M. Greek & K.M. Jonsmoen, How to deal with multicultural challenges in higher education

Foredrag holdt på konferansen Dialogue Across Sectors: Synergies for Success? Smoothing the Pathway for Student Transition, Antwerpen, 5. juli 004.

One of Centre for Multicultural and International Studies at Oslo University College main concerns is the culture of education in the University Collage and how to become a multicultural institution, with an environment where everybody regardless to gender, social-, ethnic or linguistic background can feel comfortable, learn, develop and succeed as students.

First of all I would like to point out in which direction higher education in Norway has gone. I will then give you some examples on how the teachers and students experience the multicultural everyday life at OsloUniversityCollege. In this way I hope to show you some of the challenges we experience and how we deal with these challenges.

A well educated workforce is necessary in Norway, as well as in the rest of Europe. One of the more remarkable aspects of Norwegian society, however, is the basic egalitarian principle that education is for all. We believe everybody to have equal opportunities in achieving knowledge and skills. This belief lies in the core of the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and has lead to several reform initiatives. I will give some examples of recent reform initiatives from about 2000 and up to the present. The question, though, is whether these initiatives are in the best interests of the students, both minority and majority students. 

The institutions of higher education in Norway are now financed by the amount of passed exams. As a result the institutions are competing for recruiting new students and keeping them within the system.

As a consequence of the recent reform, the higher educational institutions are financed by the number of students’ passed exams. As it turns out, it is important to make sure that students pass their exams. One way to make this come true is to require less of the different subjects in order to make the students pass. However, this will possibly lead to educating professionals with lower skills than desirable. This will be the easy way, but not the wisest way to go. The reform can also lead to a more offensive strategy and a discussion about the education programmes, and an interest in curriculum theory and practice: what ought to be taught in the different education institutions and how ought we to be teaching.  As we see it, it is about time to adjust both teaching methods and curriculum to the increasingly heterogeneous student population.

To keep up with the necessary number of students, the different institutions will have to recruit students from more untraditional environments in a Norwegian academic sense. Oslo University College (OUC) therefore has started a project in order to recruit and take care of linguistic minority students, which is about 12 % of the total amount of students¸1000 students. Recent research shows us that especially linguistic minority students back out from exams, and that they achieve lower grades than linguistic majority students.

As a consequence of the change in the student population, the teachers and the institution itself will probably have to change as well. The educational institutions have a great challenge in educating a diverse student population, majority and minority students, without compromising with professional knowledge. We need to develop new theory and practical wisdom to maintain a certain amount of professional knowledge as well as to prevent the students in giving up their studies and keep up with their study progression.

The Competence Reform gives adults rights to documentation and recognition of non-formal learning.

Universities and colleges are under obligation to assess adult applicants over the age of 25 with a view to admitting them for individual courses of study on the basis of their documented non – formal learning. This is applicable to adults who do not satisfy general admission requirements. Individual institutions have the power to assess what qualifications they consider to be necessary and to decide on the appropriate course of action for carrying out this assessment. In the study year of 2003 - 2004 only 1660 adult applicants were offered a place in higher education. This is not a big number, but many of these students are unused to higher education, and may need some extra support in meeting the academic and professional demands. An evaluation report from 2001 shows that for some courses, weak prior knowledge of mathematics and science is a major problem.

As a consequence of Norwegian educational politics, both universities and colleges have to recognise a diverse student population and students without academic training, referring to two categories of non-traditional students:

1. the adult students given access because of documented non-formal learning
2. linguistic minority students

This is a relatively new situation in Norway and we are unused to dealing with this challenge. In addition the fact that Norwegian institutions are based on the principle of equality usually means that all the students are treated in the same manner, as a homogeneous whole. 

Although both categories are, in a sense, minority students and meet the same challenges, the minority language students seem to have greater difficulties in coping with these challenges and in a greater degree need support. Our focus is therefore mainly on the linguistic minority students. We are convinced that initiatives taken to meet the demands of these students will be good for all students in higher education. 

The Ministry finances three permanent posts at The OsloUniversityCollege. The lecturers are explicitly appointed to assist minority students to cope with higher education.

