lable at ScienceDirect
Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689Contents lists avaiTeaching and Teacher Education
journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ tateResearch paperTeaching immigrant students: Finnish teachers' understandings and
attitudes
Heli Vigren a, *, Jenni Alisaari b, Leena Maria Heikkola c, Emmanuel O. Acquah d,
Nancy L. Commins e
a Department of Teacher Education, University of Turku, Assistentinkatu 5, 20014, Turun yliopisto, Turku, Finland
b INVEST Research Flagship Center, University of Turku, Assistentinkatu 5, 20014, Turun yliopisto, Turku, Finland
c Department of Finnish Language, Åbo Akademi University, ArkenTehtaankatu 2, Turku, Finland
d Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Åbo Akademi University, AcademillRantakatu 2, Vaasa, Finland
e School of Education & Human Development, University of Colorado, Campus Box 106 P.O. Box 173364, Denver, CO, 80217-3364, Denver, USAh i g h l i g h t s
 Finnish teachers had knowledge about second language acquisition and positive attitudes towards students' first languages.

 The teachers had a strong sense of responsibility to promote equity and social justice.

 There were some areas indicating lacked knowledge concerning e.g. the significance of the first languages.

 These findings provide guidance for the improvements in teacher education.a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 11 July 2021
Received in revised form
10 January 2022
Accepted 23 February 2022
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Immigrant background students
Linguistically and culturally responsive
education
Second language acquisition
First languages
Social justice* Corresponding author. Department of Teacher Ed
Assistentinkatu 5, 20014, Turun yliopisto, Finland.
E-mail addresses: heli.vigren@utu.fi (H. Vigren), jen
leena.maria.heikkola@abo.fi (L.M. Heikkola),
(E.O. Acquah), nancy.commins@ucdenver.edu (N.L. Co
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103689
0742-051X/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elseviea b s t r a c t
This study analysed Finnish teachers' (N ¼ 820) understandings and attitudes about teaching students
from immigrant backgrounds and how these relate to linguistically and culturally responsive education.
The data were gathered via an online-survey in 2016. The results indicate that the Finnish teachers
surveyed had knowledge about second language acquisition, had positive attitudes towards students'
first languages, and had a strong sense of responsibility to promote equity and social justice. However,
there were specific areas in which teachers lacked knowledge and demonstrated uncertainty about
teaching students with immigrant backgrounds. These findings provide guidance for the improvements
in teacher education.
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).1. Introduction
Globally, students with immigrant backgrounds do not succeed
as well as native students (OECD, 2019). One way to positively in-
fluence the situation is the implementation of a linguistically and
culturally responsive education that works from the students'
perspectives, and is reflected in their learning outcomes (see, e.g.ucation, University of Turku,
ni.alisaari@utu.fi (J. Alisaari),
emmanuel.acquah@abo.fi
mmins).
r Ltd. This is an open access articleBenediktsson et al., 2019; Byrd, 2016; Cummins, 2001; Thomas &
Collier, 1997). However, as research suggests, teachers are still not
completely equipped to teach culturally and linguistically diverse
students from immigrant backgrounds (see e.g. Aalto, 2019; Aalto&
Tarnanen, 2015; Harju-Autti & Sinkkonen, 2020; Iversen, 2020;
Kimanen et al., 2019; Lundberg, 2019; Repo, 2020; Rodriguez-
Izquierdo et al., 2020; Shestunova, 2019; Sullivan, 2016; Tarnanen
& Palviainen, 2018). Further, teaching students with immigrant
backgrounds is not a widely researched area in Finland.1 This study1 Most of the recent studies are related to the language acquisition, multilin-
gualism and intercultural competence.
under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689examined Finnish teachers' understandings and attitudes about
teaching students from immigrant backgrounds, and how they
relate to research on linguistically and culturally responsive
education.
Outside of Finland, the successful teaching of linguistically and
culturally diverse students has been studied for several decades. In
the 1970s, Geneva Gay (2010, 2013) beganwriting about effectively
teaching ethnically diverse students. She later termed this culturally
responsive teaching and has since further refined and deepened the
concept. The concept connects students' cultural knowledge, prior
experiences, and performance styles to academic knowledge in a
way that legitimize what students already know. Based on her
observations of exemplary teachers of African-American students,
Ladson-Billings (1995) proposed the construct culturally relevant
pedagogy, which empowers students by using cultural referents to
impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Both these frameworks are
grounded in a strong commitment to social justice in education and
view schools as grounds for social change (Aronson & Laughter,
2016). Paris and Alim (2014; 2017) who argue that to sustain and
to support multilingualism and multiculturalism, relevance and
responsiveness is not enough, and advocate instead for what they
call a culturally sustaining pedagogy, a concept also reflected by
Ladson-Billings (2014). Culturally sustaining pedagogy focuses on
fostering pluralism by offering students opportunities to sustain
community cultural practices as well as to access to dominant
cultural competence (Paris & Alim, 2014).
In addition to taking students' cultural backgrounds into
consideration, it is important for teachers to consider aspects of
language as well. Linguistically responsive teaching (LRT) as
described by Lucas and Villegas (2011; 2013) refers to pedagogy
where teachers are aware of the multiple roles of language in
learning, identity development and belonging in society, and have
pedagogical knowledge and skills to support all kinds of learners in
language related issues. The framework of LRT, used as the main
theoretical background in this study, includes, for example, valuing
linguistic diversity, namely viewing all languages as equally valu-
able and as resources for learning. Thus, linguistically responsive
pedagogy includes implementing instruction that builds on stu-
dents' entire linguistic repertoire. For example, students' home
languages are viewed as essential resources for learning, and
pedagogy that only allows the use of the language of the school
results in poorer academic outcomes (Cummins, 2001; Ganuza &
Hedman, 2018; Ramírez, 1992; Thomas & Collier, 1997).
Linguistically responsive teaching also entails teachers' under-
standing of language learning which is the foundation for under-
standing language learners (Villegas et al., 2018), and the use of this
knowledge in lesson planning. Recognizing which linguistic fea-
tures are challenging for learners during content lessons, and what
kind of language knowledge is required to be able to comprehend
and produce various text types at school is essential as well
(Gibbons, 2009; Lucas & Villegas, 2011, 2013; Schleppegrell, 2002;
Wong-Fillmore & Snow, 2018). Language related knowledge and
skills include the importance of knowing the backgrounds of stu-
dents in order to be able to make learning meaningful for them.
Finally, linguistically responsive teachers should advocate for their
multilingual students to able to participate fully in schools or the
wider society and promote their learning with different kinds of
pedagogies (Gibbons, 2009; Lucas & Villegas, 2011; 2013).
