”Den Andre” i lärarutbildningen. En studie om den rasifierade svenska studentens villkor i globaliseringens tid

In this dissertation, the experiences of various agents in Swedish teacher education are examined in relation to its multi-ethnic composition. The purpose is to study how the racialized “Other” is constructed, reconstructed or transcended in teacher education in light of contemporary and colonial history.

How agents from teacher education deal with dis¬courses about the racialized “Other” in their educational practices, is also a point of study. Participatory research and standpoint theory are the theoretical and methodological starting points for choice of method, where research circle and qualitative research inter-view are used for the empirical studies. Seven students with “non-European” background and one with mixed background were interviewed, while the research circle included six teacher educators and a student counselor. Also interviewed were three training placement tutors and language tutors, and with my own active participation in the research circle, the study had a total of 21 participants. For analysis of the study’s results, postcolonial theory and critical whiteness theory were used as theoretical framework. The results show that there are silences at the social, structural and actor level sur-rounding the pluralistic composition of teacher education. This includes silences surround¬ing the non-white/racialized Swedish students’ study conditions, students who, contrary to their expectations, experience exclusion and discrimination in teacher education – something they themselves explain as originating from the stereotypes that exist about them in society and education. The study also shows that the racialized segregation in society is reconstructed in education, for example in group work or work placements. However, the study also reveals resistance – agents with different ethnic backgrounds who acknowledge the existence of institutional, inequality creating and discriminatory discourses, and fight them. The conclusion is that teacher education must actively counteract the monocultural and Eurocentric knowledge creation that dominates the system, so as to live up to the democ¬racy- and equality-promoting claims in its policy documents.

What is required are pro¬gressive reforms of the educational organization and its content, with a view to a teacher training where a heterogeneous group of students can feel at home. A teacher training where students are properly trained for future teaching assignments in a globalized society.