As a legacy of history, a relatively large number of children in Estonian schools speak a home language other than Estonian and the arrival of newly arrived immigrants has further increased their share. In 2012, there were 434 children aged 0–14 who were new immigrants in Estonia; by 2021, that number had risen to 1,601. The figure rose sharply in 2022 after Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine, which brought more than 7,200 war refugee children into Estonia's preschools and primary schools.

Across the European Union, many immigrant children have been found to perform worse academically and their cultural representation is often missing from school curricula. At Tallinn University, Maiki Vanahans defended her doctoral dissertation on how teachers and school leaders view the teaching of newly arrived immigrant students.

Vanahans herself is a preschool director and has worked as a teacher, giving her personal experience with the issue. Her dissertation focused on preschool and primary school, since these levels lay the foundation for later learning. "That's why it is crucial to start research from the very beginning," she said.

She examined the work of preschool and primary school teachers in multicultural classrooms, looking at their preparedness, skills, knowledge and attitudes in teaching new immigrant children. She also studied how much support teachers receive at the school or preschool level, what kind of assistance they need and what challenges may arise when teaching in a multicultural group or classroom.

Fear and resistance

Based on the findings, Vanahans concluded that teachers' readiness to teach children from multicultural backgrounds could be better. "Anything unfamiliar or unknown creates fear and resistance," she said. This came through in interviews with both teachers and school leaders.

For teachers who had never worked with students from different linguistic or cultural backgrounds, the greatest fear was whether they were sufficiently qualified. "Questions arose about how to teach if there is no shared language. The fear was more about their own skills and whether those were adequate. Teachers also worried about whether they could provide enough help or support to the child," Vanahans explained.

Teachers identified the language barrier as the most significant challenge. "They lack sufficient skills to teach a child without a shared language. Even if the child learns Estonian fairly quickly, the family may not pick up the language as fast, yet the teacher is still required to conduct development conversations. This raises the question of how to support the family more broadly if they don't speak the same language," Vanahans said. She added that the situation has improved somewhat thanks to modern technological tools that allow for quick translation.

Another challenge arises when new immigrant students enter unexpectedly, for example, in the middle of the school year. "They often came midyear, and just as suddenly, they could leave. This caused frustration among teachers. When a teacher put in effort, saw progress and then one day the student was suddenly gone, it was disappointing. So there is a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability when it comes to new immigrants," she noted.

According to Vanahans, attitudes are the foundation of teaching non-Estonian children. "Attitudes shape both our knowledge and skills and openness and respect for other cultures play a central role. People often tend to use their own cultural framework as the standard, but we can't do that. Instead, we need to be open and positive — asking ourselves if there is something I can learn from this. It is also important to listen to understand, not to start preparing answers in your head while the other person is speaking, not to judge and not to say that something is wrong," the doctoral author said.

Leadership role

When newly arrived immigrants enter a school or preschool, leadership also plays a crucial role. According to Vanahans, a leader's responsibility is to create a school culture where diversity is valued. "I would expand that idea. It's not only important in the context of new immigrants, but in general, since we are all different," she said.

If a teacher feels fearful, Vanahans said it is the school leader's job to listen and offer support. If a teacher resists having a new immigrant child in their class or group, the leader should seek to understand the root of that resistance. "By understanding where those fears come from, a leader can help ease them and provide the necessary support," Vanahans explained.

She noted it was encouraging to hear leaders describe how they encourage collaboration among teachers, even incorporating it into teachers' workload by scheduling time for cooperation. Such collaboration can include exchanging experiences or forming learning circles for teachers.

"It's not the case that teachers deliver their full load of lessons and then have to collaborate on top of that. School leaders actually have considerable autonomy and flexibility in how they organize work, and such approaches create an atmosphere that benefits both students and teachers," she said.

Cultural blindness

While compiling her dissertation, Vanahans said she was most surprised by teachers' "colorblind" attitudes, which have not been widely recognized in Estonia until now. Teachers often do not take into account the background factors of minority students and instead teach them in a so-called culture-blind manner, following the principle of "I don't see color, I see the child."

This means teachers neither distinguish children by nationality or culture nor consider these aspects when preparing lessons and activities. In a multicultural setting, however, a one-size-fits-all approach does not support all children equally, as it favors the dominant cultural and linguistic group while sidelining those from different backgrounds.

"With colorblind attitudes, we can actually reinforce stereotypes. If we only talk about what we have in common but ignore differences, we end up centering the majority, while the distinct characteristics of minority students go unnoticed. That, in turn, can make them feel unimportant — especially children," she said.

A colorblind approach may also serve as a coping mechanism for teachers dealing with fear and uncertainty. The study showed that teachers worried about making mistakes or offending members of different ethnic groups, leading them to stress that a child is simply a child, while race, culture and ethnicity should not matter in education. As a result, teachers may set lower expectations for these students, reducing their opportunities and learning potential.

Based on her findings, Vanahans recommends that teacher training should also focus on helping future teachers analyze themselves and recognize their own attitudes. "Awareness in this sense means understanding what my own attitudes are, because teachers with a colorblind mindset don't mean any harm. But if this goes unacknowledged, it's not a good thing," she said.

Discussions of culturally responsive teaching began in Estonia in the late 1990s. For example, the VERA report in 1998 addressed the issue and the RITA-RÄNNE study published in 2018 also touched on it.

"What I see in my work, though, is that all of this hasn't reached practitioners — the people actually working in schools and preschools. Estonia commissions all kinds of studies at the national level, but it seems they just sit there without leading anywhere, because new topics keep taking over. Several reports have also pointed this out: we lack a systemic approach at the state level," Vanahans said.

In the end, she stressed, what matters most is that teachers and school leaders show courage and openness toward multiculturalism. "Even if at first it may seem frightening and unfamiliar, in reality it's also a good opportunity for an organization to grow," she said.

Vanahans added that this issue is not limited to newly arrived immigrants. Every child is different, even those who speak Estonian and come from local cultural backgrounds. "Home cultures can vary greatly and that affects learning just as much. So it's worth considering all learners, to make sure everyone feels comfortable at school," she said.

Maiki Vanahans, a doctoral candidate at Tallinn University's School of Educational Sciences, defended her dissertation, "Intercultural Competence for Teaching Newly Arrived Migrant Students from the Perspective of Preschool and Primary School Teachers and Leaders," on September 3.

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