Family-school cooperation in multicultural schools: a missing piece in teacher education in Norway

Abstract

Teacher education must remain responsive to social and cultural changes in order to empower teachers to better understand, support, and collaborate with families with transnational backgrounds. Current research demonstrates that the needs and concerns of transnational parents in relation to the educational experiences of their children can be unmet or misunderstood by teachers in monolingual and monocultural contexts. In Norway, further research is needed to more critically understand how teachers are being prepared through teacher education programmes to cooperate with families of a transnational background, who continue to increase in numbers in most areas of the country. Based on a critical multicultural perspective, this study examined the experiences and perspectives of twelve student teachers from four teacher education programmes in Norway concerning family-school cooperation. Findings illustrate that a component focused on this topic is largely missing from teacher education curricula and that student teachers need more and better support through theory and practice on how to initiate, facilitate, and build on family-school cooperation with parents with transnational backgrounds. Without such a component, future teachers may miss out on opportunities to support families with transnational backgrounds and to counter deficit-oriented perspectives on diversity.