Language and culture need to be viewed critically as issues of
equity, recognizing how power structures can impede the goals of
social justice (Nieto & Bode, 2012). Promotion of equity as a part of
social justice is central to the academic success of minoritized
groups, including students with immigrant backgrounds. Thus,
views on linguistically and culturally responsive education
emphasize questions of both equity and social justice. Enterline2et al. (2008, p. 270) state that teachers “can and should be both
educators and advocates who are committed to the democratic
ideal and to diminishing existing inequities in school and society by
helping to redistribute educational opportunities”. To promote
social justice also includes what teachers believe and think about
their job in a larger context, and how they identify and challenge
inequities (Enterline et al., 2008). In Nordic countries providing
equal access and good education for all is seen as theway to create a
more just society (Beach, 2017). However, according to research,
Finnish teachers have an idealistic view of school as a democratic
and disposition neutral institution, and they lack understanding
and knowledge about how schools are part of a wider sociocultural
system in the society (Juva & Holm, 2017; Talib, 1999).
To measure student teachers' capability to teach for social jus-
tice the Boston College (BC) Evidence Team created a Learning to
Teach for Social Justice-Beliefs (LTSJ-B) scale, which contributed to
the questionnaire used in this study. The LTSJ-B scale includes,
amongst other things, high expectations for all students, an asset-
based view on the cultural and linguistic resources students'
bring to school, the role of teachers as advocates for their students,
teachers' own beliefs and attitudes about race, social class, sexual
orientation and disabilities, and that issues related to racism and
inequalities should be discussed openly in the classroom (Cochran-
Smith et al., 2012) These ideas are also reflected in the LRT
framework (Lucas & Villegas, 2011; 2013), in culturally relevant
pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995; 2014), and in culturally respon-
sive teaching (Gay, 2002; 2010).
Based on the aforementioned perspectives, teachers' un-
derstandings and attitudes on teaching immigrant background
students are investigated in the following areas: second language
(L2) acquisition, students' cultural and linguistic backgrounds and
promoting social justice. These three issues framed the examina-
tion of teachers' stance on linguistically and culturally responsive
education, the term we use to broadly encompass the principles of
linguistically and culturally relevant, responsive and sustaining
teaching and pedagogies mentioned above providing a theoretical
grounding for the research project that this particular study is part
of. This study is guided by the following research questions:
1. How do the teachers surveyed understand second language
acquisition, the students' background and L1 in teaching, and
how do they report promoting social justice?
2. How are teachers' background factors linked to the three areas
mentioned above?
3. What kind of teacher groups emerge based on teachers' un-
derstandings within the three areas investigated?2. Context of the study
The number of immigrant background students in Finland has
been growing steadily since the 1990s. Themost common countries
of origin are former Soviet Union, Estonia, Somalia and former
Yugoslavia. Overall, immigrant background students are very
heterogenous group in many ways. Immigration to Finland is
mostly related to work, family and studying, and only 7,4% of im-
migrants have another reason (Valtioneuvosto, 2021.). In this
article, the term immigrant background student refers to the all
aforementioned groups generally, even though this kind of
grouping is never unproblematic. However, regardless of their
background, immigrant background students often face educa-
tional challenges that teachers need to consider in their work
(Borgna, 2018). Increasing global migration is evident in Finnish
society and schools, and educators throughout the country are
teaching growing numbers of students from linguistically and
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689culturally diverse backgrounds.
Teaching students with various levels of language proficiency in
the Finnish language, with different cultural practices, and diverse
experiences and backgrounds in education before arriving in the
Finnish school system, can make teachers uncertain about their
teaching abilities (Aalto, 2019; Aalto & Tarnanen, 2015; Harju-Autti
& Sinkkonen, 2020; Kimanen et al., 2019; Repo, 2020; Shestunova,
2019; Talib, 1999; 2005). In addition, recent studies (Harju-
Luukkainen et al., 2014; Kauppinen & Marjanen, 2020;
Kirjavainen & Pulkkinen, 2017; OECD, 2019; Vettenranta et al.,
2016) on PISA 2012 and PISA 2018 (Leino et al., 2019) suggest that
children with immigrant background do not benefit from basic
education as much as native Finnish children. At the age of 15, the
difference between children with immigrant background and
native Finnish children is an average of one year of studies. This
difference is much larger in Finland than in other OECD-countries.
According to a study by Kuukka and Mets€amuuronen (2016),
although the overall language proficiency of Finnish as a second
language pupils was fairly high, for many students with immigrant
backgrounds their level of proficiency in Finnish was not sufficient
for studying advanced subjects.
In Finland, education is free for everyone, and there are not
many private schools, in addition there is no early stratification
system. Further, one of the basic values of education in Finland is
that education has to be equal and provide equal opportunities for
all students. Thus, the Finnish education system is considered
democratic, fair and equal for all students. When Basic Education
was reformed in Finland in the 1970s, one of the core values was
equality and the main goal ever since has been providing high
quality education for all children independent of social class,
gender, ability or geographical location. According to Ouakrim-
Soivio and Hietala (2016), however, Finnish schools are facing
challenges in providing educational equity, and in particular, they
are not providing all students with immigrant backgrounds the
prerequisites they need for full participation in Finnish civil society.
In addition, ethno-centrism, nationalism, and discrimination based
on ethnicity are common in Finnish schools (Juva & Holm, 2017;
Souto, 2011). Furthermore, Finnish teachers have lower expecta-
tions of immigrant background students' performance in school
and the belief that to be integrated into the school they should fit
into the norms of the cultural practices of “Finnishness” (Juva &
Holm, 2017).
In Finland, the current national curriculum for basic education
(National Agency for Education, 2014) and upper-secondary edu-
cation (National Agency of Education, 2015) implemented in 2016
reiterates the focus on equity and calls for linguistic awareness on
the part of teachers and requires them to take into account cultural
diversity in their pedagogy. The core curricula state that teaching
should support students' own cultural identity and developing into
active participants in their culture and community, to understand
the multitude of cultures, and become interested in other cultures
(National Agency for Education, 2014; 2015). Each student's cul-
tural and linguistic identity should be supported in multiple ways.
A special goal in teaching multilingual students is to support stu-
dents' multilingualism and the development of identity and self-
confidence (National Agency for Education, 2014; 2015). The sup-
port in the curricula for linguistically and culturally responsive
teaching reflects the research cited above (see e.g. Gay, 2010;
Ladson-Billings, 1995; Lucas & Villegas, 2013; Paris & Alim, 2014,
Cummins, 2001, Nieto Bode, 2012). The guidelines of the curricula
require every teacher to take into account the role of language in all
learning and the challenges that not knowing the language of in-
struction poses for learners. Further, all students should be able to
use their whole linguistic repertoire as a resource for learning
(National Agency for Education, 2014; National Agency for3Education 2019). Making these changes a practical reality presents
challenges, as reflected in the comments of an administrator from
the National Board of Education in Finland in a study about cur-
riculum changes in Finland: “It is a big leap to make multilin-
gualism as a part of mainstream thinking” (Alisaari et al., 2019, p.
44).
