it's just like that, without reflecting the reason for this

or if there is anything the school can do to change it. She is

so keen to fit in at school herself, that she cannot imagine

that things could be different, both to the expectations she

experiences herself at school, and to the exclusion of students

25

who are “different”. These social expectations may be related

to the discursive notion of the ideal pupil and the ideal

“youth” (Gillborn, 1995).

It is also interesting that Ronja has a greater emphasis on the

physical aspects of this pressure. She mentions that proper

dress code and appearance are important to fit into the

appropriate group at school, but she does not mention school

grades or being a good learner. The emphasis on the physical

aspect may also be a consequence of a gendered pressure, since

it is important for many girls in modern societies to be

physical pretty and cute (Gressgård & Jackobsen, 2003). The

emphasis on the physical appearance may also be a consequence

of the media-created and gendered cultural notion of “beauty”,

influencing many women in neoliberal societies today (Harvey,

2005). This Western notion of beauty creates an opposition, the

Other, where everything that does not fit into this performance

fall outside, like Muslim girls with hijab, which Ronja

mentions during the interview (Bhopal & Preston, 2012; Chinga-

Ramirez, 2014).

Destabilizing the idea of the “normal student” in the Norwegian schoolThese three narratives exemplify the diversity of the perceived

social experiences for students in the Norwegian Upper

Secondary school. All the three students are 16 years and they

come from stable nuclear families, living with two parents and

siblings. These students are also homogeneous with respect to

social class; they all have a middle class background, and

26

especially Regine seems to come from a high social class

background. All of the three students also attend the same

upper secondary school, and they all go in first grade, but in

two different classes. Regine attends in addition the minority

class, because she has lived in Norway for shorter time and

needs reinforcement in some subjects.

The social categories of age, class and family composition of

these students are thus quite similar. However, these students

have quite different social experiences and reflections about

their schooling in Upper Secondary school.

Both Regine and Sarangan experience to be defined in certain

negative ways because they are not Norwegian, especially

Regine, since her language mastering is still not so good, so

her African ethnicity is compounded by the lack of cultural

competence at school. For these two minority students, the

reflections on how their minority ethnic background are

interpreted in school are prominent in their school narratives,

and these social experiences form the basis for their feelings

of otherness in school.

Since Sarangan was born in Norway, he masters many linguistic,

social and cultural codes in school. However, he experiences

that he has a plural identity since he is different at home and

in school (Østberg, 2003). Sarangan experiences that he has to

create two versions of himself to handle with this otherness,

and the social category that is important to this social

experience is his Tamil minority background.

The question here is why ethnic minority students basically

create a plural identity, and why they, as Sarangan, hide the

27

ethnic minority part of their own identity to better fit into

the majority notion of the “normal” pupil. Why must they hide

their minority culture at school?

Regine has not yet created a plural identity. She has not

stayed so long in Norway, so her otherness is still very

visible in school linguistic, cultural and social. She

experiences not to be seen as an individual at school, and she

experiences to be defined in specific negative stereotypes

associated with her minority African ethnicity. This bothers

her quite a bit, and the question here is how the social

definitions of her African ethnicity will influence her own

identity development and social competence in the future.

Social categories of ethnicity, cultural competence and social

class emerge as important categories in the intracategorical

intersectional analysis of these minority students’ social

experiences in school (Mc Call, 2005).

Ronja, on the other side, experience school from a privileged

majority perspective, but she also experiences the strong

pressure to be “correct” at school. Her narrative and

reflections points to a more gendered discourse of beauty in

the society, and the pressure she experiences can be linked to

more general expectations many women experience toward being

beautiful (Harvey, 2005).

We can see that regulation and social hierarchization of

students in the context of school is important in forming the

students’ experiences, both for majority students and for

students of minority background (Bhopal & Preston, 2012).

28

In the intracategorical intersectional analysis of these

students social experiences in school (Mc Call, 2005), the

categories that seems most important for inclusion/exclusion,

feelings of otherness/sameness, and belonging in the Norwegian

school are the categories of ethnicity, cultural competence,

social class, and gender.

Regines African background is reinforced by her immigrant

status, creating a social position she doesn’t feel comfortable

with. Even when she originally stems from an upper social class

family, she experiences that her social class background is

shaded in relation to her African ethnicity. Her skin colour

and African origin automatically puts her in stereotypical

notions of being “the other”, even though she might have a

social class background who gives her benefits in school. She

experiences that either teachers or other classmates in school

see her upper social class background; they see only her skin

colour and her African ethnicity.

In Regines intersectional analysis we can conclude that

ethnical background, skin colour and cultural competence are

more important than social class in inclusion processes in the

Norwegian school.

Sarangan creates a plural identity home and in school. He under

communicates his Tamil ethnical background in school and over

communicates his Norwegian part in school to become “a normal

student”. For Sarangan this is a naturalized condition that he

does not question the origin of this. He feels comfortable with

his social situation in school. The unanswered question is what

will happen with the identity formation of Sarangan in the

29

future when a part of his self is subordinated, hidden and not

recognized in Norwegian social settings. What happens when

people can’t show the whole identity in the public space?

Ronja tries to accommodate her identity as fast as she can to

fit into the normal and gendered notion of “feminine beauty” in

school. She, like Sarangan, naturalizes this social condition

in school, trying hard to accommodate her appearance and self-

understanding to the social requirements that can define her as

a successful and a “normal student”.

All of these three students relate in some way to the common

requirements and expectations to fit into an imagined,

naturalized idea of an “ideal student” in the Norwegian

school.

ConclusionIt seems that the notion of the “ideal and normal student” is

strong in the Norwegian Upper Secondary school. The Norwegian

discursive ideals of “success” and successful people, and the

notion of the “normal student” in school functions as a

backdrop in the design of the values and what the Norwegian

society consider to be true and correct to do. Norwegian

cultural discourses of truth, justice, beauty and normal acts

as guidelines as to what we think is true and important in our

own lives. By including a majority perspective in an analysis

of intersectionality, we are able to capture this dominant

cultural narrative, and from this point of departure grasp

aspects of “othering” and processes of inclusion/exclusion in

Norwegian schools (Christensen & Qvotrup Jensen, 2012).

30

We can also see how social class as a social category have

different effects to different students. The dominant idea that

a high social background helps in school achievement must be

revised when stories of ethnic minority students from a high

social background experiences to be defined by stereotypical

notions of skin colour, ethnicity and immigrant status. It

seems that the category ethnicity and immigrant background

transcends the category social class in the students' school

experiences.

If we look up and frame these thoughts in a postcolonial

historical understanding of social relations between minorities

and majorities, we can gain a better understanding of why these

social relations are as they are in Norwegian schools today.

Through major global historical events, like the Western

colonization of Latin America, Asia and Africa, the African

slave period from 1500 to 1800's and the Holocaust in World War

II, the West's definition of their own superiority and the

creation of the "Other", has survived as stereotypes, beliefs

and naturalized ideas about who the “Other” is. These

discursive and naturalized ideas has become visible in Norway

in relation to the new immigration, the Norwegian international

development cooperation, Norwegian treatment of asylum

applications from the third world, and class distinctions

related to immigrants begging and prostitution in Norway

(Chinga- Ramirez, 2014).

It is very important to be aware of this historical post-

colonial heritage, and how notions of Western and Whiteness

superiority can affect a country like Norway if we naturalize

31

beliefs about deviance from normality (Gillborn, 1990). The

awareness of the historical origins of our notions of

“normality” and “truth” is of extremely importance, especially

in the field of education, where so many different people meet

and where identity construction is particularly vulnerable to

the young unexperienced lives of the students.

32

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