School and choice: An ethnography of a primary school with bilingual classes

2010

Based on a one-year ethnographic study of a primary school in Finland with specialised classes in Finnish and English (referred to as bilingual classes by research participants), this research traces how nationed, ethnicised, classed and gendered differences are produced and gain meaning in school. I examine several aspects of these differences: the ways teachers and parents make sense of school and of school choice; the repertoires of self put forward by teachers, parents and pupils of the bilingual classes, and the institutional and classroom practices in Sunny Lane School (pseudonym). My purpose is to examine how the construction of differentness is related to the policy of school choice…