Exploring impartiality under intersectional conditions: experiences from professional education in Denmark

Social Education and Public Administration programs. Drawing on in-depth interviews with four educators, the study explores how impartiality is negotiated in response to diverse student backgrounds and institutional expectations. Using intersectionality as an analytical framework, the research examines how overlapping social inequalities and professional norms shape pedagogical decisions. Rather than treating impartiality as a fixed principle, the study highlights its relational and context-dependent nature. The interviewed educators describe navigating tensions between normative ideals and the lived realities of the classroom, revealing how impartiality is continuously formed through everyday teaching practices. The findings challenge conventional assumptions and suggest that attention to intersectional conditions offers deeper insight into how impartiality is practiced and understood in professional education.