Interkulturell känslighet och solidaritet i skolan : - En studie om minoritetindividers skolupplevelser

Sammanfattning: This study highlights the experiences of minority individuals who have attended the Swedish primary and/or secondary school. The aim has been to describe their situated experiences with regards to intercultural sensitivity and solidarity. Previous research presents different findings that are related to the social and value-based aspect of schools. One study found that integration and respect among a diverse student group is achieved through intended strategies that seek to promote student interactions and collaborative inquiry across various types of boundaries. Another study found that children with minority backgrounds generally have poorer experiences of school climates. Through narrative interviewing, six women told stories of their school experiences. The stories were then analysed through Schütze’s methodology for narrative data analysis, explained by Jovchelovitch and Martin (2000). Theories of interculturality, transculturality and different conceptions of solidarity were used as frameworks for a thematic analysis. The results show that the majority of the interviewees experienced a general lack of intercultural sensitivity and solidarity in interaction with both peers and adults, and that their ethnic backgrounds made them targets for racial ostracism or prejudiced understanding. The interviewees also told stories of the individuals who made a difference in their lives because of the intercultural sensitivity and solidarity they had cultivated and the care they had for making the students feel respected as they are. This study shows that more awareness and understanding of intercultural sensitivity and solidarity in schools is needed and that the goals of inter- and transculturality are useful paradigms in multiple ways. One of them is that it can be used to create a deeper understanding of the unique ways that individuals interpret intercultural sensitivity and solidarity with regards to their intersectional experiences and perspectives in the world.