Villkorad skolvardag: En etnografisk studie om social och pedagogisk integration på ett kulturellt blandat högstadium

Abstrakt

Abstract in English

This dissertation examines how conditions for social and pedagogical integration are shaped in everyday practices at a culturally diverse lower secondary school in Sweden. It draws on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork at Rosenlund School in a rural Swedish municipality, where students with Swedish and foreign backgrounds share an institutional and spatial setting. Although such environments offer opportunities for integration, physical integration does not guarantee social or pedagogical integration. Using a practice perspective inspired by communities of practice, complemented by a relational perspective on space and concepts of symbolic and social boundaries, the study analyses how participation and belonging are shaped, and how boundaries emerge and operate across practices. The fieldwork involved following one Grade 9 class across classrooms and corridors. The material comprises field notes and interviews with students, teachers and the principal. The findings show that conditions for social and pedagogical integration are shaped through how participation is enabled, constrained and recognised, how belonging is established or remains conditional, and how boundaries emerge and operate within and between practices. The interplay of situated action and organisational, material and symbolic arrangements, including rules, schedules, seating plans, assessment practices and categories, makes some forms of participation more recognisable and legitimate than others. In classroom practices, Swedish language use, silence, independent work, shared requirements and expectations of responsibility establish narrow norms of participation. Students who navigate instructions, work independently and demonstrate knowledge in Swedish have a shorter path to recognition, while others rely on translation, support and adaptation. In social practices, recognition is organised through shared language, gender, ethnic positioning, previous relations, humour, status, school engagement and social codes. Boundaries are rarely produced through explicit exclusion alone, but through recurring differences in recognition, proximity and access to legitimate positions. The dissertation offers a practice-based understanding of integration: social and pedagogical integration are interconnected yet may diverge. It shows practices can appear shared and non-exclusionary yet make paths to recognised participation and belonging longer for some, as linguistic, social, embodied and material resources are valued differently across practices.