Understandings of racism in the Equality Plans of the Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences

The purpose of this study is to investigate how race and racism are understood in the policy documents called Equality Plans of the Finnish language-based Universities of Applied Sciences. The research questions are 1) what is said about racism and other related concepts in the Equality Plans, and 2) where and in relation to what are they acknowledged? Moreover, the study examines how whiteness and other values of Finnish society are reflected in the Equality Plans and what types of solutions higher educational institutions offer to racism. The analytical reading of the Equality Plans is informed by the theoretical framework that includes perspectives of critical whiteness, intersectional postcolonial feminism, Nordic exceptionalism to racism and colonialism, and feminist and education policy studies that discuss interpretations and practices of equality in educational institutions. The research material includes Equality Plans in eighteen Finnish language-based Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland. The analysis utilises the tools of the abductive content analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis in identifying the explicit and implicit meanings connected to race and racism. The results of the study indicate that the understanding of race in Finnish policy documents is vague, and the synonyms such as “ethnicity” are connected to ethnic and racialised minorities. The solutions for racism are abstract and appeal to the attitudes of the university community instead of challenging the structures that maintain and produce racism. According to this study, whiteness remains unrecognised and unquestioned in higher education institutions. Thus, resisting racism and promoting equality and justice requires a systematic and profound analysis of institutional whiteness in higher education structures and practices. The results align with the previous research on policy documents in Finnish education institutions, contributing to the discussion with Universities of Applied Sciences