ECRI and Schools in Finland
Racism, bullying and discrimination
We have read the ECRI REPORT ON FINLAND (fifth monitoring cycle) where the problem of racism in schools is included in paragraph 46. We want to thank you for your important work.
We also wish to contribute with some more specific expertise and experiences from the field.
Our association Ad Astra rf (www.ad-astra.fi) has been working with inclusive cultural heritage and multiculturalism and dialogue in schools since 2009. Our organisation has worked with young people from ethnic and religious minorities, with refugee youth and with mixed youth.
Including working with young people and life stories, anti-discrimination, and anti-racism. Our partner organisation is the parents' association DIVa rf (www.diva.ngo) which supports diversity in schools and minorities. DIVa rf was founded in 2018 because of racism, bullying, etc. that affects families badly due to the non-intervention of schools and their institutional ignorance.
The problem of racism and discrimination based on race, religion and ethnicity in schools is unfortunately embedded in the structure and culture of schools. To start solving the problems, we ask ECRI for more specific instructions for schools in Finland. We could see during the recent meeting between ECRI and Moniheli that racism and discrimination in schools is a sensitive subject that engages most. We recognize that ECRI's call to Finland regarding schools in the fifth cycle was general. Our organizations have worked both preventively and supporting families affected by racism when they have tried to get the school to investigate and take action and when the families have tried to get help from other authorities. We are now sharing the knowledge we have gained during this work, which has been going on for several years.
Firstly, a quote that we think describes well the current situation in schools in Finland when itcomes to addressing reported discrimination, racism and bullying:
The Do-Nothing Principal1
1. No school-wide programs - There is no school-wide training about bullying for children, parents, teachers, administrators, janitors, bus drivers, etc. All persons associated with the school should be taught to recognise the signs of overt and covert bullies. Without a school wide programme, it is obvious that the school officials do not take bullying seriously.
2. Make no effort to monitor or investigate - Most everyone knows what areas bullying occurs at their school. School officials will make no effort to monitor those areas. They will plead ignorance and expect "proof" to come from the target of bullying. School officials will refuse to investigate bullying claims.
3. Empathy and compassion for the bullies - School administrators will believe that the best way to stop bullying is for the target show forgiveness, compassion, and empathy for the bully. The focus turns to why the bully harasses their target versus stopping the bullying. These principals favour education and compassion over making the bully stop.
4. Blame the target - Principals will assume that the target did something wrong to antagonise a bully. They will often not keep the bullying complaints confidential and/or look the other way than to stop the bully.
5. Use confidentiality to keep you in the dark - To mask incompetence, bias or laziness, school administrators will use confidentiality to avoid transparency and accountability.
Many times, they will ask you to trust them while they handle the situation.
In our experience, children and families who report discrimination and racism are vulnerable and unprotected. Those who are active and demand action are labelled as problems and excluded and often victimized. Changing schools or home schooling have been the only effective ways to avoid further racism and victimization after reporting. When families dare to report, there is no one in the school who can adequately receive the report and intervene; as there is no system for intervention, investigation and action and no knowledge about antidiscrimination law. As a result, children sink into depression, self-harming behaviour or become violent themselves because they are exposed to racism and abuse year after year. Parents experience themselves as helpless and alone. Schools, health professionals and social workers prefer to
1 Adapted from Dr Ben Leichtling: http://bulliesbegone.com/bookscds/the-bullies-be-gone-system-personal-lifebundle
individualize abuse, ill-being and trauma – as it is easier to continue to do nothing than to change a school culture that is discriminatory and produces racism. There is also a new phenomenon: an up-coming generation of people who immigrated as children in the 1990s and are now parents themselves, and who are choosing home schooling for their little ones. Their memories of Finnish schools are so negative that they want to protect their children from the school. To our experience children from minority groups whose families have reported racism tell of how, despite reporting, racist offences have continued for years, interspersed with meaningless conversations with the headmaster who likes to invite the perpetrators and the victim.
