Reception of newly arrived immigrant schoolchildren in Iceland: Exploring challenges and dilemmas concerning teaching and assessment practices

Abstract

Greater cultural and linguistic diversity in Icelandic compulsory schools has resulted in various changes in educational policies, which, for instance, have been manifested as recent additions to the Icelandic national curriculum guide aimed at ensuring better education for plurilingual children. However, schoolteachers still require further preparation to enhance their skills to accommodate the educational and social needs of children from diverse cultural backgrounds and to create empowering learning environments. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study with Icelandic Master’s students who completed most courses included in their teacher education programme and had various work experience from compulsory schools in Iceland. The primary goals were to examine challenges and dilemmas that the student teachers faced when implementing different types of educational assessment of newly arrived schoolchildren and to analyse whether the teaching practices described by them align with theoretical tenets of culturally relevant and sustaining teaching. The findings indicated that, although the participants were willing to promote cultural pluralism, they were limited by their lack of theoretical and practical knowledge of relevant teaching and assessment practices. The study sheds light on some gaps in teacher education programmes in Iceland and suggests possible ways of addressing them.