As ethical professionals, teachers are responsible for supporting
the personal and academic growth of all their students (Nieto &
Bode, 2012), and the requirements of the national curricula
include every teacher, regardless of the subject they teach. Never-
theless, recent studies (see e.g. Juva & Holm, 2017; Kauppinen &
Marjanen, 2020; Kirjavainen & Pulkkinen, 2017; Leino et al.,
2019; European Union, 2015; Vettenranta et al., 2016) show that
the Finnish comprehensive school does not cater equally to all
children from different backgrounds. This raises the question of
whether Finnish teachers are aware of linguistically and culturally
responsive education. In order to support teachers in enacting the
new curriculum, and better devise appropriate initial teacher
preparation and subsequent professional development it is
important to understand how Finnish teachers perceive their
immigrant students and their understandings and attitudes related
to second language acquisition, valuing backgrounds and home
languages, and promoting social justice.
3. Methods
This study is an overarching analysis of the data from a research
project to investigate Finnish teachers' understandings and atti-
tudes about teaching immigrant background students. Data were
collected via an online-questionnaire which was based on a pre-
liminary version of the Linguistically Responsive Teaching (LRT)
Survey constructed by Milbourn et al. (2017), which is based on the
Linguistically Responsive Teaching Framework (LRTF) by Lucas &
Villegas (2011, 2013). In addition, the survey included nine items
from “Learning to Teach for Social Justice-Beliefs” (LTSJ-B) scale
developed by the Boston College (BC) Evidence Team to measure
beliefs and perspectives of teaching for social justice (Enterline
et al., 2008; Ludlow et al., 2008). All twelve items of the LTSJ-B
scale were included in the original LRT Survey developed by
Milbourn et al. (2017), but only nine of them were thought to be
relevant in the educational context of Finland. The LRT survey was
translated into Finnish and modified to fit the Finnish context and
does not include all items in the original English version. The
Finnish adaptation of the questionnaire (by Alisaari and Acquah),
was reviewed by and commented on by the National Agency of
Education of Finland as well as by the scholars working in The
Finnish Network for Language Education Policies and in the Centre
for Applied Language Studies. Based on the comments, the ques-
tionnaire was further modified and finalized with the university
statistician, and then transformed into an online survey.
The research data were collected online in spring 2016 using the
questionnaire described above. The questionnaire included both
Likert scale items and open-ended questions, as well as questions
about demographics and background information related to par-
ticipants' training and experience as teachers. In total therewere 29
questions in the questionnaire. Questions related to teachers'
practices and open ended questions have been analysed in previous
studies where the focus has been on: teachers' orientations to-
wards multilingualism and the use of students' L1s as resources for
learning (Alisaari et al., 2019b, 2021a); teachers' understandings on
language development and linguistically responsive pedagogy
(Alisaari & Heikkola, 2020); teachers' practices in linguistically and
culturally diverse classrooms (Heikkola et al., 2022) and teachers'
perceptions of aspects that bring them joy when teaching immi-
grant background students (Alisaari et al., 2021b). In the present
Table 1
Summed variables.
summed variable number of items inter-item
correlation
mean std.
dev.
alpha
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689study, responses to questions number six and seven including 38 of
the Likert scale items (Table 2) related to linguistically and cultur-
ally responsive education were analysed. The teachers responded
to the Likert scale items on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 ¼ strongly agree,
2 ¼ agree, 3 ¼ I do not know, 4 ¼ disagree, 5 ¼ strongly disagree),
with lower scores indicating a greater awareness and knowledge on
linguistically and culturally responsive education.
In order to reach the largest possible number of Finnish teach-
ers, a link to the online survey was widely distributed on various
email lists, social media, websites for educators, and at the national
educational fair. A link to the survey and a cover letter either in
Finnish or in Swedish depending on the language of the depart-
ment,2 were also sent to all local education departments in Finland,
for distribution to all the teachers within the department's area.
The language of the questionnaire was Finnish, but it was possible
to answer the open-ended questions also in Swedish.
Eight hundred and twenty persons (79% female, 21% male) from
all over Finland responded to the questionnaire. Respondents
represented classroom (elementary) teachers, subject (content
area) teachers, special education teachers, and teachers with more
than one qualification (e.g. having qualification of both classroom
teacher and subject teacher), headmasters, and school counsellors
ranging from preschool and basic education to upper-secondary
and vocational school. The respondents' first language was 91%
Finnish, 7% Swedish and 2% other than Finnish or Swedish. In
addition to the demographics, the participants were asked about
their experience with immigrant background students and if they
had participated in any training related to second language acqui-
sition and/or cultural diversity. Respondents' demographics and
background information corresponded well to those of Finnish
teachers overall (Kumpulainen, 2017), and hence the sample can be
viewed as representative of Finnish educators in general.
For the statistical analyses, the reverse items were reverse
scored. In order to have a continuous scale from strongly agree to
strongly disagree number three “I don't know” was moved to
number five. Hence, the scale in the statistical analyses is from 1 to
4: 1¼ strongly agree, 2¼ agree, 3¼ disagree, 4¼ strongly disagree.
Number 5 “I don't know” was not included in the summed vari-
ables, as it does not represent either agreement or disagreement,
but it was used for the analyses in the case of individual items.
Based on inter-item correlation and the content of the items, 19
items were used to construct three summed variables (Table 1),
reflecting the three key areas of linguistically and culturally
responsive education discussed in the theoretical section. Also the
items that are not included in the summed variables were analysed.
Items that were considered to give additional information are
presented in the Findings and Discussion. The reliability of the
summed variables was evaluated by Cronbach Alpha (see Table 1).
Thereafter, the summed variables were used for analyzing teachers'
understandings and attitudes by comparing information concern-
ing the participants' demographics and background information
using one-way ANOVAs, and t-tests. For multiple comparisons,
Bonferroni was used for normally distributed datasets, and Tam-
hane for datasets that were not normally distributed. Finally, K-
means clustering was used to determine whether the outcomes of
the summed variable applied equally to all respondents.
The summed variables were named according to their content.
Understanding L2 includes items on knowledge and attitudes on
second language acquisition, items in the summed variable Back-
ground and L1 relate to valuing and understanding the role of the
home culture and the home languages, and the third summed2 In Finland, students can carry out their education in Finnish speaking or
Swedish speaking schools.
4variable Social justice includes items on promoting social justice at
both the teacher and curriculum level. The items in each summed
variable are marked in Table 2 with V1, V2 and V3 accordingly.4. Findings
The findings are presented based on the three summed variables
constructed from the Likert scale items as explained above and
followed by the results of the K-means cluster analysis. The sum-
med variables outline the overall image of Finnish teachers'
(N¼ 820) understandings and attitudes related to language, culture
and social justice when teaching students with immigrant back-
grounds. The link between the summed variables and the re-
spondents' background factors was investigated, and the
statistically significant background factors are reported here (see
Table 3).
Some items had contradictory responses or a very high per-
centage of “Don't know” responses, and these items did not
correlate in the inter-item correlation analysis with other items on
the same topic, and hence, were not included in summed variables.
However, some of these items are presented for discussion since
they provide additional information on teachers' perspectives and a
more complete description of the data.