The victims report to us that they experience these forced meetings as dangerous and that they feel vulnerable, alone and scared, and that these meetings often are repeated over and over for years, while the abuse continues in between.
There are holes in the system.
These are:
1. Safe schooling should be guaranteed to all, but it remains empty words. The system is built around the idea that the educational provider organizes the education including the safe schooling for all (in theory) and survives its own work. There is no survisory authority or advising authority that could help vulnerable, racialized children. All responsibility for addressing racism and bullying is placed on the families and their own activity. The state has withdrawn from responsibility and has handed over the interpretation and the implementation of the laws as well as the supervision of the implementation to the education providers, i.e., the municipalities. Finnish National Agency for Education states: The participation of children, pupils and students in building community and the learning/study environment promotes safety and wellbeing.
The education provider shall define rules of order (or applicable rules of order) that promote the internal order of the school or educational institution, undisturbed studies and the safety and well-being of the community2 . The education provider must draw up a plan for the use of disciplinary measures and educational dialogue and the related procedures.
2. Children are encouraged to report to adults at school when abuse has occurred. We have seen case after case where, after reporting, the child is identified as the problem and re-traumatised. Schools lack methods and protocols for how to intervene and
2 https://www.oph.fi/sv/utbildning-och-examina/definition-av-diskriminering-och-lagstiftning
therefore the reporter becomes a problem. There are no clear guidelines, methods, protocols or instructions either at national level or in the municipalities or schools.
3. The National Core Curriculum and related texts from the Finnish National Agency for Education leave a black hole when it comes to how to deal with intervention when a violation has occurred. This is left to the municipalities. The municipalities only have nominal equal treatment plans which, when it comes to offence/racism/hate crime/discrimination, often refer to the school's anti-bullying plan. The existing antibullying plans deal mostly with prevention and are extremely unclear or remain silent when it comes to intervention. The National Core Curriculum3 is also vague and unclear when it comes to intervention and remediation, leaving the responsibility to municipalities and schools. The method of discipline that is available is educational dialogue with perpetrators. This is not enough when it comes to racism and discrimination against children belonging to racialized and/or vulnerable groups as these children do have the right to safe schooling. Research also shows that bullying is particularly targeted at migrant and poor children4. Unfortunately, national minorities are not specifically included in this survey, showing how they are invisibilised. It is a repeated pattern in Finland to keep silent about the historical minorities and instead push a paradigm where there are two groups: "kantaväestö" / "maahanmuuttajat" which is difficult to translate but can be written as "natives" / "migrants". In this way, the historical context of and discrimination, racism and racialisation that is linked to national minorities in Finland, is lost. When racist offences and discrimination occur, they do not happen in a vacuum but are usually events that take place in a power structure in the classroom and school, and in a school culture that nurtures this. This means that educative conversations are not effective and may even result in the victim being punished by the perpetrator for reporting. There are also many cases where staff (teachers) are the ones who make abusive and racist statements. These cases are usually kept secret because the school wants to defend its reputation (happy institutionalism) etc.
4. In our experience school staff lack the ability to recognise racism and lack understanding of the Non-Discrimination Act. Also, in our experience, when racist offences are reported, it is typical for the principal to explain that this cannot be discussed publicly and that the school cannot speak out against racism publicly because the school "does
3 https://www.oph.fi/sv/utbildning-och-examina/grunderna-laroplanen-den-grundlaggande-utbildningen
4 https://www.karvi.fi/sites/default/files/sites/default/files/documents/KARVI_T0424.pdf
5 not talk about individual students' experiences." (quote from a principal responding to racism allegation, not public yet). The whole problem is thus turned into the subjective feeling of the victim, denying that statements were made and actions taken.
5. The victim is then offered psychological services, but the psychologist usually does not know what racism is either and the victim is often re-traumatised by the psychologist/counsellor who belittles racism and tells the pupil to "not be so sensitive".
