The Inclusion-Exclusion Nexus in Research on Swedish Minority

INTEGRATION AND SFI EDUCATIONS

With regards to the inclusion of migrants choosing Swedish as a national yet minority language in Finland, this is an under-researched field and studies examining SFI educations are fewer still. Part of this may be due to the fact that SFI programs are still relatively small with some just recently established (e.g. Arbis SFI in 2012). Important contributions have been made, however, by Creutz and Helander’s (2012) study of migrants’

Swedish language integration in the capital region of Helsingfors. It documents a widespread interest in Swedish language integration among newcomers to Finland but also exposes structural problems such as service gaps and the dismissive or uncooperative attitudes of Finnish civil servants and authorities.

While the former study gave voice to migrants who had chosen to integrate in Swedish, Mika Helander’s (2015) follow-up study represents an overview of organizations and authorities’ experiences with Swedish-language integration, as well as the administrational arrangements designed to facilitate it. Among the myriad of structural problems acting as obfuscating factors to inclusion in Swedish, outlined in the research, were economic justifications (lacking funds for integration programs in Swedish), paternalistic attitudes (citing the lack of employment possibilities in Swedish despite the absence of such statistics), lack of information on the availability of SFI programs, and the posited “lack of migrant interest”

in such alternatives for inclusion. However, one factor stands out above all others. It concerns the arbitrary nature of decision making and misuse of power of individual civil servants. Nearly all migrant respondents report discrimination by authorities including negative attitudes and extended waiting times for service, as well as the fact that integration in the Swedish

language was not being recognized in decisions affecting studies and benefits by the National Employment Service (AN-byrån).

Such discrimination underpinning the illiberal treatment of migrants is also borne out in other studies (see Creutz & Helander 2012 & Teikari 2015). Helander (2015, p.72) argues that this conscious social exclusion runs contrary to the Finnish Integration Act and posits that the reason why integration in Swedish in the region of Nyland, where Arbis SFI is situated, is so underproportioned is that “the Finnish-dominated capital area (…) emphasizes a national monoculture and underappreciates cultural and regional diversity.”¹⁴ However, there are also studies of thriving migrant inclusion in Swedish, such as Mattila and Björklund’s (2013) research within the municipality of Närpes in Ostrobothnia which found that Swedish language integration has succeeded well due to functioning social networks, communal participation and the presence of a supportive infrastructure including housing, schools, and job guarantees.

Although, the Inclusion-Exclusion Nexus with reference to SFI educations in Finland is an under-researched field, in Sweden several groundbreaking studies have illuminated this topic. For example, Marie Carlson’s (2002) study of SFI educations in Gothenburg used interpretative frameworks of social-constructivism and discourse analysis in order to explore knowledge production and learning within SFI as well as the programs’ impacts upon participants. It reveals an educational norm both articulated and implied where “the Swedish,” reified in language use and other majority stereotypes, is juxtaposed against a “deficiency discourse”

that positions migrant learners by “what they lack” with accompanying paternalistic measures obliging their compliance. This discursive exclusion exposes a paradox where the tropes of “student participation,” and

“[personal] responsibility” lauded in educational and curricular documents conversely translate into real life practices that extend limited influence and educational ownership to migrant learners. In addition, the study finds that this deficiency discourse constitutes “the tie that binds” in SFI’s dealings with stakeholder institutions such as employment services and social welfare offices, despite ideological differences in other matters. However,

14 Original quote: ”den finskdominerade huvudstadsregionen (…) betonar en nationell enhetskultur och underskattar kulturell och regional diversitet”

Carlson also identifies practices of reflexive resistance to dominant discourses on the part of migrant students which could be seen as the unintended integration outcomes of the education programs.

Another relevant contribution is made by Karin Sandwall’s (2013) study examining SFI students’ opportunities for interaction and language learning at work placements. It finds that despite the inclusive potential of practical internships within working life, students’ rudimentary and solitary workplace tasks combined with inadequate tutoring regimes contributed to migrants limited social and linguistic interaction. In addition, the lack of reciprocally integrated learning between school and work resulted in these two worlds being perceived as separate entities with few points of connection. It was therefore not possible to claim that practical work experience components within SFI implicitly resulted in more expeditious language acquisition or economic self-sufficiency. The study further concludes that the increased administrative burden of arranging internships coupled with staff inexperience in practice tutoring meant that the individually tailored learning approaches advocated in curricular guidelines had to be sacrificed on the altar of economic and temporal priorities. It also critiques grammar textbook-based curricula in which work-life skills and vocabulary are reduced to short, general themes like “the labour market”

or “writing CVs.” Moreover, the issue of staff structural disempowerment in affecting tendering processes and educational policy is raised, specifically those policies narrowly focusing on employment and “efficiency objectives.”