The analyses of the summed variables indicate that, overall, the
Finnish teachers surveyed reported having knowledge about and a
positive attitude towards all three areas of analysis in this study:
they indicated that they understood the principles of second lan-
guage acquisition, valued the students' home cultures and home
languages, and had an inclination towards social justice (see
Table 4). Although, a closer look into the individual items revealed
somemisunderstandings and lack of knowledge in particular areas.
According to the cluster analyses, most of the teachers had deep or
solid understandings in all three areas studied. Next, the results for
the three summed variables in more detail will be presented.4.1. Understanding of second language acquisition
The summed variable Understanding L2 includes six items
(Table 2: Q21, Q24, Q25, Q26, Q29, Q30) related to second language
acquisition. The lower the mean, the more the respondents agreed
with the survey items that reflected linguistically responsive
teaching as defined by Lucas and Villegas (2011; 2013). The mean of
1.5/4 of this summed variable indicates that respondents had an
understanding of second language acquisition. However, a more in-
depth examination reveals some differences between the different
respondent groups depending on their background factors (see
Table 3). Detailed information regarding the significant background
factors will be presented next.
Teachers younger than 41 had a greater understanding of sec-
ond language acquisition than those aged 51 and over. Further-
more, those who had been working as teachers for fewer than 10
years indicated a greater understanding compared to those who
had beenworking for over 20 years. Teachers with no experience in
teaching students with immigrant backgrounds showed lessUnderstanding
L2
6 0.24e0.51 1.53 .48 0.77
Background
and L1
7 0.34e0.60 1.86 .54 0.86
Social justice 6 0.25e0.70 1.62 .52 0.80
Table 2
All 38 Likert scale items.
Code Item
Q1r Language and culture are independent of each other.
Q2r Language learning has a minor role in my teaching.
Q3 Language, culture and identity are intertwined.
Q4V2 Teachers should consider immigrant background students' backgrounds when designing lessons for the whole class.
Q5r It is important that teachers of students with immigrant background encourage immigrant families to use Finnish as much as possible at home.
Q6r Language is only a minor aspect of one's identity.
Q7 Teachers should consider immigrant background students' backgrounds when designing assessments of any subject for the whole class.
Q8 People can be discriminated because of their language.
Q9 It is unethical to prohibit the use of students' home languages in the classroom.
Q10 The social status of a language is related to the power the people who speak that language have in the society.
Q11 If I had an opportunity to learn about new cultures, I would grasp it.
Q12r I feel uncomfortable if I am in a group and others are speaking a language I do not know.
Q13V2 It is important for teachers to ask immigrant background students to teach others in the classroom words or phrases in their own language.
Q14 Teachers should allow students to write in their mother tongues.
Q15*V2 Good teaching incorporates diverse cultures and experiences into the classroom lessons and discussions.
Q16V2 It is important for teachers to ask immigrant background students questions about their mother tongues.
Q17V2 Teachers should use learning materials that reflect also the cultural, ethnic, and/or linguistic backgrounds of immigrant background students.
Q18r It is the teacher's primary responsibility to teach content, not language skills.
Q19r The responsibility to learn Finnish well rests primarily on the immigrant background students.
Q20V3 It is beneficial for teachers to examine school practices for their potential impacts on immigrant background students.
Q21V1 Teachers should advocate for the Finnish language development support for their immigrant background students.
Q22 Conversational language proficiency is fundamentally different from language proficiency needed for studying different subjects.
Q23V2 It is important for teachers to draw on immigrant background students' proficiency in their own mother tongue when teaching Finnish.
Q24V1 Social interaction for authentic communicative purposes fosters immigrant background students' Finnish language learning.
Q25rV1 The process of learning a second language is similar for all students.
Q26V1 Anxiety about performing in a second language can interfere with learning.
Q27r Immigrant background students will learn subject specific language by just being in classrooms in which subject specific language is being used.
Q28V2 An immigrant background student's own mother tongue development is a valuable asset to his or her Finnish language development.
Q29V1 Immigrant background students benefit when Finnish language is studied while studying other subject areas.
Q30rV1 If an immigrant background student maintains his/her own mother tongue, he will have difficulty in learning Finnish.
Q31*V3 An important part of being a teacher is examining one's own attitudes and beliefs about race, social class, gender, disabilities, and sexual orientation.
Q32*V3 Issues related to racism and inequalities should be openly discussed in the classroom.
Q33r*V3 For the most part, covering multicultural topics is only relevant to certain subject areas, such as social studies and Finnish as a second language.
Q34r* The most important goal in working with immigrant students is that they assimilate into Finnish society.
Q35r* It is reasonable for teachers to have lower expectations for students who do not speak Finnish as their mother tongue.
Q36*V3 Part of the responsibilities of the teacher is to challenge school practices that maintain societal inequalities.
Q37r*V3 Although teachers should appreciate diversity, it is not their job to change society.
Q38r* Whether students succeed in school depends primarily on how hard they work.
a. Likert response categories: 1 ¼ Strongly Agree, 2 ¼ Agree, 3 ¼ Disagree, 4 ¼ Strongly Disagree, 5 ¼ I don't know.
b. r: denotes the categories were reverse scored.
c. *: denotes the item is from LTSJ-B scale.
d. V1: denotes the item is included in the summed variable Understanding L2.
c. V2: denotes the item is included in the summed variable Background and L1.
c. V3: denotes the item is included in the summed variable Social justice.
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689understanding than teachers with 2e5 years of experience, or 5e10
years of experience. The subject teachers who were teaching
Finnish as a second language demonstrated the greatest under-
standing of second language acquisition compared to all the other
teachers. The teachers who had received at least some training in
second language acquisition and/or cultural diversity demon-
strated more understanding of second language acquisition
compared to no training at all.
Overall, the responses to the summed variable Understanding
Second language indicated at least a basic understanding of the
acquisition of a second language. However, there were some items
related to the principles of linguistically responsive teaching that
did not correlate with the items in the summed variables. The re-
sponses to some of these items were not in line with the overall
knowledge shown in the summed variable, and hence they are
presented here for more detailed consideration.
As many as 58% of the respondents thought it would be good to
encourage the immigrant families to use Finnish (L2) at home (Q5).
Moreover, 42% disagreed or did not know that “Conversational
language proficiency is fundamentally different from academic
language proficiency” (Q22), and almost equally as many, one third,
perceived that a teacher's primary responsibility is to teach content,
not language skills (Q18). Furthermore, 53% assumed that “students5with immigrant backgrounds will learn subject specific academic
Finnish by just being in classrooms in which the subject specific
language is being used” (Q27), and as many as 19% did not know
whether it would be so. Thus, these aforementioned responses to
the individual items present somewhat contradictory outcomes
compared to the result based on the summed variable Under-
standing L2. Even though the overall picture indicated that the re-
spondents had relatively solid understanding of second language
acquisition, the individual items revealed that there are still a
considerable amount of misunderstandings and lack of knowledge
in relation to understanding the factors involved in the acquisition
of a second language.
