Immigrant Incorporation, Education, and the Boundaries of Belonging

Abstract

This chapter starts with a discussion of how education policy reforms have opened up a “self-segregating window”, which poses a threat to the expected outcome of Swedish schooling: namely, to provide for a democratic and “universal” we-ness. It continues with an analysis of how symbolic boundaries of belonging are associated with Swedishness, which defines and upholds a school hierarchy (“foreign schools”, “multicultural schools”, and “Swedish schools”). Finally, it is argued that the immigrant school actors in this volume have all seen, experienced, reflected upon, and interpreted the structuring forces of we-ness in different communities. The deeper meanings of this reflect a hope-for the immigrant school actors’ incorporation into not just a specific school culture but into the Swedish civil sphere in general.