About the project
Multicultural school and community events typically aim to contribute to the school’s and community’s aim of inclusion and social justice. While the literature has been critical towards these events, little research has examined how the participants experience the events. The present study investigates the events from the perspective of the participants.
Aims
The primary objective in the study is to challenge and expand current understandings of multicultural events as an educational approach. The secondary objectives are the following:
- To explore the multicultural events as places and spaces for inclusion and social justice for the participants
- To explore how the young people construct belonging to and understandings of culture, language, religion, and nation
- To develop innovative participant- and context-sensitive methodology to study multicultural events
Design
This is an umbrella project consisting of multiple qualitative studies on the perspectives of the participants, including the school and festival managements, teachers, parents, artists and other contributors, as well as young people. Currently, four master’s students have written their theses connected to the overall theme.
The time framework for the project is 2015–2025.
Fieldwork
We conduct recurrent fieldwork at multicultural events in schools and local communities and interview central participants. In addition, we analyse representations of culture, language, religion, and nation in the stalls, and we interview participants about the meanings they ascribe to them.
The perspective of young people
In collaboration with EngageLab at the University of Oslo we have designed the innovative My Memory App to collect memories multicultural events evoke in young people. The prompts have been translated into multiple languages, and the young people are asked to audio-record their answers in the language of their choice.
Partners
The research project is a collaboration between researchers from the University of Oslo, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, and the University of the Faroe Islands.