How Teachers Balance Language Proficiency and Pedagogical Ideals at Universities in Indigenous and Postcolonial Societies: The Case of the University of Greenland

Based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this article explores pedagogical ideals and educational policies in teachers’ everyday practice in a postcolonial bilingual university setting in Greenland. Greenlandic and Danish teachers’ teaching ideals were explored during a one-year pedagogy qualifying course for assistant professors organised by the (Danish) authors in cooperation with University of Greenland. The overall pedagogical agenda placed an emphasis on student activity. Both Greenlandic and Danish teachers’ representations of their practice accounted for the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of their indigenous students, but they did so in different ways. Whereas Greenlandic teachers tended to emphasise formal correctness in the use of Greenlandic language and student understanding and translation of the learning objectives, Danish teachers tended to lower their own perceived academic norms and graded certain students more leniently in order to compensate for both their dominant role as teacher and for postcolonial dominance.