‘Where Should the Orthodox Christian Go?’ Distinctions Based on Religion and Language in a Finnish International School

While international schools aim to produce global citizens, national schools seek to create national citizens and integrate immigrants into the national whole. When these aims are combined within a municipal international school, the result is at times contradictory. This article considers the everyday experiences of 9-year-old children in a Finnish municipal international school. It investigates how a school that aims to be both international and national creates distinctions between pupils and how such distinctions affect pupils’ everyday practices. Two distinctive processes are analysed: how compulsory religion lessons and Christian events create distinctions between pupils, and how children’s Finnish skills affect both their interactions and the practices within the school. The article presents the argument that children also use these distinction mechanisms in their everyday lives and that even though the school is an international one, the Finnish-speaking Christian child is still considered the norm, and the international child – the foreigner – the ‘other.’ Finnish international schools can be seen as a magnifying glass with which to illuminate processes taking place in ‘regular’ Finnish schools, since the international school context intensifies these. The article is based on extensive ethnographic research at a municipal international school in a Finnish town.