Even in cases where the counsellor wants to help, the school is usually not willing to listen. To our experience, health professionals are often afraid to speak out about racism, saying that it is hopeless, and that the principal does not want to hear such things. The school does not want to recognise the truth that there are larger clusters of racism and bullying and lot to work on. The school prefers to see each case of victimisation or racism as an exception and an anomaly and mostly communicates that the cure is about the victim being treated by health professionals and changing his/her behavior. This silencing way to deal with racism is a pattern that is repeated from one municipality to another; it is not an individual case about one school.
6. The only authority that has expertise and actively tries to assist is the Non- Discrimination Ombudsman, but even the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman's mandate is weak and the schools do not seem to know the Non-Discrimination Act. You can submit complaints to the Regional State Administrative Agency but it takes 8-12 months to get a response and they do not really bind the school if they are not about something as concrete as a grade. A child who was dismissed from school because of racism and appealed was vindicated by Regional State Administrative Agency after 8 months, the school Regional State Administrative Agency forced the school to change the decision, but the school then immediately dismissed the child again. Regional State Administrative Agency is also not obliged to look at the Non-Discrimination Act, but is mostly focused on administrative cases and school laws. A child or family who reports racism or discrimination is on their own.
7. School is an unsafe place for racialised, and minority children and they are vulnerable because they are children and cannot protect themselves or ask for help - and when they do, they start to be persecuted because they are seen as the problem. Teachers lack knowledge about racism and discrimination.
8. Minority families perceive their own religious education and mother tongue as positive, and children feel secure in their own group and teacher (Metso, 2019; Parland, 2023).
Separate religious education is required by law: if there are three children in the municipality, the municipality must organise it. Unfortunately, information about this right is often unclear and sometimes pupils do not receive education. Teaching in one's own mother tongue is not statutory and only takes place in those municipalities that actively choose to apply for a city Finnish National Agency for Education for this. This practice discriminates against children on the basis of their place of residence. It is also detrimental for children not to receive this education in their own mother tongue.
Tuition in own religion and in own mother tongue make pupils more confident and are important. The access to own mother tongue tuition in school is beneficial (Alisaari et al., 2019; Cummins et al., 2005). The lessons are often a breathing space for vulnerable children. (Example: black girl who is systematically excluded by teachers and peers, for example, the father found the child alone in the corridor several times during lessons, according to the teacher because the girl can probably hear and see from the corridor, the child was also not given additional tuition (stödundervisning/tukiopetus) while other white children did, and got no access to an own corner to rest, although several white children received a rest corner, etc., etc... The only supportive teacher was the teacher in Catholic religion who visited the school once a week. The case was never reported due to fear of reprisals and instead the child changed to another school. Teachers of own religion and own mother tongue are important for minority children (Alisaari et al., 2019, p. 50; Cummins et al., 2005) but Finland has failed to organise educational programs for teachers of own mother tongue and own religion for decades, and when some sort of training is provided it can be inadequate (Aksinovits & Verschik, 2024).
White majority teachers are prioritised and on permanent contracts. Student teachers from religious minorities also report being singled out and exoticized and condescending comments made against them in teacher training and lack of opportunity for training in their own religion.
9. The University of Helsinki's teacher training programme does not provide student teachers with insight into how to intervene in racism and discrimination and in human rights. It is the same unclear paradigm that exists at Finnish National Agency for Education and in the municipalities. No clear lines and methods and protocols and no clear instructions about how to handle discrimination and bullying are taught to the coming teachers, according to what students from minorities and migrant background at Helsinki University tell us
10. According to all the young people, children, and families we have come into contact with, the KiVa Antibullying Program (that is mentioned in ECRI reports) does not work when it comes to racism. The programme focuses on children having equal status in school and the method is conflict resolution. KiVa Antibullying Program means that the victim is forced to sit opposite the perpetrators and have a chat with them: make a deal.
This doesn't work at all for children who have been subjected to racism, but the school lacks understanding of how discrimination and racism affect the victim and forces victims to participate in these KiVa Antibullying Program processes that re-traumatise the victim. Children and young people and victimised families are highly critical of KiVa Antibullying Program. Specific, clear protocols and methods for intervening and addressing discrimination and racism are needed.
