Cultural inclusion has positive effects in Danish and Swedish schools

A new study finds no support for claims that adjustments for and acknowledgement of cultural differences in schools is harmful to the integration or performance of students. Where a difference in performance following activities promoting such inclusion can be found at all, the study finds, it is positive.

The study shares the findings of questionnaires completed by more than 4 000 ninth-grade students in 75 Danish and 65 Swedish primary schools. Denmark and Sweden have similar school systems but different approaches to integration: where Denmark has focused more on teaching national culture, Sweden has promoted multiculturalism and minority rights to a higher degree. Individual schools may also adopt different attitudes towards these issues within the wider national frameworks.

Activities examined by the study include serving halal food, arranging multi-cultural parties and recognising ethnic minority groups and different religions in schools. All were found to have very little impact on students’ performance or attitudes.

In schools where some efforts are made to recognise cultural and religious differences, students whose parents migrated from North Africa and the Middle East tend to have, according to the study, stronger political and social self-confidence and better overall wellbeing. In these particular schools in Sweden, grades were found to be slightly higher than in schools where no such inclusion efforts are made. In Denmark, no difference was observed between those schools that make such efforts and those that do not.

When comparing school classes that have different numbers of students with an ethnic minority background, the study finds that a high concentration of such students in one class does not have a negative effect on the wellbeing of the students of that class; nor does it negatively affect their political integration.

The study divides students into 4 categories based on their parents’ origin: 'Danish native', 'Western', 'MENAPT' and 'Others (non-Western)'. These are categories used by Denmark's national statistics body.

The study was conducted by researchers from Aarhus University and Malmö University as part of a larger project - funded by the Rockwool Research Foundation - entitled “When do children of immigrants thrive? How schooling and politics affect civic and educational outcomes”.