The contributions of students with migrant background in VET:Danish health and social care (SOSU) educations as a case

Throughout the Nordic countries, vocations rely heavily on workers with migrant background – with health and social care professions as a promient case (e.g., Trydegård, 2012; Wrede &amp; Näre, 2013). Due to a growing intake of migrant students, Danish health and social care educations have directed their focus on how to operate within contexts of increased cultural diversity - both by providing language support for bilingual students and, more generally, by building intercultural skills for teachers, migrant students and Danish students, alike. However, pedagogical scenarios and didactical interventions are often still not designed to embrace ideas of mutual benefit and co-construction of intercultural understanding – contributing eventually to bad reputation and increased drop-out rates in the Danish VET-sector (Aarkrog, 2022) (Munkejord &amp; Tingvold, 2019) (Rytter, 2019). More research is needed to accommodate to maintaining bilingual/migrant students in SOSU-educations, and to include the experience and knowledge on care and aging brought by them into care professions (Chua, 2018). <br/><br/>In this symposium, three research projects will be presented that are engaging in providing state of the art knowledge on these issues under the perspectives of language, technology and culture:<br/>The contribution by Clemensen (P1) will present in-depth ethnografic research on the language-related challenges migrant students in SOSU-educations experience in the classroom and during practice placements. <br/>The contribution by Scholkmann and Karim (P2) will present first findings from research on how generative artificial intelligence can be used to increas the language-based and cultural participaton opportunities of specifically bilingual women in SOSU-educations.<br/>The contribution by Ifversen (P3) finally will present research on how to go beyond existing discourses on integration and make migrant students contributors and knowledge entrepreneurs in changing and improving conventional care practices.<br/>After the presentations, the audience will be invited into a workshop-activity to explore topics and potential implications across the three projects for both, further research and development of VET-practices in health and social care educations and beyond.<br/>Please note that this symposium should be timed in conjunction with the symposium-submission "From triangle transfer to collaborative transaction in VET" submitted by Møller and Rohwedder.<br/>Methods or methodology (max 100 words)<br/>The three projects in the symposium vary in their theoretical and methodological underpinnings:<br/>• P1 uses etnografic approach and linguistic analyses.<br/>• P2 analyses based on Engeströms Cultural Historical Activity Theory and notions of expansive learning (Engeström &amp; Sannino, 2010).<br/>• P3 bases its work on theories of transculturality and intercultural competence development (Baumann Montecinos et al., 2023) including participation in story circles on caring (Glissant, 1997)<br/>Howerver, all three projects are building on variations of collaborative and co-constructive research methodology, where students and teachers in SOSU are being considered as informed contributors and/or co-researchers, thus answering to the call for collaborative research in VET.<br/>