The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze how recognition of prior learning acts as a dividing practice and a technique for inclusion/exclusion of immigrants in their vocations in Swedish working life. It is a qualitative study of three pilot programs in Swedish urban centers, and the data consist of interviews and documents pertaining to these programs. The theoretical starting point of the analysis is three Foucauldian concepts: order of discourse, dividing practice, and technology of power. The results show how recognition of prior learning acts as a dividing practice; in the process of recognition, the targeting of certain vocations for assessment, the degrading of competence in the process, and the differing opportunities vis-à-vis further training and the labor market are part of the process of inclusion/exclusion in/from the orders of the labor market. Technologies of power-surveillance, observation, and examination- are part of this process.
In this article we examine two different but interconnected problems, which weaken the struggle for and the idea of equal education in the Swedish comprehensive educational system. One of the problems is the increasing segrega-tion of the Swedish comprehensive school. This segregation is characterized socio, cultural and economic difference. In these areas the concentration of children with diverse ethnicity and low income background are high, while in other areas the opposite is true. In this article we focus on the former schools. These schools are characterized as low achieving schools, and schools that are in crisis. The second issue that is intimately connected to the low achieving school that we examine is the disposition and to some extent the composition of the teaching force. We argue that there is a disconnection between the two aspects, and ground the problem in teacher training. We argue that the current teacher education is not constructed to prepare teachers to meet the challeng-es in multiethnic schools located in socio-economic deprived areas. The article ends with a critical discussion of “low performing school” and the role of teacher education in preparing teachers for schools in segregated areas.
The focus of this paper is on how transnational relations of Somali-Swedes shapes their onward immigration to the United Kingdom and intervenes in their educational and labour market career. The data for the study was collected using ethnographic interview methods in multiple locations: Stockholm, London and Birmingham and analysed using the concept of imagination as a social practice. The results of this study show that onward immigration of Somali-Swedes has multiple agendas, and more importantly it is contingent on the political, cultural and economic structure of opportunities of category embedded in the transnational spaces.
This study examines the encounter of Somali parents with their children's teachers and how these relations "affect" their possibility of supporting their children's attaining a successful school experience. The study is inspired by and combines the insight and concept of social capital developed by Coleman and Bourdieu. The parents realize that they lack the knowledge and expertise to support their children in their educational endeavor and have neither the material nor ideational support to compensate individual limitations to support their children in the encounter with the Swedish school.