Critical Pedagogy of Multicultural Incorporation

Abstract This article brings cultural sociology, civil sphere theory, and critical theory into dialogue to examine the empirical-cum-political stakes of education in multicultural societies. Using a mixed-methods approach, it analyzes school cultures in Finland, Scotland, and Sweden, focusing on how the symbolic and interactional life of schools extends beyond academic performance. Schools are understood as moral environments where ideals of solidarity and coexistence, and thus processes of inclusion, are both cultivated and contested, revealing the potential and fragility of a lived civil sphere. The article introduces the concept of critical pedagogy of multicultural incorporation (CPMI), which includes interactional rituals of recognition, awareness of structural barriers, decolonizing practices, and meaningful representation. Magnolia School in Sweden serves as a key case, showing how a “thick” school culture grounded in CPMI supports prosocial outcomes for students with immigrant backgrounds in a society where non-whiteness, non-Western origins, and Muslim identity are increasingly stigmatized. In contrast, other schools in the study demonstrate thinner or more rhetorical approaches to diversity. The results show how young people across Europe encounter school cultures that vary in relation to their mode of incorporation, and are thus equipped with different tools for learning about collective life and how to imagine solidarity.