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Intercultural and Religious Sensitivity of Finnish Lutheran 7th – 9th Grade Students NCRE 6.6.2007

Intercultural and Religious Sensitivity of Finnish Lutheran 7th – 9th Grade Students NCRE 6.6.2007 Kristiina Holm, Petri Nokelainen & Kirsi Tirri University of Helsinki Department of Practical Theology. Diversity – Challenge of Finnish schools.

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Intercultural and Religious Sensitivity of Finnish Lutheran 7th – 9th Grade Students NCRE 6.6.2007

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  1. Intercultural and Religious Sensitivity of Finnish Lutheran 7th – 9th Grade Students NCRE 6.6.2007 Kristiina Holm, Petri Nokelainen & Kirsi Tirri University of Helsinki Department of Practical Theology

  2. Diversity – Challenge of Finnish schools • The importance of intercultural and inter-religious dialogue is nowadays emphasized globally and locally. • The intercultural and interfaith dialogue has been one of the major axes of the Council of Europe development since 2002. • In Finland, the number of immigrants is continuosly increasing • 1990: 26,255 foreigners in Finland • 2006: 113,852 foreigners in Finland • The urban schools in particular are becoming more diverse and heterogeneous all the time. • For instance, in 2005, of the 50,000 pupils in the Helsinki comprehensive schools, about 4,000 were immigrants, and the instruction was being given in 40 different languages.

  3. Diversity – Challenge of Religious Education • Breidlid & Nicolaisen (2004): The great challenge of modern RE is to help pupils to deal with cultural and religious diversity and plurality. • Pupils should learn how to appreciate their classmates’ different worldviews and "fight for equality“. • Exploring the intercultural and interreligious sensitivity of young people prepares the RE teachers to meet with the different intercultural and interreligious orientations, and helps to find out the suitable methods for instruction.

  4. RE and the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (2004) • Religious education (RE) is being given for 13 different religious groups. • In RE, “...religion is treated as one of the undercurrents influencing human culture” (curriculum). • The objectives of all religious groups emphasize the knowledge of one's own culture, and the readiness to meet with other religions and worldviews, especially those in the Finnish society. • One of the underlying values of basic education is “...to promote tolerance and intercultural understanding” .

  5. Lutheran RE • About 83 % of Finnish citizens are Lutheran. • RE has traditionally been based on the Lutheran confession, and the majority of pupils participate Evangelical Lutheran RE. • The main objectives of Lutheran RE in grades 6-9 are as follows: The pupils... • become familiar with Christianity and the main world religions, • respect people with different views and religious opinions, • learn the concepts of ethical thinking, and apply them in the ethical issues. • Intercultural and inter-religious learning are supported by the curriculum.

  6. Intercultural Sensitivity • Theoretical background is based on Milton Bennet’s theory of intercultural sensitivity. • Intercultural sensitivity means one’s ability to notice and experience cultural differences. • Intercultural competence refers to the cognitive and behavioural skills that an individual uses when dealing with cultural differences. • The Developemental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity is a constructivist model that indicates one’s progression from relatively few distinctions in the worldview to relatively many distinctions. • The intercultural sensitivity is either ethnocentric or ethnorelative. • Ethnocentric: one’s own set of standards and customs is used to judge all people. • Ethnorelative: one is comfortable with many standards and customs, and values the cultural differences.

  7. Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (Bennett, 1993; Bennett & Bennett, 2004) The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) is a model to explain an individual's reactions to cultural difference. Ethnocentric orientations Ethnorelative orientations ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Denial Defense Minimization Acceptance Adaptation Integration

  8. Ethnocentric intercultural sensitivity • Denial: • The state in which one is not able to make distinctions between cultures, or is looking at the rest of the world as “foreigners”. • Defence: • Tendency to see the world in two polarizations, “us” (good people) and “them” (bad people). One’s own culture is seen as superior and other cultures are seen as a threat or undeveloped. • Various defence mechanisms, such as denigration and aggressive behaviour, are used is intercultural relations. • Reversal is a variation of Defense in which one’s primary culture is seen as inferior and an adopted culture as superior. • Minimization: • Differences between cultures are recognized but ignored since other cultures are viewed fundamentally as similar to one's own. • People in the minimization position have a tendency to consider their own cultural world as universal.

  9. Ethnorelative intercultural sensitivity • Acceptance: • One's own culture is viewed as one of a complex of worldviews. People from other cultures are experienced as different but equal. • Different behaviour and values exist in cultural context; they are respected but not necessarily accepted. • Adaptation: • One has the ability to view someone else’s perspective. One's worldview is expanded, which enables incorporating different cultural worldviews into one's own. • Well developed intercultural and empathy skills; ability to think and act in culturally appropriate ways. • Integration: • Integration of the concept of different cultures into a definition of one’s identity (not a social integration!). • One is able to integrate cultural difference into part of one’s identity in a positive way.

