Dealing with diversity, hoping for inclusion. Parents’ involvement in urban schools in Norway

This paper investigates parents’ involvement in multi-ethnic and class-differentiated urban public schools in Bergen, Norway. It examines how some parents deal with diversity and social inequality in a socially mixed urban area in Norway and Europe today. With the help of the concept of conviviality—the capacity to live together peacefully while negotiating tensions—we focus on the hope of inclusion when people are sharing a place that is important to them in everyday life. Existing research shows how parents engaged in schools are concerned with ensuring the academic success of the school thereby reproducing classed privileges. We find that parents engaged in public bodies in schools act on hopes of social inclusion of the diversity of children and their parents more than they pursue academic success. We argue that, rather than aiming at reproducing classed privileges, some parents aim for a politics of inclusion, leveling out social differences. Using the concept of conviviality, we explore how this has, simultaneously, both inclusionary and exclusionary consequences.

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