11. Education providers are expected to guarantee safe schooling for pupils, but there is a lack of motivation and incentives for municipalities to do this. When schools and municipalities fail to do so, there are no penalties. It is cheaper, more convenient, and easier to see the victim as the problem. A real investigation with action leads to work with the whole school community, from pupils to caretakers, teachers, headteachers, carers, families etc...it is the school culture that is infected. Usually part of an authoritarian, rigid, hierarchical local authority administration where there is little interest in education and children at all, let alone human rights. Lack of resources at the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman and legal certainty for children means that the school is a black hole where racism and offences thrive if there is no enthusiastic principal.
State responsibility must be greater and the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman stronger.
The only authority that has expertise is the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman and the Non- Discrimination Ombudsman and the Tribunal would need much more resources to deal with schools and children's cases in general. Now all processes are very slow from the children's perspective (up to a year) and the children are alone, just like the families. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the best interests of the child must be prioritised! Non-Discrimination Ombudsman need more resources and powers and information about their work should be disseminated to families. There should be a low-threshold method of reportingdiscrimination/racism in schools for a transitional period where counsellors support the child and provide advice and info to the school principal and health professionals ASAP.
Specifically on systemic discrimination and racism affecting minorities:
Mother tongue is not taught equally across the country. Pupils can only be taught their own mother tongue in those municipalities that have applied for state support for this5 . The right to teaching is not guaranteed at national level. (EOAK 2569/0019, we´ll send this to you if needed)
1. The fact that there still does not exist any training programme for teachers of own mother tongue means that minority children are less favourably treated than other children as their access to tuition in their own mother tongue cannot be realised properly due to the lack of teachers. Teachers work without qualifications and without proper contracts, etc... it seems that the state lack motivation to implement cultural and linguistic rights of minority children. This has been going on for decades for example for the Samis. (Lehtola, 2022, p. 178) Having a mother tongue and supporting bilingualism is important for academic success and well-being (Nichols & Colon, 2000).
2. Own religious education is statutory and is appreciated as well as own mother tongue by minority families and minority pupils. Own religion is statutory and must be organised by the municipality when 3 pupils are present, this is minority friendly and good. Teacher training for religion teachers in own religions is needed and more knowledge to class teachers about this training and this right. Now the majority lacks understanding of why own lessons in religion and mother tongue are needed and especially the right to own religion tuition is threatened by reformers who do not understand that minority children in schools need positive action in the form of support for their own cultural heritage,especially when polarisation is increasing as well as xenophobia. Even the Ombudsman for Children writes texts that show that she lacks understanding of the reality and rights of minority children6 . In addition, research shows that religious minority teachers and children experience exclusion, patronising comments, etc... Muslim pupils have, for example, been called "pikku-isikset" (small islamists) by the principal. Jews, Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims all report exclusion and "slurs" etc. A teacher of orthodox religion told her lesson had been interrupted repeatedly by a child from the majority group who entered the classroom during ongoing lessons to loudly state: “oh here we have the
5 https://www.oph.fi/sv/funding/statsunderstod-undervisning-i-svenskafinska-som-andrasprak-och-stod-i-ovrigundervisning
6 https://www.hs.fi/mielipide/art-2000010807392.html
putinists”. The principal did not care about this. Both Russian and Ukrainian schoolchildren report being harassed by their mates in school and told that they are dirty and smelly, and that the school staff does not care when they report the harassment.
3. Holidays are not treated equally and respectfully such as Ramadan, Pesach etc (Parland & Kwazema, 2023). Finnish cultural heritage is not only Lutheran Christmas, but much more. Overall, stereotypical ideas of the majority about the intersection of religion/ethnicity/race cause minority children to be oppressed intersectionally.
4. The national minorities are not highlighted and are not seen as a group at all, despite convention protection. In Finland, the ethnic groups Sami, Roma, Karelians, Jews, Tatars, (old) Russians are to be protected, as well as the finnoswedes who are more protected.
