I am excited to share my recent publication in Pedagogy, Culture & Society. The article, titled Family-school cooperation in multicultural schools: A missing piece in teacher education in Norway, was written in collaboration with my friend and colleague Vander Tavares.

Based on a critical multicultural perspective, this article examines the experiences and perspectives of twelve student teachers from four teacher education programmes in Norway concerning family-school cooperation. The inquiry is guided by two principal research questions:

• What experiences do Norwegian student teachers encounter in relation to establishing initial contact and subsequent communication with families with transnational backgrounds?
• What pedagogical strategies have they learned and implemented during their on-site training to integrate families’ cultural and linguistic diversity in the education of children?

This findings indicate that student teachers, while aware of an asset view of the cultures and languages of transnational families, often have to rely on their own enthusiasm and practical endeavours, such as integrating holiday celebrations. However, a self-motivation driven approach to integrating diverse cultures and languages is not enough, and the participants expressed the need for a more focused training in this area. 

The article is published open access.

It has been very frustrating not to get an opportunity to cooperate with parents properly. Because of the language and other limitations, there have been a lot of miscommunications. And so, it is incredibly important that you have knowledge about it all […] We have had a topic about cooperation with parents in general, but not with parents who do not have Norwegian language skills.

Nadia, pseudonym.