4.2. Valuing students' backgrounds and first languages
This section presents the teachers' responses to the summed
variable Background and L1 containing items related to students'
background, cultural diversity, and first languages (Table 2: Q4,
Q13, Q15, Q16, Q17, Q23, Q28), and how the teachers' background
factors are linked to their responses. The summed variable reflects
the principles of culturally and linguistically responsive education
(see Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2009; Lucas & Villegas, 2011,
2013), presenting the respondents' stance on valuing the
Table 3
The link between respondents' understandings and attitudes, and the background factors.
Background factor Summed variable Understanding
L2
Summed variable Background and L1 Summed variable Social
justice
Gender (M vs. F) n.s. t(808) ¼ 3.83, p < .001 t(805) ¼ 3,03; p ¼ .003
male (M ¼ 2.0) vs. female (M ¼ 1.8),
Cohen's d ¼ .32
male (M ¼ 1.7) vs. female
(M ¼ 1.6), Cohen's d ¼ .26
Age (<41 yrs vs. 41e50 yrs vs. >51 yrs) F(2,808) ¼ 6.96, p ¼ .001 n.s. F(2,808) ¼ 4.00, p ¼ .019
Multiple comparisons: Multiple comparisons:
<41 yrs (M ¼ 1.4) vs. >51 yrs
(M ¼ 1.6), p ¼ .001, ƞ2 ¼ .02
<41 yrs (M ¼ 1.6) vs. >51 yrs
(M ¼ 1.7), p ¼ .018, ƞ2 ¼ .01
Teaching experiences in years (0e10 yrs vs. 10e20 yrs vs.
>20)
F(2,805) ¼ 5.41, p ¼ .005 n.s. n.s.
Multiple comparisons:
<10 yrs (M ¼ 1.5) vs. >20 yrs
(M ¼ 1.6), p ¼ .004, ƞ2 ¼ .01
Teaching experience with immigrant students (no experience
vs. 0e2 yrs vs. 2e5 yrs vs. 5e10 yrs vs. >10 yrs)
F(4,801) ¼ 4.23, p ¼ .002 n.s. n.s.
Multiple comparisons:
no experience (M ¼ 1.7) vs. 2
e5 yrs (M ¼ 1.5), p ¼ .007
no experience (M ¼ 1.7) vs. 5
e10 yrs (M ¼ 1.5), p ¼ .007,
ƞ2 ¼ .02
Teachers' specialization (class teacher vs. subject teacher vs.
special education teacher vs. counselor vs. principal vs.
others)
F(5,801) ¼ 2.31, p ¼ .043 F(5,804) ¼ 2.30, p ¼ .044 n.s.
Multiple comparisons: Multiple comparisons:
n.s. Special education teachers (M ¼ 1.7) vs.
subject teacher (M ¼ 1.9), p ¼ .028,
ƞ2 ¼ .01
Finnish as a second language (F2) teacher vs. all other
teachers)
t(811) ¼ 3.66; p < .001 n.s. t(811) ¼ 3.40; p ¼ .001
F2 (M ¼ 1.3) vs. other teachers
(M ¼ 1.6), Cohen's d ¼ .48
F2 (M ¼ 1.4) vs. other
teachers (M ¼ 1.6), Cohen's
d ¼ .46
The percentage of students with immigrant backgrounds at
the teacher's school (<1% vs. 1e5% vs. 5e10% vs. >10%)
F(3,773) ¼ 3.09, p ¼ .026 n.s. n.s.
Multiple comparisons:
n.s.
Training on the L2 acquisition and/or cultural diversity
(training vs. no training)
t(774) ¼ 2.89, p ¼ .004 t(775) ¼ 4.91, p < .001 t(774) ¼ 3.65; p < .001
training (M ¼ 1.5) vs. no training
(M ¼ 1.6), Cohen's d ¼ 0.21
training (M ¼ 1.8) vs. no training
(M ¼ 1.9), Cohen's d ¼ .35
training (M ¼ 1.6) vs. no
training (M ¼ 1.7), Cohen's
d ¼ .26
Table 4
The clusters indicating teachers' level of understanding.
Summed variable Clusters Limited Understanding (n ¼ 23) ANOVA
F
Deep Understanding (n ¼ 342) Solid Understanding (n ¼ 353) Basic Understanding (n ¼ 95)
Understanding L2 1.21 (.21) 1.68 (.30) 1.77 (.42) 3.20 (.72) 400.425
Background and L1 1.45 (.28) 1.94 (.24) 2.68 (.42) 3.20 (.39) 654.379
Social justice 1.25 (.21) 1.73 (.30) 2.14 (.46) 3.37 (.50) 554.626
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689backgrounds and first languages of the students.
This summed variable had the highest mean (M ¼ 1.9/4) of all
the three summed variables. In other words, the respondents
generally agreed with the items, but there was also more
disagreement expressed than in the other summed variables. The
level of understanding of the acquisition of a second language
presented in the previous chapter was related to respondents' de-
mographics and background. In general, the results on the summed
variable Background and L1 suggests that the role of the students'
backgrounds and the value of the first languages was seen posi-
tively overall. However, the teachers' backgrounds were not often
linked to their responses, and the results were very much the same
between different groups (see Table 3 above). The female teachers
gave more responsive answers related to their students' back-
grounds and first languages compared to the male teachers.
Teachers with training on second language acquisition and/or on
cultural diversity indicated valuing their students' backgrounds and
first languagesmore than teachers with no training in this area, and
special education teachers were more responsive compared to
subject teachers.
Related to the role of the students' backgrounds and the value of6the first languages, the response to the items outside the summed
variable were not in line with the overall knowledge as was also the
case for second language acquisition. For example, 25% of the
teachers disagreed with the item that it would be unethical to
prohibit the use of students' home language in the classroom (Q9),
and 21% chose to answer “I don't know”. The item regarding
allowing students to write in their first language (Q14) raised a
great deal of uncertainty: 31% of the respondents chose “I don't
know” as their answer and 42% disagreed. Similarly, the item about
considering the backgrounds of students with immigrant back-
grounds when designing assessments for the whole class (Q7)
divided the respondents into three almost equally divided groups:
36% agreed or strongly agreed, 37% disagreed or strongly disagreed,
and 27% chose the option “I don't know”. In conclusion, both the
summed variable and the individual items show that the students'
first languages and backgrounds were generally given value, but
their reported use as resources in teaching and learning raised
significant uncertainty in the teachers' opinions.
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 1036894.3. Promoting social justice
In this section, the summed variable Social justice is presented.
This summed variable reflects the questions of equity and social
justice (see Cochran-Smith et al., 2012; Gay, 2013; Ladson-Billings,
1995; Lucas& Villegas, 2011; 2013), and includes six items (Table 2:
Q20, Q31, Q32, Q33, Q36, Q37) that present the respondents' stance
on promoting social justice. The respondents' answers appeared
welcoming towards promoting social justice (M ¼ 1.6/4). A few
differences were found between teacher groups, with the majority
of the responses reflecting teachers' stated willingness to promote
social justice (see Table 3 above). Similar to the variable, Under-
standing L2, female respondents were more responsive in pro-
moting social justice. Moreover, teachers under the age of 41 were
more responsive compared to teachers over 51. Additionally,
teachers of Finnish as a second language were more responsive
compared to all the other teachers. The responses of teachers with
training on the acquisition of a second language and/or on cultural
diversity reflected the promoting of social justice more than those
of teachers without such training.