The Ministry has acknowledged the necessity of extra support to groups with special needs. Some students have problems with understanding the institution’s demands and expectation, and some do not know how to fulfil the obligations towards the institution. The Ministry therefore finances three permanent posts at The Oslo University College. (This is where we come in). The lecturers are explicitly appointed to assist minority students to cope with higher education. Oslo University College (OUC) has as its ultimate goal to develop a multicultural learning environment where the students study and cooperate on equal conditions. However an evaluation of the situation of the minority students at OUC from 1996 to 1999 shows us that this is still a distant goal. The experiences of both students and tutors show us that there is hardly any sense of intercultural community. Guidance of minority students and interviews with students and tutors show that neither the majority nor the minority has the required communication skills which OUC demands.

There are, as we see it, mainly two ways of dealing with this:

• including special groups of students by helping them to adjust to the existing learning environment - this means: the linguistic minority students have to adjust to the learning institution
• adjust the curriculum and the tuition to the entire, multicultural student population

There has, however, in the educational institutions, been a tendency to focus on the first point, that is the perceived problems of the learners themselves rather than how the educational institutions respond to the needs of these students. 

Consequently we have, over the years, made several efforts to support the linguistic minority students' language acquisition, skills in learning strategies, communication skills in a Norwegian academic context and so on.

We have believed that this would help the students by smoothing some of the difficulties. But this has not worked out the way we thought it would.

We have also experienced that language skills, though of course crucial to learning, is not the most important part. Many of the students in fact really have quite acceptable language skills, but still struggle with the demands of the UniversityCollege. They find it difficult to participate in professional discussions, to read and to incorporate what they read in their own words. And we have experienced that a lot of students, particularly linguistic minority students, are frustrated participants in the learning environment.

The students themselves tell us that:

• they don't manage to keep up with the lecturer nor with their fellow students
• they don't dare to tell anybody about this
• they feel excluded
• they don't understand what is expected
• they feel that the majority students consider them as stupid and as a burden to them
• they feel afraid and insecure
• they lack self-confidence
• they are discouraged and stigmatized by the way the institutions offer help in form of special courses for linguistic minority students

Research has indicated that social class is more important than ethnicity to academic achievement. We also know that the students’ personal beliefs in their ability to manage the studies correlates with the degree to which they succeed to a great extent. However, one of the most important conditions for succeeding is social integrationamong fellow students in the institutional context.

From the tutor’s point of view, the situation is described like this:

• “the linguistic minority students do not understand what it is to be engaged, to be responsible for their own learning process and to take initiative”
• “they are not prepared to reflect and argue in professional matters”
• “how on earth have they been given access to higher education”
• “they take all our time if we allow them to”
• “they do not have appropriate linguistic skills”
• “they have got no initiative”
• “the Norwegian students suffer because of them”

It seems clear to us that providing extra language instruction is not the only answer to the challenge. All students, but the linguistic minority students in particular, are in need of support to establish the confidence and emotional security which they need to get through their education and to succeed in future work. But the staff too need support in their work with these challenges.

The teaching staff find it difficult to teach and to guide the increasingly diverse population. A major reason for this is the existing discrepancy between what the institutions expect of the students and what the students are actually prepared for.

The linguistic minority students define themselves as incapable of functioning in an academic, educational world. They often find studying difficult and overwhelming, yet research shows us that their needs do not differ systematically from the needs of traditional majority students.  

In our opinion, a crucial point is how the institutions manage diversity rather than aiming at similarity, and how they manage to establish a culture of education where both students and staff are included, irrespective of cultural background, class, gender or language skills.

From our point of view, specific student guidance must be accompanied by a change in the culture of higher educational institutions. All students will benefit from this.

Our strategies therefore are double:

1. developing the learning environment by

• teaching the tutors and the students multicultural knowledge and multicultural communication skills
• offering the tutors support and guidance in their tutoring
• offering seminars and courses with focus on multicultural pedagogy

2. Meeting the specific needs of individual students and guiding them to adequate learning skills.

We have just started a program for the entire staff at OUC in order to contribute to the development of multicultural competence in the institution. The focus is on the diversity of the staff and of the student population, as a resource for the total learning environment as well as for the professions. Diversity from this point of view will heighten the quality of learning rather than lower it. But this of course depends on our capacity to consider diversity as normal and to cooperate in a multicultural environment.

