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Finnish higher education institutions' reactions to the 2015 asylum seeker situation : Motives, goals and future challenges

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Vaarala, H., Haapakangas, E.-L., Kyckling, E., & Saarinen, T. (2017). Finnish higher education institutions' reactions to the 2015 asylum seeker situation : Motives, goals and future challenges. Apples : Journal of Applied Language Studies, 11(3), 143-165. https://doi.org/10.17011/apples/urn.201712104589
Published in
Apples : Journal of Applied Language Studies
Authors
Vaarala, Heidi |
Haapakangas, Eeva-Leena |
Kyckling, Erja |
Saarinen, Taina
Date
2017
Discipline
Soveltava kielentutkimusApplied language studies
Copyright
© The Author(s). Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.

 
In 2015, military conflicts and related humanitarian crises neighbouring areas of Europe made millions of people leave their homes. Europe, including Finland, experienced a rapid increase in the number of asylum seekers. In this article, we examine the reception of asylum seekers by Finnish higher education institutions mainly by analysing media data written about and written by universities and universities of applied sciences in Finland. The higher education institutions, in keeping with their societal role, spontaneously developed various kinds of pop-up courses, co-operation projects and other activities for asylum seekers. These activities range from crisis work to medical clinics and sports events to language teaching. This led us to ask in this article, whether new tasks were emerging in the Finnish higher education institutions’ understanding of the societal role of higher education. This main question is operationalised in three subquestions. Firstly, we are interested in seeing how higher education institutions motivate their actions on developing activities for asylum seekers. Secondly, we analyse the goals and gainers of these activities. Thirdly, we discuss the challenges faced by the higher education institutions in their refugee and asylum seeker activities. Based on our findings, we suggest that new kinds of voluntary and humanitarian activities appear to be emerging at Finnish higher education institutions, as they responded to the increase in the number of asylum seekers, suggesting a change in the traditions of societal impact of Finnish higher education. Our analysis also shows an apparent paradox in the activities of the institutions: while they had no way of knowing how many asylum seekers will remain in Finland, they still organised activities that implied staying in Finland for a longer time. The higher education institutions themselves benefitted from the activities: they could exhibit their expertise and previous research in the area of immigrant studies, and aspects of service-learning system of societal activity could be taken into their curricula. Helping the asylum seekers brought the university community together while the asylum seekers themselves remained passive objects of the activities. ...
Publisher
Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä
ISSN Search the Publication Forum
1457-9863
Keywords
higher education third mission korkeakoulut turvapaikanhakijat media yhdyskuntapalvelu
DOI
https://doi.org/10.17011/apples/urn.201712104589
URI

http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-201712124634

Publication in research information system

https://converis.jyu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/27415455

Metadata
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Collections
  • 2017, Volume 11, Issue 3 [7]
  • Humanistis-yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta [5386]

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