Even though the summed variable showed a relatively positive
orientation toward social justice, yet again, there were some dis-
crepancies when looking at some of the individual items outside
the summed variable. Fifty-five percent of respondents agreed and
22% reported not knowing whether immigrant children should
assimilate into Finnish society (Q34). In addition, 37% of the
teachers considered it reasonable to have lower expectations for
students with a first language other than Finnish (Q35), and as
many as 22% responded “I don't know”. Further, 52% of the teachers
agreed with the statement that school success is basically depen-
dent on students' hard work (Q38). Thus, the individual items
revealed some lack of understanding in this variable, as well.
4.4. Four profiles of teachers' understanding of linguistically and
culturally responsive education
In order to determine whether the levels of understanding in all
three summed variables were uniform across all teachers surveyed
or whether the teachers formed different groups based on their
understanding, a K-means cluster analysis was used. The cluster
analysis produced four clusters (Table 4) that differed from each
other representing four different levels of understandings as a
combination of the three summed variables used: Understanding
L2, Background and L1, and Social justice. ANOVA test revealed sta-
tistically significant differences between the means of various
clusters for each summed variable.
The four emerging groups were labelled Deep Understanding,
Solid Understanding, Basic Understanding and Limited Understanding.
In this classification, the term understanding includes the teachers'
knowledge, perceptions, interpretations, awareness and attitudes
of items included in the summed variables. The level of under-
standing was considered deep when the means of the summed
variables were below 1.5, which indicates that the respondents
have mostly strongly agreed with the items related to linguistically
and culturally responsive education. Understanding was consid-
ered to be solidwhen the means of summed variables were close to
2, which denotes that the respondents had on average agreed with
the items related to linguistically and culturally responsive teach-
ing. Group Basic Understanding was similar to the group with solid
understanding, except for their valuing of background and L1, that
this group disagreed with, unlike the group with solid under-
standing. When the means of the summed variables were over 3,
the respondents had mainly disagreed showing a limited under-
standing of linguistically and culturally responsive education.
According to the cluster analyses, very few teachers surveyed7(3%) had Limited Understanding related to linguistically and
culturally responsive education according to the areas surveyed.
Nearly all the Finnish teachers surveyed had either a Solid (43%) or
Deep (42%)Understanding. A relatively small group of teachers had a
Basic Understanding (12%). The means for all four clusters are in line
with the previously presented analyses of the summed variables
indicating that the summed variable of Background and L1was least
in line with the principles of linguistically and culturally responsive
education to all participants notwithstanding their cluster.
5. Discussion
This study was conducted to gain information about Finnish
teachers' understandings and attitudes about teaching immigrant
background students. Diverse students in the classroom is an
increasing global phenomenon and we need to know how to pre-
pare teachers to effectively teach all students in this global world. In
Finland, there has been some studies related to the issues of this
study (see e.g. Harju-Autti & Sinkkonen, 2020; Juva & Holm, 2017;
Kimanen et al., 2019; Repo, 2020; Shestunova, 2019), but not as
large as this; both in content wise and in the amount of corre-
spondents. The findings of this study will be discussed by first
looking into the significance of the respondents' background fac-
tors related to the summed variables reflecting the concept of
linguistically and culturally responsive education, followed by a
discussion on the similar information gained from the individual
items and the cluster analysis illustrating different teacher groups.
The results are discussed in relation to earlier findings.
5.1. Significance of the background factors
In Finland, teachers of immigrant background students are more
often female than male (Kumpulainen, 2017). This may be reflected
in the finding that female teachers were more knowledgeable
about the importance of recognizing their students' background
and first languages, and promoted social justice more compared to
their male counterparts. Similar findings were also found by
Kimanen et al. (2019): female participants were more likely to
consider affirming students' identities, and thus promoting a
culturally responsive education.
In this study, younger teachers and teachers with less experi-
ence had a higher understanding regarding second language
acquisition compared to older and more experienced teachers. This
is in line with the findings of Sullivan (2016) and Ericsson (2006).
Ericsson argues that experience per se does not provide expertise.
On the contrary, to develop professionally, special training and
reflection is usually required (see e.g., Kirsch & Aleksic, 2018). The
results indicate that younger and newly graduated teachers seem to
have more updated knowledge, and more supportive attitudes, and
possibly simply more exposure to the ideas of culturally responsive
pedagogy, in their teacher training. The older teachers have likely
not received specific preparation related to second language
acquisition in their educational studies to become teachers as it has
only recently been introduced into teacher training. Further, pro-
moting social justice reflected the same age group differences: the
younger teachers were more willing to promote social justice. The
precise reason for the differences based on age in promoting social
justice is unclear and merits further investigation to determine
whether these kinds of outcomes are more a matter of orientation
and a willingness to support learners than to actual knowledge
about instructional practices (Viesca et al., 2019). On the other
hand, some understanding can be developed through experience,
as could be seen in teachers who had two to ten years experience in
teaching immigrant background students; they were more
knowledgeable about second language acquisition compared to
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689non-experienced teachers. In addition, previous studies have
shown that teachers with experience in teaching immigrant back-
ground students have more positive attitudes towards multilin-
gualism (Lundberg, 2019) and better understanding of linguistically
responsive teaching (Harju-Autti & Sinkkonen, 2020; Sullivan,
2016).
The finding that Finnish as a second language (F2) teachers had
a better understanding of second language acquisition was ex-
pected. These teachers also promoted social justice more compared
to other teachers. These findings could be partly explained by the
nature of F2 teachers' training which includes topics related to
second language learning. Further, promoting social justice may
reflect the context where the F2 teachers work. Theymight bemore
aware of the struggles that immigrant background students
encounter, and thus, may be more willing to advocate for their
learners (see also Lucas & Villegas, 2013). The finding of special
education teachers valuing students' backgrounds and home lan-
guages more than other teachers is similar to the findings by
Kimanen et al. (2019). This might be related to the fact that in the
training of special education teachers, the core idea is teaching
diverse students and valuing varied skills and backgrounds of their
students.
For the purpose of this study, the findings that teachers who had
received some training in second language acquisition or issues
related to cultural diversity weremore understandingwithin all the
three areas investigated are meaningful and confirms the impor-
tance of such training. The significance of training and the influence
of professional learning on teachers' knowledge and understanding
has also been shown in previous studies (see the review by Egert
et al., 2018). Additionally, in relation to linguistically responsive
teaching, teachers who have had some relevant training have re-
ported a better understanding of teaching multilingual learners in
other studies as well (Kirsch & Aleksic, 2018; Kirsch et al., 2020;
Sullivan, 2016).