The very variety and complexity of the educational scene leads to the need for an improvement in educational institutions. We therefore need to equip the tutors with the necessary competence to take an effective part in this improvement making the multicultural education environment an enabling culture.

The competence program consists of two parts:

1. The first part of it is for the total staff and aims to make the staff reflect on their own opinions and to prepare the staff to communicate and cooperate in a multicultural environment.
2. The second part is for the teaching staff only. The main focus in this part is education in a multicultural environment, how to take advantage of the diversity in tutoring. We have experienced that the teaching staff are unused to differences and find it frightening rather than exciting. There seems to be a great gulf between the theoretical knowledge and practical skills required for the task of educating many students of different cultural and linguistic background. Teachers often find themselves unable to notice the resources in diversity among the students. They also have great difficulties in understanding students who speak Norwegian in a different way. The ideal student seems to be a person with a background similar to the different teachers. A student with different experiences, a different ethnic, geographical and cultural background is unknown to most of us and it is difficult to deal with their challenges as an institutional matter which provides critical examination of the social context in which knowledge is made accessible and controlled. The challenge of a multicultural learning environment is the responsibility of the educational institution and not of the individual alone.

All teachers at OUC have to have a formal education in teaching. If they don’t have it before they start at the OUC, they have to attend a pedagogical seminar arranged by OUC it self. Multicultural learning environment has been an important issue at this seminar, but it should probably be even more practical.

In spite of these efforts, the teachers still do not seem to know what to do with untraditional students. Most of the teachers have a tendency to try to continue their praxis as if nothing has changed, as if the student population is the same as when they were students 30 years ago. To change is hard. The habit sits in the mind and in the actions, and if you try to do something new you can’t be sure to succeed immediately. And in every day life there is not much time to collaborate with other teachers or to exchange experiences. Some faculties spread the linguistic minority students in separate groups to minimize the problem and to make integration possible. Other faculties try to locate these students together so that they can use their mother tongue, feel confident and thus learn better. A less acceptable reason is if the faculty locates them together because it is easier to give the whole minority group extra support, without annoying the majority students. If that is the case minorities will of course feel segregated and excluded.

Only few of the staff members at the different faculties have a genuine interest in the challenges of the increasing heterogeneous student population. Mostly they seem to ignore the challenge and the responsibility. When the students’ problems can’t be ignored any more because they probably won’t pass their exams, the students are simply introduced to tutors like us, tutors with no connection to the specific faculty. This is seldom a success. First of all, the students usually see the problem as a matter of subject and professional knowledge. In their opinion they need theoretical support. From the tutor’s point of view, this is a matter of language. The students don’t have adequate Norwegian skills and therefore need language support. Another reason why this seldom succeeds is the fact that the student does not want this guidance. What the students want is individualised teaching in specific subjects by the faculty tutor.

However we are aware of the importance of offering guidance to the tutors and the students to help them with the difficulties they meet. Our main task is to enable the development of a culture that empowers both students and tutors effectively to use the resources and opportunities of the entire culture. We believe that learning is always situated in a cultural setting and depends on the utilization of cultural resources. A multicultural environment means various resources and the possibility of broadening the perspective of both tutors and students, of the minorities and the majorities.

The entire institution needs to consider diversity as normal, and experience that diversity is a resource. The minority needs to feel and experience that they are accepted as students and not looked on as a burden. In other words, they need to feel as appreciated as the other students. The extra support needed by some should be given by the teachers at the individual faculty, in cooperation with the students themselves, and preferably following their initiative. The students need to be listened to, their defined needs must be taken into consideration, so they feel they are part of a team, working together towards shared goals. 