All groups except the latter have been racialised as a by-product of the nation-state project and/or the Westphalian paradigm that is still promoted in society and schools as the norm and which suspects and excludes minorities or forces assimilation.
5. Racism and victimisation cannot disappear from schools if the school, i.e. staff and pupils, do not feel good. Simple, super important advice:
a. Teach children and adults to greet each other! Immigrants complain about the extreme lack of greetings, and natives also complain. You can't include and improve anything if you can't say hello or introduce people to each other.
b. Be group specific, stop dividing people dichotomously into Finns and migrants/immigrants, there are many different interesting groups and minorities (e.g. Savolaksians.)
c. Train health care workers, principals, teachers, school directors in antidiscrimination and anti-racism. Make a training programme that results in a state diploma from Finnish National Agency for Education, for example, and the trained person can then investigate and lead measures against racism. There should be a requirement for a trained person to lead investigations.
ODIHR
We would also like to inform you that in 2019 our association submitted a complaint to ODIHR7 regarding a total lack of monitoring and that the Ministry is now preparing a legislative amendment that will improve Regional State Administrative Agency's ability to monitor the
7 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-1Ntk4_7eEBvwqErxLn1xahE8SjmjyuB/
school as the authority will be able to be proactive and to sanction schools, after an investigation was carried out in 2020-21 (Mäntylä et al., 2021). However, we know that the Regional State Administrative Agency lacks expertise in the Non-Discrimination Act for the time being and that there is a shortage of lawyers with this specialised knowledge throughout Finland. The Regional State Administrative Agency also lacks knowledge of racism/anti-racism and has chosen not to consider discrimination offences at all in cases where schools have also violated other laws, and this is correct according to the Non-Discrimination Ombudsman. There is thus a great risk that racist and hate crimes will not be dealt with by this authority.
List of sources
Aksinovits, L., & Verschik, A. (2024). Family Language Policy in the Estonian Diaspora in Finland:
Language Ideology and Home Language Education. Languages (Basel), 9(7), 225.
https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9070225
Alisaari, J., Heikkola, L. M., Commins, N., & Acquah, E. O. (2019). Monolingual ideologies
confronting multilingual realities. Finnish teachers’ beliefs about linguistic diversity.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 80, 48–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.01.003
Cummins, J., Bismilla, V., Chow, P., Cohen, S., Giampapa, F., Leoni, L., Sandhu, P., & Sastri, P.
(2005). Affirming identity in multilingual classrooms. Educational Leadership, 63 (1), 38–
43.
Lehtola, V.-P. (2022). Entiset elävät meissä Saamelaisten historia ja Suomi. Gaudiamus.
Mäntylä, N., Karjalainen, V., Legge, M. R., & Pernaa, H.-K. (2021). Pukki kaalimaan vartijana –
kuka valvoo peruskouluja? (111; p. 146). Kunnallisalan Kehittämissäätiö.
https://kaks.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/111_pukki-kaalimaan-vartijana.pdf
Metso, P. (2019). Making minority faith (in)visible through religious education: Parents’
experiences of the identification of their children’s Orthodox identity in Finnish public
schools. Journal of Religious Education, 67(1), 61–76. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-
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Nichols, P. C., & Colon, M. (2000). Spanish Literacy and the Academic Success of Latino High
School Students: Codeswitching as a Classroom Resource1. Foreign Language Annals,
33(5), 498–511. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2000.tb01994.x
Parland, M. (2023). When they tell you who you are. Approaching Religon, 13(3).
https://doi.org/10.30664/ar.131085
Parland, M., & Kwazema, M. (2023). Looking for Hidden Notebooks: Analysing Social Exclusion
Experienced by Teachers of Minority Religions in Finnish Schools. In A. A. Alemanji, C. M.
Meijer, M. Kwazema, & F. E. K. Benyah (Eds.), Contemporary Discourses in Social
Exclusion (pp. 91–118). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-
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