5.2. Contradictory aspects in relation to summed variables
In this analysis, some individual items outside the summed
variables are presented for further discussion. They revealed some
contradictory aspects in relation to the summed variables that
probably derive from teachers' outdated knowledge or lack of un-
derstandings. For example, teachers were notably uncertain about
whether the use of their students' first languages would be bene-
ficial or not (Q5, Q9, Q14, Q27), even though there is a substantial
body of research indicating that strong skills in a first language
support all learning (e.g., Cummins, 2001; Ganuza&Hedman, 2018,
Ramírez, 1992). Their understanding was not completely in line
with the approach presented in the current curricula in Finland that
sees all languages as valuable resources for learning (National
Agency of National Agency for Education, 2014; 2015) nor the
principles of linguistically and culturally responsive education (e.g.,
Ladson-Billings, 1995:; Lucas & Villegas, 2013; Nieto & Bode, 2012).
This finding indicates that the topic is relatively new to the par-
ticipants and might be describing “teachers' lack of knowledge and
overall confusion in teaching – language learners” (Sullivan, 2016,
p. 81). In addition, the summed variables include items on more
basic and general information about the different topics whereas
the individual items are more specific and reflect a more critical
stance; perhaps this explains the contradiction between the
teachers' levels of understanding measured by the summed vari-
ables and differing understandings reflected in some individual
items. On the other hand, similar results reflecting the basic value
given for students' L1 and background have been found in previous
research in Finland and other Scandinavian countries, both among
in-service (Lundberg, 2019; Shestunova, 2019) and pre-service8teachers (Aalto, 2019; Iversen, 2020). However, appreciation
alone does not tell about practices but supportive attitude is one of
the basic elements of linguistically and culturally responsive edu-
cation (Gay, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2009; Lucas & Villegas,
2011, 2013; Paris & Alim, 2014).
Teaching immigrant background students is a relatively new
phenomenon for mainstream teachers in Finland, although there is
a long tradition of learning additional languages and language
immersion classes in Finland for native Finnish and Swedish-
speaking students. Further, traditionally, the Finnish school cul-
ture has been very monolingual. Despite Finland being officially
multilingual, the three national languages have been kept separate,
each having their own education systems: schools operate in their
specific language, often in their separate school buildings with their
own separate administrational systems (Boyd & Palviainen, 2015).
Some of the contradictory issues found were related to the
concept of social justice. The analysis of the summed variable
indicated that the teachers' overall stance was to promote social
justice, but the findings of some of the individual items were not in
line with this. For example, one third of the teachers considered it
reasonable to have lower expectations of students with a first
language other than Finnish (Q35). It may be that teachers who
hold this view consider that students' developing language skills
should be taken into account, and thus, they should not require as
much from the language learners as they do from native Finnish
speaking students. However, previous international studies have
shown that immigrant students were automatically evaluated with
lower scores compared to first language speakers (Lorentz and
Bergstedt, 2016). Furthermore, Juva and Holm (2017) in their
study concluded that many of the Finnish teachers simply did have
lower expectations and were even quite surprised when immigrant
background students succeeded. In addition, in this study, half of
the teachers considered that school success depends on students'
own hard work (Q38). Placing the whole responsibility on the
students excludes the teachers' role in promoting and enabling
learning by providing scaffolding according to their students' needs
(see e.g., Gibbons, 2009; Lucas& Villegas, 2011). Although students'
success depends on their own decisions and effort, it also requires
teachers to commit to supporting their students' learning (Talib,
1999). These findings also relate to studies that have shown that
mainstream teachers often do not feel responsible for modifying
their teaching to suit immigrant background students (see, e.g.,
Iversen, 2020; Sullivan, 2016; Talib, 1999). Nevertheless, both
statements are ambiguous and make the interpretation of the re-
sponses difficult. Statements are originally from the LTSJ-B scale
(Enterline et al., 2008; Ludlow et al., 2008) developed to measure
beliefs and perspectives of teaching for social justice. Only nine
statements from the LTSJ-B scalewere deemed to be suitable for the
Finnish context, but according to the results of this study, it seems
that most of the statements used in LTSJ-B scale do not suite the
Finnish context. It would require some further studies to under-
stand whether it is due to the loss of actual meaning in translation
or the Finnish society and schooling system being so different from
the countries were the scale has been used before.
Teachers' responses to one item in particular requires attention,
namely whether immigrant children should be assimilated into
Finnish society (Q34). In Finnish, the term used usually indicates
that students should lose part of their identities and become
“Finnish”. Despite the negative connotation, more than half of the
teachers agreed with this item and further, one fifth replied ‘I don't
know.’ On the one hand, these findings may be indicating a
misunderstanding or a lack of understanding of the term assimi-
lation, presumably confusing it with the term integration. This
interpretation is in line with the suggestion by Cochran-Smith et al.
(2012) who proposed that the term assimilation may be confusing
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689and hence, included an explanation of the term in the question-
naire in one of the countries where the study was carried out. On
the other hand, the respondents may have thought that for the
immigrant background students to succeed they actually need to
“become Finnish”, as argued by Juva and Holm (2017): teachers
thought that the possibilities for success were limited for students
with immigrant backgrounds, and the students had to assimilate
into the majority Finnish culture to be included in the school and
the wider community and to be able to find their places in the
society; which is not in line with Culturally sustaining pedagogy
(see Paris & Alim, 2014).
The finding that two third of the teachers disagreed or did not
know whether they should consider taking immigrant students'
backgrounds into account when designing assessments for the
whole class (Q7), could be explained in various ways. It may be that
teachers experience assessment as challenging, especially when
the language of the students is different from the language of in-
struction (Lumme& Tainio, 2011). However, it could also be that the
item does not match the guidelines of the Finnish core curriculum
which states that in assessing immigrant background students,
their language background should be taken into account, and thus,
flexible and various ways of assessment should be used. In this way
the curriculum guides teachers to use individual assessment, not
group-based assessment. Even though the original English lan-
guage questions were adapted to reflect the Finnish context, for
future studies, this item should be reworded if used in surveys.
5.3. Various levels of understanding
To investigate whether teachers formed different groups based
on their levels of understanding, cluster analysis was used. The
finding that most of the teachers' surveyed had either a solid or
deep understanding is promising. The cluster analysis shows that in
all the four groups of teachers, the participants had the greatest
understanding of second language acquisition. This might be partly
explained by the fact that everyone in Finland has to learn at least
one or two additional languages, and thus, the teachers have
experienced language learning themselves. Further, this topic is
often a focus in various professional development offerings, and
thus, many teachers might have gained information about it from
in-service training.
As discussed above, even though most teachers had a good
understanding of second language acquisition and promoted social
justice, their understanding of the importance of students' first
language is narrower. Additionally, and as shown in the results of
the summed variables and the individual items, the most unfa-
miliar topic was related to valuing students' backgrounds and first
languages, which was the case in all four clusters. This may be
related to the remarkable change in educational ideologies at the
policy level in Finland, reflected in the current Finnish core
curricula. At the time of the data collection, the idea of using all
students' languages as a resource for learning was a new phe-
nomenon in Finland. Only recently has there been more informa-
tion about the benefits of multilingualism, and as Shestunova
(2019, p. 72) concludes, “until teachers believe in the benefits of
greater exposure to the target language and unless they start using
their students' languages as a resource, it is unlikely that the need
to promote students' L1 will enter into their interest area”.
