Abstract
Recent studies have found that having a foreign-sounding name leads to discrimination in many aspects of Scandinavian society. For example, in Denmark (Olsen et al., 2022) and Sweden (Adman & Jansson, 2017; Larsson Taghizadeh, 2023) parents with Arabic names experienced greater bureaucratic burdens and more hostile responses than parents with Scandinavian names when accessing schools.
In Norway, people with foreign-sounding names were less likely to receive callbacks from landlords and employers. Despite the importance and relevance of this type of study concerning access to education in the increasingly diverse state of Norway, no such study has been conducted in the country.
This thesis aimed to examine the extent of implicit bias in Norwegian educational spaces against foreign names and the demographic factors that influence it by conducting an Implicit Association Test (IAT) on 45 Norwegian educators. The findings are that there is implicit bias within the Norwegian educational context that is more positive toward Norwegians names than foreign-sounding names, which might be influenced by demographic factors
Bio
Pak Man Au is a sociolinguist who recently completed his master's degree in multilingualism from UiO. His research focuses on language attitudes and raciolinguistics. He is seeking advice on publishing his master's thesis.