Browsing by Author "Saarelma, Marika"

Aims. Muslim pupils experience many negative attitudes and challenges at school. The class teacher has a big role to play in promoting cohesion and integration of Muslim pupils. The class teacher's tools for integrating Muslim pupils include open discussion, religious literacy, and concrete support measures. This thesis aims to explore classroom teacher students' capacities to promote cohesion among Muslim pupils and their experiences in applying them. The focus of the study is on students in classroom teacher training. Methods. I obtained my data through a questionnaire. The respondents to the questionnaire were classroom teacher education students (N=21). My research was a qualitative study based on phenomenography. I used the theoretical content analysis method to analyse the data. Theoretical analysis explores a phenomenon based on an already known theory, which in this study is the skills needed by classroom teacher students to promote the integration of Muslim students. Results and conclusions. Classroom teacher trainees have low or no perceived capacity to promote cohesion among Muslim pupils. Student teachers knew very little about Islam and the challenges faced by Muslim pupils. The results of the survey highlighted the respondents' lack of knowledge about the importance of the research topic and ways to improve cohesion among Muslim pupils. A large proportion of survey respondents also felt that classroom teacher training does not provide the necessary skills to integrate Muslim pupils. The results are not generalisable to all teacher students, but they do reflect the ideas, practices and roles that may emerge among teacher students more generally.