This dissertation examines the social construction of diversity in Finnish education for adult migrants’ integration. The study focuses on the educators who work in basic education for adults, integration training and liberal adult education. It asks: 1) how the educators of adult migrants construct diversity emerging from their everyday interactions with their students, 2) how their position is reflected in their accounts of diversity, and 3) what means the concepts of intersectionality and superdiversity offer for the analysis. The interdisciplinary nature of the study is based on the study of religion, gender studies, and migration studies.

The research material consists of interviews. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the interviews were conducted on the Zoom Meetings online platform. In the spring of 2021, sixteen educators participated in thematic interviews that were supplemented with the prompt interview method: quotations from the core curricula of the education were presented, on which the educators were asked to reflect and comment. Two focus group discussions were organized as a follow-up in the spring of 2022. The focus group participants had all attended the individual interviews. The core curricula, together with other relevant authoritative documents, serve as the background material for analysis.

The theoretical framework of the study is an assembly of intersectionality, superdiversity, and affect theory. As intersectionality marks the meeting-point of social differences, such as gender, race, religion, and education, it forms the foundation for understanding diversity as a socially constructed concept and something that is connected to power relations. Superdiversity shifts the focus to the effects of international migration on contemporary societies, including the different types of migration, local services, and community responses. Affect theory steers attention towards emotional engagement, through which educators make their accounts of diversity.

The study exhibits that the educators’ constructions of diversity are often stereotypical categorizations of migrants as women/mothers, Muslims, and forced migrants. These accounts are grounded in a complex position in which educators navigate their personal values and commitments, structures of migrant integration, and encounters with their students. The structures of integration foster labor market-driven diversity that problematizes Muslim migrants and may even contribute to the racializing of migrants. Simultaneously, the structural framework of education does not adequately support educators when encountering matters affecting their students’ lives, such as racism or past traumas. These are not merely issues of knowledge and resources, but also emotional and personal engagement.

Based on the finding of the educators’ intricate position as civil servants, this study calls for attention to the structures and policies of migrant integration: the funding of labor market education reinforces the labor market logic of the education, while narrowing the understanding of diversity. Educational structures all around need to incorporate anti-racist and trauma-informative practices to better support both educators and students.