SEFIA, Centre for Multicultural and International Studies, gives support on request from the tutors or the students and according to the professional requirements and in the context where this work is done. We have focused on tutoring in groups where 50 % are majority students and 50 % are minority students. In such groups it is hard to use the terms minority and majority, because it is difficult to identify who is who, and it is therefore easier to develop multicultural competence. When students are working for example in projects they are forced to cooperate in a more dynamic way.  

With a few simple measures introduced by the teachers, the students’ situation can improve radically. By taking the time to explain terms unknown to the student, more students can follow the reasoning of the teacher. The students can also be given advice as to what to focus on while studying a text.

Simple daily measures can prevent and replace “damage limitation” just before the exams.

To help the tutors and the students we are writing handbooks for both groups. Those handbooks will reinforce the same contents, and a third will address a broader audience.

Although most of the students, at least in Oslo, should be used to a multicultural society and a multicultural learning environment, they don't seem to handle the diversity. The students avoid cross-cultural communication, as they have probably done in earlier schooldays. Working together in a multicultural learning environment is problematic to most of the native speakers and they don’t see the resources in diversity. The students are obviously not used to working together with others than the ones who are alike themselves. They prefer their likeminded and always have.

Now they must work together in theoretical and practical studies and this is a great challenge. They need support and guidance in their efforts - both minority and majority students. We therefore offer courses where the focus is on learning strategies in a multicultural learning context -how to exploit the environment, both fellow students, literature and the teaching staff in order to obtain efficient  learning for oneself.

We have earlier offered a course for new students shortly before their first term at the UniversityCollege. This year we have started up again, but this time we arranged an introduction course over one week at the end of June. Our aim is twofold; it is both meant to be an effort to recruit students and to be a help to the students who have applied for entrance to OUC.

The subjects we focused on were:

• OUC's demands to the students
• the methods of teaching and learning used
• how to learn in higher education
• academic writing
• how to cooperate in professional projects
• how to make use of the tutor as a guide
• how to make use of each other as resources and guides in the learning process

A great number applied for the course. The number of minority students was just as large as the number of majority students. This may indicate that many of those who have applied for entrance to OUC, feel that they need to be more prepared, that they feel uncertain about how the situation as a student will be, and whether they will manage to cope with the demands of OUC. We tried to make the groups as multicultural as possible when it came to gender, background and which faculty they have applied for. The Introduction course was a success both for the students and the tutors. From day one they appreciated the diversity. The course was made as cooperation between five faculties and the tutors had pedagogical discussions, they exchange experiences and knowledge. But in spite of the success - the students primarily wanted the faculties to arrange courses like this – so they could be sure of meeting the teachers and students again, so they could get to know the locations, and be prepared for some of the academic challenges. For instance there were students who would like a course in mathematics. We share the same aim as the students. Our aim is also that the faculties themselves will arrange introduction courses like this.

Next academic year we will also arrange recruitment meetings at adult learning centres, and at the OUC. The idea with those meetings is to reach groups, which are unknown or unfamiliar with academic learning, but who would like to have a profession, which requires higher education. We want potential students to meet teachers and students from the faculties, so they can start to prepare themselves towards the demands of higher education. Two important issues are motivation and – again - resources. Which useful resources for a student career do they have within themselves or in their environment? We will also focus on the importance of making a good network - maybe they can start the network-building right there.

Our third offer is an Open Learning Centre. This centre is and will be open for all students regardless of which faculty they belong to or which reason they have. They can come to this Open Learning Centre for guidance, to find others in the same situation as themselves, and perhaps with the same problems and challenges. They can also participate in courses about for instance:

• How to write an academic text
• How to get through the curriculum
• How to work with projects

The most important function of the Open Learning Centres is to be a place where the students can feel confidence, find support, meet fellow students, and exchange experiences and expand their network.

Summary

Since 1996 OsloUniversityCollege has met the challenges of a heterogeneous student population, related to language and ethnic background. But the diversity is increasing and new challenges related to social class and earlier education have become more evident. The institution’s aim is to respond to this development by making the education more accessible for both majority and minority students, for traditional and non-traditional students. Much still needs to be researched and debated and both tutors and students need more information, knowledge and skills on how to manage diversity effectively and to renew the school.