Immigrant Teachers’ Professional Identity in Kuulumisia Education Programme: A Mixed-Method Approach

Abstract

The surge of immigrants in recent decades has changed the demographic structure in Finland. Teachers with immigrant backgrounds are increasingly needed in Finnish schools in order to cope with a growing multicultural and multilingual population. Although the multicultural contribution of immigrant teachers is well known, their professionalism and characteristics as professional teachers are often overlooked. This study examines the professional identity of immigrant teachers in Finland, focusing on immigrant teachers who have participated in a training programme (Finnish name is Kuulumisia) at Tampere University. To flag up the issue and broaden the direction of research, this study measures the professional identity of immigrant teachers through seven dimensions, which are self-esteem, self-efficacy, job satisfaction, task orientation, professional commitment, future perceptions, and work motivation. A mixed-methods design is employed for data collection and analysis. The total number of participants in the survey is 40 (10 Finnish, 28 immigrants and 2 undefined), and 5 immigrants are selected to participate in semi-structured interviews. The survey contains 48 items with additional 7 background questions. The data of the survey results are analyzed in SPSS 26 Statistics software with Pearson correlation(r) to find related correlations among different factors, and Mann-Whitney U-test to compare differences between Finnish and immigrant groups. The 5 semi-structured interviews last in total 4 hours and 45 minutes with over 22000 words in transcript. The interview data are demonstrated through qualitative thematic analysis. The results show that teachers with immigrant backgrounds achieve a high score on their professional identity, even higher than Finnish teachers in terms of extrinsic motivation, traditional beliefs, and future perspectives. The results further confirm that the Kuulumisia training programme in Finland plays an important role in enhancing teachers’ professional identity in terms of language improvement, pedagogical philosophies, teaching methods, etc. This study highlights the professionalism of trained immigrant teachers in Finland. Indeed, immigrant teachers' professionalism should not be differentiated from the professional workplace by their race, language, and culture. When the society and school communities not only focus on their multicultural contribution, but also recognize their professional qualifications, immigrant teachers will make a significant contribution to the Finnish education system and as a positive outcome they can be actively integrated into Finland.