Testing the culturally deviant of the welfare state: Greenlandic children and the children of labour migrants in danish minority education, 1960-1970

The following chapter looks into the testing and assessment of a particular group of children and families; those considered cultural outsiders by the Danish Welfare State in general, but interestingly also by the Danish national public school system (Folkeskolen). Two cases with a distinct historical value is combined methodologically, emphasizing the heyday of the Nordic Welfare State model of the 1960’s and 1970’s. This marks a time when assessment and testing in education targeted pupils marginalized within the Welfare State. The testing of Greenlandic school children represents our first case, considering that while Greenland today is a self-governed country within the Danish Commonwealth, it used to be a Danish colony and later became a Danish county until self-government was introduce. Due to the change in distinction of Greenland from a colony to a county between 1953 and 1979, a distinct modernization and an elaborate Danification project were conducted between the 1950’s and the 1970’s. These rapid changes particularly took place within the educational arena. As the second case, we investigate the children of the labour migrants arriving in the 1960’s. Settling in mainly the metropolitan areas of Denmark, these children have since the early 1970’s garnered attention from municipal school authorities. Migrants originating in particularly Turkey, Pakistan and Yugoslavia have especially been the subject of national attention.