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The importance of engagement through knowledge exchange

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Borders EAL team at Knowledge Exchange event
By Tuire Palonen and Tom Richardson Colleagues from Scotland, Sweden and Finland have been busy presenting results of TEAMS research to schools, in a variety of formats. The aim at all these events is to link the TEAMS project to the professional context of the teaching staff – to make the discussions about TEAMS (how […]

Preparing pre-service teachers for inclusive pedagogy in multilingual and multicultural settings

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Featured image of the blog Preparing pre-service teachers
A growing number of learners are participating in instruction through their second or additional language. This challenges teachers to consider their practices in supporting the knowledge construction, both in the language of schooling and with the rich multilingual resources brought to classroom interaction by the learners.

Collaboration in schools: between networks and institutions

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In two previous blog articles, Marc Sarazin and Tuire Palonen discussed the importance of studying collaboration networks in schools. The fundamental idea is that the collaborative relationships between actors in schools (teachers, administrators, parents, counsellors, etc.) and the patterns they form make a difference in the school outcomes and experiences of students, including those from migrant backgrounds as we postulate in the TEAMS project.

Schools staff members’ professional agency as a prerequisite for a change

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Teachers and other school staff members have faced huge changes and requirements in their work like technology-enhanced learning and teaching, globalisation and multiculturalism, and most lately the challenges raised by the global pandemic. These recent and partly unexpected challenges have increased the demands and pressures for school staff members’ daily work even further than their initially demanding work.

The Case of Mother Tongue Instruction in Sweden: Between Policy and Practice

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Sweden has a long history of being a country that receives immigrants from many different parts of the world. Education of these migrants, especially children of school age, has been seen as an integral part of migrant integration and the challenges and opportunities they face have been the topic for different research areas.

Why does the sense of belonging matter in school?

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Diversification has increased in Finland for the last three decades. The proportion of people who have a foreign background is still smaller than many other European countries, but changes can be seen in Finnish society and everyday discussions.