Back to search

SAMKUL-Samfunnsutviklingens kulturell

Negative holdninger mot jøder, homofile og muslimer. Fordommer blant ungdom og hvordan de håndteres i den flerkulturelle skolen

Alternative title: Negative attitudes against Jews, Muslims and sexual minorities. Prejudices among youth and how it is handled in schools

Awarded: NOK 6.9 mill.

This project has resulted in two doctoral dissertations that in different ways shed light on questions surrounding prejudice and controversial topics in school. Erika Braanen Sterri has, with the help of quantitative analyzes of data from a survey in VG1 in Oslo and Akershus, investigated attitudes towards various religious and sexual minorities in the majority and minority populations, respectively. She has been particularly interested in the importance of the social context in which young people find themselves, as well as the extent to which these attitudes are characterized by being stable or changing as a result of increased exposure and contact. Through classroom observation at two upper secondary schools in Oslo and qualitative interviews with students and teachers, Silje Andresen has investigated how institutional conditions enable and limit teachers' discretion and judgments when they teach about controversial topics in upper secondary school. Sterris' dissertation shows considerable variation between different groups in terms of how widespread negative attitudes towards different minorities are. Muslims is the group that is most exposed to negative attitudes, primarily from the majority. At the same time, young people with a background from Muslim countries themselves have more negative attitudes towards homosexuals. The tendency to express negative attitudes towards both religious and sexual minorities is strongly correlated, indicating that people who have negative attitudes towards one group also often have negative attitudes towards other groups. Negative attitudes are further linked to social background in the form of parents' education, religion and degree of religiosity. At the same time, the findings give clear indications that the young people's attitudes are moving in the direction of increased tolerance as young people become more exposed to each other. Young people generally state that they themselves have a better impression of religious and sexual minorities than their parents; majority youth who go to school with many with immigrant backgrounds from Muslim countries become less negative towards Muslims; and among young people with an immigrant background, and from Muslim countries in particular, attitudes towards homosexuals become more positive the longer the family has lived in Norway. The findings provide a basis for cautious optimism related to how group relations play out in today's multicultural society. Attitudes are not fixed quantities, but open to revision, both as a result of direct exposure to the groups concerned and general societal exposure. At the same time, the findings raise questions related to potential consequences of increasing segregation in schools. Andresen's dissertation argues that teachers' use of judgment in teaching about potentially controversial topics should be understood as contextual navigation in an institutional landscape characterized by limitations and resources at different levels. She shows how rules and guidelines, conditions at the individual school as characteristics of the students, the teacher's relationship to the students and the situation in the classroom, the teacher's educational competence and personal values as well as debates and discourses in society in general are five institutional factors that both enable and limit teachers' judgment. . Teachers must make sure that students do not feel supported or hung out, they must maintain concentration and calm in the classroom, and handle the tension between the school's overall educational goals and more specific competence goals. On the one hand, the analyzes show how such institutional conditions can work, for example in that they lead to teachers often avoiding the most demanding topics, despite ideals of using such topics for critical reflection and formation. At the same time, the same institutional conditions can seem enabling, in that teachers can draw on them as a repertoire of meaningful resources in different situations. This is illustrated, among other things, through an analysis of how teachers handle demarcations around what it means to be Norwegian in the classroom. Here, Andresen shows the complexity both in the different understandings around Norwegianness that are activated in the classroom and in the teachers' different strategies for dealing with these boundaries.

Hensikten med prosjektet har primært vært å utdanne to Phd-kandidater, og på den måten bidra til å bygge opp og formidle relevant og samfunnsnyttig kunnskap om fordommer blant ungdom og hvordan potensielt kontroversielle temaer håndteres i skolen, samt å bygge opp forskerkompetanse innenfor sentrale forskningsfelt for Fafo knyttet til ungdom, integrasjon og skole. Disse målene er nå i ferd med å nås. Den ene stipendiaten disputerte (med glans) i desember og den andre er nå svært nær ved å levere inn sin avhandling. Funnene fra avhandlingene har blant annet blitt formidlet gjennom et seminar rettet mot lærere og studenter og vil i tiden fremover formidles gjennom ulike kanaler. De to stipendiatene går inn i ordinære forskerstillinger ved Fafo og vil der ha sentrale roller i Fafos forskning på ungdom, grupperelasjoner, integrasjon og skole/utdanning.

Fafo ønsker å utlyse to stipendiatstillinger til å forske på negative holdninger mot jøder, muslimer og homofile blant ungdom i en flerkulturell kontekst, samt hvordan slike holdninger aktiveres og håndteres i skolen. Utlysningen vil inngå i Fafos strategiske satsning på forskning i skjæringsfeltet mellom etniske relasjoner og skolen som institusjon. Stipendiatene vil benytte et eksisterende kvantitativt datasett (CILS-NOR) i kombinasjon med innsamling av nye kvalitative data. Tematisk vil utlysningen være todelt. En stipendiat vil fokusere på å forklare negative holdningers utbredelse i ulike grupper og deres underliggende årsaksfaktorer, samt hvordan negative holdninger påvirker skolehverdagen til de som rammes. Relevante problemstillinger vil bl.a. være: Hvor utbredt er negative holdninger mot jøder, muslimer og homofile blant ungdommer i videregående skole? Hvordan fortolker og begrunner ungdommene slike holdninger? Hvilke sosiale, økonomiske, demografiske og kulturelle faktorer kan forklare utbredelsen av negative holdninger mot disse gruppene? En stipendiat vil fokusere på hvordan negative holdninger aktiveres i skole- og undervisningssituasjoner, og hvordan skolen håndterer slike spørsmål. Aktuelle problemstillinger vil bl.a. være: Hvordan former institusjonelle rammebetingelser det praktiske arbeidet med å redusere fordommer i klasserommet? Kan vi identifisere undervisningsformer eller læringsstrategier om fordommer som fungerer bedre enn andre? Hvordan opplever elevene diskusjon om slike temaer, f.eks. når de føler at det angår dem selv? Hvordan reflekterer lærere rundt egne fordommer? Kan noen lærere unngår vanskelige temaer og diskusjoner av frykt for å støte noen eller havne i vanskelige situasjoner? Stipendiatene vil knyttes til en rekke etablerte prosjekter og internasjonale nettverk i skjæringsfeltet mellom forskning på flerkulturelle spørsmål og utdanning.

Funding scheme:

SAMKUL-Samfunnsutviklingens kulturell