Faculty Interpretations of the University of Iceland's Equality Checklist and Action Plan

Engaging with Equality: Faculty interpretations of the University of Iceland’s Equality Checklist and Action Plan Alexandre Amaral da Silva September 2019 Final Master’s Thesis Faculty of Education Studies Engaging with Equality: Faculty interpretations of the University of Iceland’s Equality Checklist and Action Plan Alexandre Amaral da Silva MA thesis in International Studies in Education Thesis supervisor: Brynja Elísabeth Halldórsdóttir ([email protected]) Co-supervisor: James Gordon Rice ([email protected]) Faculty of Education Studies School of Education, University of Iceland September 2019 Engaging with Equality: Faculty interpretations of the University of Iceland’s Equality Checklist and Action Plan This thesis is a 40-credit final project towards the MA degree in International Studies in Education School of Education, University of Iceland © 2019, Alexandre Amaral da Silva No part of this material may be reproduced without permission of the author. Preface I grew up in Portugal, a country that until 1975 held an enormous empire and with one of the longest world presences running colonial oppression (560 years). Although the colonial legacy is evident in the everyday lives of the Portuguese people, privilege was a topic that did not cross my mind while living there. I was oblivious to the issues that surround race, gender, and ability, and generally unaware of my own advantages or lack of some, whether it concerned gender, ability, race or much else. It was when I moved abroad to England at the age of 21 that I was introduced to the concept and meaning of privilege. There, on one occasion, while driving, I was stopped by the British Transport Police, which filed a report (due to a minor speeding infraction). In their report, there was a section to tick race from a list of about fifteen options. It was a surprise to me that the officers chose to tick the box with the choice “mixed-other.” It was the first time in my life that I questioned my own skin colour, but it was only after I moved to Iceland ten years later that I learned more about diversity and became concerned with equality issues. Due to my life experience, I can empathise with those who might be oblivious to some of the topics of thesis, as I was not long ago and, in many ways, still am. My personal identities are also entangled between my thoughts and my behaviour and henceforth cannot be ignored as part of the make-up of this thesis. For that reason, I can only assume that, despite the rigour of the scientific methodological approaches used in this research, part of this exploration is also a reflexion of the outcomes of my own life. The fact that I identify as left-wing on the political spectrum, although in Iceland I am not allowed to vote, that I am sometimes part of the LGBTQIA+ community and sometimes not, that I am white and simultaneously non-white depending on who asks, that I have been an immigrant for most of my adult life and for a decade not been able to speak the native language of the place where I was living, that I am father of two in which neither set of grandparents is accessible, that I had working class parents and an upbringing that for a significant time the lack of financial means was a regular occurrence (despite the higher amount of cultural capital provided by a family of artists), I need glasses to see functionally and I am hearing impaired (although hearing aids bring my hearing ability to a satisfactory level). Therefore, my understanding of some of the participants’ issues can be shared by equivalent lived experiences: the participant of foreign origin and her struggles with the Icelandic language is mutually understood, my empathy for the participant that struggled with childcare is also communal, and other examples that I will excuse myself from mentioning. I decided to conduct this investigation in order to find out more about the views and attitudes of academic staff in regard to the exercise and perception of equality at their current workplace, the University of Iceland. That was due to a current lack of literature and 3 the perception obtained from my own experience and from the experiences of other students that I have been aware of, and diverse members of the staff at the University of Iceland. Informal observations as an international student and the experience of being a person of foreign background in Icelandic society have catalysed the desire to further investigate how the issues concerning diversity and equality at the University of Iceland are addressed by the institution's staff. Furthermore, the increasing number of people of different ethnic background in the Icelandic society and also the rising number of international students attending higher education provided by the University of Iceland justifies a personal interest in developing this thesis. Although this increase in diversity can fuel the motives for this research paper, one other reason is that the teaching staff are the link between the formal policies and the student body and hence, the primary communicators and main enactors of promoting the principles of equality and critical diversity. I take full responsibility for any mistakes contained in this work. Reykjavík, 30 September 2019 Alexandre Amaral da Silva 4 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my thesis supervisors Brynja Elísabeth Halldórsdóttir and James Gordon Rice for their valuable feedback and guidance. And I would like to thank my partner and my children for having put up with countless hours of neglect during the process of data collection, researching and writing this thesis. I would like to express my gratitude towards my friends in Denmark and family in Portugal that provided words of encouragement and trusted that I would later be able to spend more time together again. I would like to also thank my proofreader, Terry G. Lacy, for proofreading this thesis. I would like to thank the University of Iceland for making it possible for me to improve and increase my understanding of pedagogy, critical thinking, equality and diversity through this educational pathway during the last three years. 5 Abstract Through qualitative research using inductive grounded theory as methodology, holding a transformative worldview, and by conducting twelve in-depth semi-structured interviews and analysing the transcripts the researcher has investigated the current attitudes of the teaching staff at the University of Iceland concerning two of the currently existing documents that regard equality dimension issues that have been officially published by the University of Iceland. These documents are the Checklist for the Integration of the Equality Dimension in teaching at the university and the University of Iceland Equality Action Plan 2018-2020. Through interviews with an equal number of academic tutors from both the School of Social Sciences and the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences, and an equal number of males and females, the researcher conducted empirical enquiry exploring how faculty at the University of Iceland relate, address and think of privilege and oppression and how they regard the social power dynamics that they themselves and others of different backgrounds sustain. The examination sought to elucidate how teachers understand the concept of equality and how they enact its issues. The researcher consequently explored how privilege plays a role in the relations between an increasingly diverse student body and different teaching practices. The researcher expects to add to the existing literature by exploring the existing notions of equality in academia in the Icelandic context. 6 Ágrip Með eigindlegri rannsókn, aðleiðsluaðferð grundaðrar kenningar og umbreytandi heimssýn að leiðarljósi, ræddi rannsakandi við einstaklinga sem starfa við kennslu við Háskóla Íslands í gegnum tólf hálflkokuð djúpviðtöl og skoðaði gildandi viðhorf meðal þessa hóps til forréttinda og undirokunar og þess félagslega valdatafls sem þau sjálf, ásamt öðrum með annan bakgrunn, eiga þátt í að móta og viðhalda. Rannsóknin hafði það að markmiði að varpa ljósi á skilning kennara á hugtakinu um fjölbreytileika og hvernig þau innleiða málefni á sviði janfréttis og jafnræðis. Í gegnum viðtöl við jafnan fjölda karlkyns og kvenkyns kennara, frá Félagsvísindasviði annarsvegar og Verkfræði- og náttúruvísindasviði hinsvegar, framkvæmdi rannsakandi viðtalsrannsókn sem sneri að því að skoða hvernig kennarar Háskóla Íslands horfa til, takast á við og hugsa um þá stefnu sem er í gildi um þessi mál sem Háskóli Íslands hefur birt opinberlega. Þessi skjöl eru Checklist for the Integration of the Equality Dimension in teaching og Jafnréttisáætlun Háskóla Íslands 2018-2020. Rannsakandinn skoðaði í kjölfarið hlutverk forréttinda meðal stöðugt fjölbreytilegri hóps nemenda og ólíkra kennsluhátta. Með rannsókninni reiknar rannsakandi með að bæta við núverandi þekkingu með því að skoða gildandi viðhorf til fjölbreytileika og jafnréttis í íslensku háskólasamfélagi. 7 Table of Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................. 3 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 5 Abstract ............................................................................................................................ 6 Ágrip................................................................................................................................. 7 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................

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