  10. Interreligious sensitivity • Intercultural research and training usually excludes the religion and interreligious settings of the cultural identity. • Fisher (1997): Interreligious interactions are no different from intercultural interactions. • Mohammed Abu-Nimer (2001): Developmental Model of Interreligious Sensitivity • Model for interreligious peacebuilding training. • The data and analysis are based on a series of workshops and interviews with participants from diverse religious backgrounds. • Religiocentric and religiorelative responses in interreligious settings. • In our study, a religious dimension was brought into the context of intercultural sensitivity.

  11. Data • The data was collected between October and December 2006 from one secondary school in Helsinki (Southern Finland, capital of Finland with about 560,000 inhabitants) and one in Jyväskylä (Central Finland, about 165,000 inhabitants). • The non-probability sample (N = 249) of 7th – 9th grade students who participated Lutheran RE. • 53% of females, 47% of males • 7th graders 34%, 8th graders 33%, 9th graders 34% • Intercultural and Religious Sensitivity Scale (IRSS) questionnaire. • The instrument consists of 29 items. Participants were asked to evaluate their attitudes towards the statements measuring intercultural and interreligious sensitivity. • Likert-scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree).

  12. Table 3. IRSSQ items.

  13. Aim of the study • The aim of this study was to examine the intercultural and inter-religious sensitivity of the 13-16 year old pupils in two urban schools in Finland. • Research questions: 1)Are there any differences in the intercultural and religious sensitivity between Lutheran non-confirmed (seventh and eighth grade) students and confirmed (ninth grade) students? - Our special interest concerning the first question was to find out if ninth graders, who have had more religious education at school and also completed their confirmation training, assess themselves more interculturally sensitive than the younger and less educated pupils. 2)Are there any differences in the intercultural and religious sensitivity between female and male students?

  14. Results: Differences between non-confirmed and confirmed students • On three scales (Defense, Minimization and Acceptance) those students who had been confirmed had the tendency to select higher Likert scale values than their non-confirmed peers. • When considering the fourth scale (Acceptance), this result supports our preliminary assumption that confirmation school and RE in school might increase teenagers’ intercultural and religious sensitivity. • On the other hand, the opposite results from the two other non-tolerant scales (Defense and Minimization) lead us to a controversial conclusion. • More data is needed to have a statistically supported theoretically explicit answer to this research question.

  15. Results: Gender-related differences • Male respondents (M = 2.9, SD = 0.8) were clearly more likely to have a negative attitude towards foreigners than females (M = 2.3, SD = 0.8). • Males had a stronger tendency to avoid other cultures than females. They were more likely to show disinterest in cultural differencies, or express aggressive attitudes towards other cultures and religions. • Males (M = 2.9, SD = 0.8) were also more prone than females (M = 2.9, SD = 0.7) to defend Finnish culture and declare its superiority over other cultures.

  16. Results: Gender-related differences • The results indicate that males are more likely to organize their worldview into two polarizations, where “our people” are superior and “other people” are inferior. Overemphasizing one’s own culture is typical to ethnocentric orientations. • Ethnocentric and racist attitudes seem to be more common for young boys than for girls. For instance, the attitudes towards immigrants, of the Finnish 15-17-year-old boys, are significantly more negative than those of the girls (Jaakkola, 2005).

  17. Results: Gender-related differences • Males (M = 2.6, SD = 0.7) were more eager than females (M = 2.3, SD = 0.7) to admit brutality in Christianity and a lack of tolerance that typifies Finnish culture. • The interesting question is if the young girls value their own religion higher than the boys. The results of the youth barometer show that religion is more important for the females aged 15-29 than males of the same age. About 47% of young women consider themselves religious, but less than 37% for young men. (Helve, 2006)

  18. Results: Gender-related differences • Females (M = 3.1, SD = 0.6) rated themselves as more empathetic and pluralistic than the males did (M = 2.9, SD = 0.7). • Empathy is essential for intercultural skills, since it enables valuing diversity. Females seem more likely to have more developed empathy skills and be able to take a particular perspective of another culture than males.

  19. Concluding remarks and further study • This study presented a 29-item Intercultural and Religious Sensitivity Scale Questionnaire (IRSSQ) that is based on the Bennett’s (1993) Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS). • Revision of the IRSSQ after these results • More data (generalizability study) and further statistical analyses (EFA, CFA) • Cross-cultural studies and international comparison material • The relations of the intercultural and the interreligious sensitivity between the ethical and the spiritual sensitivity?

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