How the education of immigrant learners and its accessibility is seen at the national level and the level of schooling providers

Authors

• Najat Ouakrim-Soivio Helsingin yliopisto
• Risto Hietala

Abstract

This article investigates how learners with immigrant backgrounds are seen on the one hand in national strategies, evaluation reports and studies, and on the other hand in the population statistics and recent evaluation results. Qualitative methods are used to analyse the empirical data, which is based on re-compiled statistics and the answers of education providers in self-evaluating their own capabilities of recognising the individual needs of immigrant learners and responding to the rapidly changing situation. Based on the self-evaluation of more than 300 schooling providers, the status of learners with immigrant backgrounds is seen more positively than in evaluation reports, population statistics and the collected data. According to this article’s empirical results, the schooling providers with more than fifty learners with immigrant backgrounds self-evaluate their own potential to offer learning support as more equitable and more achievable than others. It seems that the fewer the learners with immigrant backgrounds the providers have, the less attainable the educational aims.