Othering and belonging in education: master and counter-narratives of education and ethnicity

Investigating the relation between master and counter-narratives and the concept of “othering”, there are interesting similarities and differences between those two, both in a theoretical and empirical sense. In this chapter, the importance of the relation will be explored through three minority students’ educational narratives of studying at an adult center in Denmark. Exploring their narratives of Danish as a second language subject, their narratives show ambivalence with both master and counter-narratives of the adult centers and the subject, as personal and social identities and affiliation with the adult centers are blurred by processes of “othering”. As the three students are in transitions in and between educational contexts at the adult centers, there seems to be different constraints afforded to them due to their immigrant backgrounds, as the master narratives of Danish as second language subject is linked to disadvantages and “othering”. How the relation between master and counter-narratives and “othering” become important – and are intertwined in several ways – is emphasized in the students’ narratives, as the narratives reveal links between the concepts, especially the power to connect processes of othering to master narratives and “belonging” to countering narratives.