Good intentions, colonial relations: Interrupting the white emotional equilibrium of Norwegian citizenship education
Peer reviewed, Journal article
Published version
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https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2985800Utgivelsesdato
2021Metadata
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Originalversjon
Eriksen, K. G. & Stein, S. (2021). Good intentions, colonial relations: Interrupting the white emotional equilibrium of Norwegian citizenship education. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2021.1959210Sammendrag
The national imaginary of Norway as a global champion of democracy and social welfare has served well to market its image as exceptional both nationally and internationally. Norwegian national exceptionalism (Browning, 2007; Loftsdóttir & Jensen, 2012; Susa, 2016) is also deeply embedded within the educational system, and manifests in the production of knowledge and social identities. Despite the country’s exalted self-image and stated intentions for education to foster human dignity, equality and solidarity (The Norwegian Ministry of Education [KD], 2019), Norwegian educational institutions continue to support the reproduction of colonial structures that naturalize racism, epistemic violence and exploitative capitalist economic structures (Eriksen, 2018a; Svendsen, 2014a). In this article, we argue that discourses of exceptionalism may have the effect of absolving educational institutions of their pedagogical responsibilities to denaturalize and disrupt unjust social relations (Stein, 2018).