‘Who wants to be a travelling teacher?’ Bilingual teachers and weak forms of bilingual education: the Norwegian experience

Abstract

In this article, I argue that immigrant bilingual teachers and mother‐tongue teachers are not formally recognised as ‘genuine’ teachers in the Norwegian school system. Norwegian education authorities have invested considerable effort in order to strengthen the competences of bilingual teachers and to both recognise and formalise their home country education. Amongst other things, several university colleges were encouraged to provide specially designed higher education programmes for bilingual teachers in order to integrate teachers with bilingual competences into the Norwegian primary school teaching system. This paper is based on data collected in 2007–2008 during the national evaluation of this education, which is the first of its kind in Norway. Although popular amongst immigrant students, it seems that the competences to be gained by graduates of the BA degree programme are not recognised or utilised in the schools where they work. Due to low social status and an unfavourable structural position within the Norwegian school education sector, these teachers will try to distance themselves from their bilingual roles and identities. Within such a framework, the higher education that is intended to strengthen optimum bilingual tuition in the primary schools sector is, in fact, steering bilingual teachers and mother‐tongue teachers away from these more specialised and less valued professions, seeking instead, access into the more mainstream and higher status teaching jobs.