6. Conclusions
In Finland, as in many countries, the increasing number of
immigrant background students in the classroom underscore the
need for the education of teachers to include and reflect the de-
mographic changes in society. Although the results of this study9were quite promising, it revealed also lack of knowledge and
possible misunderstandings that obviously need attention in
teacher education and in in-service teacher training. Furthermore,
when the results were compared with other international studies
on topics relating to teaching linguistically and culturally diverse
students, similar results were found. This indicates that many
countries are facing similar problems in providing equal education
and access to the society for all members. As the findings of this
study and others show, teachers with specific training related to
linguistic or cultural diversity have a deeper understandings and
more positive attitudes towards their immigrant students. Since
these understandings and attitudes would increase educational
equity, we suggest that training targeting linguistically and
culturally responsive teaching should be included in teacher
training more widely in order to support equality and social justice
in the basic education.
Despite the lack of linguistically and/or culturally responsive
pedagogical training, based on the findings of this study, many
teachers in Finland seem to be quite open to cultural and linguistic
diversity. This is a good prerequisite for changing the educational
practices to be more supportive. The findings indicate that the role
of students' first languages, teachers' attitudes and expectations
towards immigrant background students, and understanding about
the school being part of a wider sociocultural system in the society
are areas that need special attention in teacher education and
subsequent professional development.
Experience working with immigrant background students was
related to more knowledge about linguistically and culturally
responsive education. It follows that all student teachers should
have experience in teaching multilingual and culturally diverse
students, also suggested by Tainio et al. (2019). In addition, the
findings of this study corroborate the call by Tainio et al. (2019) for
more training in multilingualism specifically aimed at promoting
and supporting students' first languages. There are a multitude of
studies (Cummins, 1979, 2007; Ganuza & Hedman, 2018;
Goldenberg, 2008; Krompak, 2018; Ovando & Combs, 2011; Relyea
& Amendum, 2019; Slavin & Cheung, 2005) indicating how second
language acquisition benefits from strong knowledge of first lan-
guages and how multilingualism can be used as a resource in all
learning. Furthermore, teachers' attitude towards the possible
success at school of students with an immigrant background needs
to be addressed as it has been shown that teachers' prejudice on the
academic potential of immigrant children may result in lower
cognitive development of these students, and contributes to their
learning disadvantage (Borgna, 2017). The aforementioned aspects
all argue for more studies related to valuing varied skills and
backgrounds of diverse students should be added to all teacher
training.
According to Kirsch et al. (2020), explicit reflection and facing
concrete realities and problems leads to a change in beliefs.
Furthermore, Palviainen et al. (2016) noticed that teachers some-
times changed their practices when they noticed their old practices
were not working, and the new practices did. Ladson-Billings
(1995) investigated pedagogical practices of eight outstanding
teachers of African-American students. We surely have this kind of
exemplary teachers in Finland and in other countries as well, but
how to engage their knowledge and effective pedagogical practices
to the teacher education. For a better understanding of linguisti-
cally and culturally responsive education, both theory and practice
are needed. An important matter that arises from the current study
is how to ensure that new student teachers can gain experiences
with diverse students already during their studies, and that in-
service teachers are exposed to the latest research. More open ac-
cess research is required, and in-service training needs to be
planned and arranged more systematically instead of the current
H. Vigren, J. Alisaari, L.M. Heikkola et al. Teaching and Teacher Education 114 (2022) 103689project-based system. This would ensure professional development
that enables the teachers to respond to the needs of diverse stu-
dents in a rapidly changing world.
The current Finnish curricula for all levels from early childhood
education to basic education and education in upper secondary are
based on the latest research and are very advanced when it comes
to linguistically and culturally responsive teaching. A change in the
curriculum can lead to a change in teachers' beliefs (Bergroth &
Hansell, 2020; Sopanen, 2019). Since the implementation of the
current curricula, there has already been a variety of pre-service
and in-service trainings offered regarding linguistically and
culturally responsive teaching. However, it is a considerable leap for
teachers to implement the current core curriculum recommenda-
tions supporting the use of students' whole linguistic repertoire for
learning (see Alisaari et al., 2019) and it requires strong support
both for pre-service and in-service training. According to Kirsch
et al. (2020, p. 198) “beliefs and practices are amenable to change
through professional development”. Teacher education has a key
role in supporting teachers to become linguistically and culturally
responsive: every teacher should gain the relevant knowledge and
skills to support the academic achievement of all their students.
When interpreting the findings of the study, the voluntary na-
ture of the survey should be considered as it might distort the re-
sults. Namely, teachers more interested and positively oriented
towards teaching immigrant background students, may have self-
selected themselves as the participants. At the same time about a
quarter of the responding teachers had less than one year experi-
ence or no experience at all in teaching immigrant background
students, and more than 60% of the respondents were working at
schools with less than 5% of immigrant background students.
However, the sample is relatively large and the demographic data
on the study's participants reflected the overall demographics of
the teaching population in Finland, which lends confidence to a
cautious generalization of the results. Although the research group
did carefully consider which items of the original LRT-survey
(Milbourn et al., 2017) would be suitable to use in the Finnish
context, there were still items that according to the analyses of the
responses were either self-evident or too ambiguous and hence, in
the future research the questionnaire needs to be further devel-
oped. Additionally, only cautious conclusions based on these items
can be drawn. As this study was conducted before the imple-
mentation of the current curricula that have very advanced views
about supportingmultilingualism and cultural identities, follow-up
research on the development of the Finnish teachers' un-
derstandings and attitudes on teaching immigrant background
students is needed. Such research could determine what sort of
professional development has had an impact and what further
additional efforts are warranted.
Authors statement
Heli Vigren: Formal analysis, Validation, Data curation, Writing
e original draft, Visualization, Writing - Review & Editing. Jenni
Alisaari: Conceptualization, Methodology, Project administration,
Funding acquisition, Investigation, Formal analysis, Validation, Data
curation, Writing e original draft, Writing - Review & Editing.
Leena Maria Heikkola: Formal analysis, Validation, Writing e
original draft, Visualization, Writing - Review & Editing. Emmanuel
O. Acquah: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing e original
draft. Nancy L. Commins: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing
e original draft.
Funding
Vigren, Alisaari and Commins received funding from the project10DivED, funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture,
Heikkola and Acquah did not receive funding to conduct this study.
Declaration of competing interest
There is no conflict of interest for any of the participants.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to all the participants of this study for their ef-
forts. We would also like to thank Heidi Vaarala, Teija Kangasvieri,
Leena Nissil€a, and Paula Mattila for commenting on and revising
the survey instrument; Minna Agge for translating the cover letter
of the survey for the Swedish speaking participants; Erja Hyyti-
€ainen for sending the survey to all of the school offices; the National
Teacher Trade Union (OAJ) and the Association of Finnish Language
Teachers for advertising the survey; and Eero Laakkonen for the
help in statistical analyses. In addition, we are very grateful to the
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
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