The Reality of the Danish Fairytale | Hacker News Reader

The Reality of the Danish Fairytale

world.hey.com

13 pointsmiki1232115 comments

> Every in-demand field of study is guarded by the all-important grade-point average from High School. If yours is too low, well, sorry, you’re just not going to study psychology or become a midwife. It doesn’t matter whether you came from an underprivileged background, did a million extracurriculars, or hail from an ethnic minority. You either make the grade for your first choice or you pick something else to study.

This is not Denmark specifically, it’s just Europe, and it’s not even true.

In Denmark there’s something called Quota 2, which is an admission track that is not based on the average, but on extra-curriculars, volunteering, work experience, …

Ofc it’s easier if you have the average and a lot depends on what subjects you choose to graduate from, but not all is lost even if you chose the wrong subjects. If you need let’s say extra physics classes, a lot of universities/schools offer pre-university courses which can teach you the subject in the summer and you can apply for your dream programme the same year.

A lot of people actually start university and then later find out it’s not what they like and switch to another programme or (trade) school after a year. Generally, in Denmark, you can study what you want, unless you’re really ill-equipped for some reason (but then you probably have bigger issues to resolve first).

That being said, I don’t know about any way how you can get into a university programme based on being a member of an ethnic minority.

I feel this inability to blend in is a thing in most of Europe. A non-white person will always be perceived as an other by a significant portion of the society. I've had two friends in Germany, born and raised here, one with an African parent and the other with an Asian parent. They told me it's an everyday occurrence that people will immediately switch to English with them and won't be convinced even after they reply in native German. There's a joke here that if you are born to Western immigrants then you are called bilingual, otherwise you have a migration background.

Other than that, my parents (arguably living in a small town in Poland) always need to comment on a person's race when they see someone non-white representing an European country in a competition they watch on the television. I imagine many Germans hold that sentiment too, it's just that it's less socially acceptable to say that out loud.

In Denmark the situation is a tad different. A lot of immigrants of Middle Eastern descent have rather poor English and their Danish is much better (they need to be somewhat fluent in Danish in order to stay). Their kids’ English is however on par with “native” Dane’s kids.

The inability to blend in, IMO, is primarily language based. I have a better hold of Danish than most of my international friends and I have also felt more welcome in Denmark than them. Folks that have been in Denmark for 5 years longer, are even more homey in Denmark IME (regardless of skin colour, mind you).

This is obviously anecdotal evidence, I am sure there are some older folks that aren’t as accepting (my friends are generally young, as I am). But still, a lot of them can be open minded. I am reminded of this story a friend of mine has told me. She ran an org helping immigrants in Denmark and one of the activities she organised was connecting immigrants willing to learn the language with older folks in care homes who longed to speak to more people. An older resident lady has told her once that while she is not keen on those immigrants from Middle East, Muhammad is a very nice person whom she enjoyed spending time with. So much about accepting other cultures and people is about exposure (probably why cities are more liberal than countryside)

I think English knowledge is a generational thing, irrelevant of background. People who migrated earlier had to learn the local language, because English knowledge was not prevalent back then. Their kids are just like all the others, and speak English because it's a must in a globalized world.

I think that a major issue for people who are not fluent in the local language is that it's always an effort for the group to switch to a foreign language. People's English skills differ, and some of them might have it harder to articulate themselves. I personally think that the burden is on you to learn the language and not on them to learn English - as a guest, you should honor the house rules, just like you are expected to respect local laws and customs. If you plan to stay, learning to speak the language is a must. I've seen many fellow expats try to skip this hurdle though, taking classes to reach some minimum required level (here it's B1 if you want to attain a German citizenship) and then going back to expecting everyone to accommodate for them. Some people I know have been living here for close to a decade and they still struggle to order food.

Clear strawman: Which "liberals" want the Scandinavian model besides those who live in ethnically homogeneous areas of the US? Nobody believed that Scandinavian Shangri-la stuff, you just need listen to how they describe it.

I mean, there was a time when people from the place we call Scandinavia got into boats and did a fair bit of emigrating, to the great consternation of native populations at the time. What goes around comes around, I guess.

Also, seems to me the writer is conflating a certain political agenda in this piece, somewhat distastefully. These people never have enough buckets to sort humanity, so they just lump stuff together. "Liberalism" is a thing defined by words, and the more words used, the less consensus is possible.

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