Can we cross? Exploring the epistemic-linguistic line in an in-service teacher education context

Educational institutions do not merely spread or construct knowledge, but also define what knowledges are worth knowing and what even counts as knowledge. We draw on prior scholarship to discuss knowledge differentiation as an epistemic line , which defines which and whose knowledges count. The hegemony of Eurocentric knowledge systems affects educational institutions in Europe and beyond. In this article, we analyze data from a series of four teacher workshops that we offered in a Finnish adult basic education (ABE) center that serves learners with forced migration background mostly from West Asian and African countries. Together with our teacher participants, we ask Can we cross epistemic lines? Our analysis of transcribed audio-recordings, fieldnotes, and open-ended, semi-structured interviews with the teacher participants shows that teachers reinscribed epistemic lines (e.g. via linguistic and cultural normativity), but also blurred and crossed them by drawing on their own individual and collective knowledges. The study points to the intertwinedness of students’ and teachers’ epistemic legitimacy.