Interculturalism, ethnicity, and multilingualism in upper secondary school: an analysis of social pedagogical identities during pedagogical work with newly arrived students in Sweden

ABSTRACT The aim of the present study is to attain new knowledge about interculturalism, ethnicity, and multilingualism in the upper secondary school context in conjunction with pedagogical work with students who are newly arrived in the country. The empirical material for the study was collected in the upper secondary context in Sweden and consists of documents, field notes, and qualitative interview. Analysis shows that a distance relationship is created and recreated in the interactive flow between the newly arrived students and the teachers' institution when ethnic social pedagogical monitoring and control are represented in writing by the institution (the upper secondary school) and verbally in the observed and recounted situations. Social pedagogical identities are produced and reproduced in the interactive dynamic, in which the newly arrived student is represented as a successful student, developing in the social pedagogical meaning. However, the newly arrived student also is represented as a humiliated, weary, excluded student who, through demonstration of moral dissolution, displays an ethnified victim student identity that is in opposition to the teachers and institution. This represented humiliation, weariness, and exclusion of the newly arrived student constructs and reconstructs the image of a disadvantaged student. The effect is likely a negative impact on the aims of the upper secondary school to include and integrate newly arrived students into the school community and society at large.