“Iceland is no longer an ethnically homogenous country,” says Vietnamese-born Anh-Dao Katrín Tran who’s been studying upper secondary education in Iceland’s multicultural society. “The Icelandic educational system and Icelandic society face the challenge of preparing all students to function in a multicultural world. The risk of immigrant youth dropping out of school is significantly higher than for their Icelandic peers.”
Anh-Dao was a refugee from her home country Vietnam. Her research revolves around immigrant youth progress in Icelandic upper secondary schools, with a focus on students of Vietnamese background. Anh-Dao met her Icelandic husband while studying at Dartmouth College in the US and moved to Iceland in 1984. Since then, she’s worked on immigrant issues in Iceland. In 2006 she received the Knight’s Cross from the President of Iceland for her outstanding work concerning immigrant issues. She also received in the same year a special recognition from the Save the Children Iceland Foundation for her work that benefits children and children’s rights.
Preliminary findings in Anh Dao’s research call for a shift in pedagogic practice, urging the adoption of the essential needs “for strategic use of materials that reflect cultural diversity, for the curriculum to be organized so that students engage in critical thinking, reduce racial prejudice and improve racial attitudes among students; for teachers to modify their teaching techniques to facilitate the success of students who don’t come from the mainstream culture; and last but not least, to build a school culture that promotes collective participation in ensuring holistic learning outcomes.”
Supervisor: Hanna Ragnarsdóttir, associate professor in multicultural studies & head of faculty of Education studies, School of Education.
