The scoping review aims at mapping, exploring and discussing what do we know and how do we know about the nexus of the referral process and unjustified disproportionality of migrant children in special education provisions. Deploying inclusion criteria on initially identified 1786 qualitative records, elicited 12 relevant studies. The most salient explanations are constructed as a conflation of: (a) language, culture and poor educational background as barriers, reflecting migrant families' collective features; (b) timing of initiating the referral process, deficit-view, the lack of cooperation and the lack of competence among the professionals, reflecting enactment features. A call for professional development, more collaboration and recognition and use of first-language as an asset are among the most purported suggestions and recommendations to improve the referral process and diminish unjustified disproportionality. The main conclusion is: In the referral process, migrant children are from the outset facing not just an ambiguous programme for determining a high-incident disability, poorly trained professionals, the absence of safeguards and clear accountability policy, but also a pre-constructed meaning of themselves and their families as socially marginalised, culturally and linguistically different, holding few assets.

The study aims at identifying and critically interrogating the structure and performativity of policy discourses conditioning the referral process preceding enrollment of students with migration background in accommodated compulsory schools for children with intellectual disability (ACS) in Sweden. 620 policy texts have been reviewed after an initial search, with four texts included. Two main identified discourses are difference and homogenization of experiences, and deficiency. The underlying discursive practice generating and reflecting discourses is the “culturalization” of the referral process, enabled by: the gap between policy as text and policy as practice; location of the root of the gap and concomitant tensions in the value-laden social constructions of parents and children as a culturally different and homogenous group; a call for social (policy) action urging professionals to devise their strategies based on those very value-laden constructions of “culturalized” difference. One major conclusion is that the construction of “culturalized” difference in discourses significantly conditions the referral process, diverting attention away from understanding the nature of learning disability to understanding migration background. I argue that overrepresentation of children with migration background in ACS is created in and through this unreflexive maneuver, ascertained by unequal power relations between policy actors.

L’étude vise à identifier et à interroger de manière critique la structure et la performativité des discours politiques qui conditionnent le processus d’orientation préalable à l’inscription des élèves issus de l’immigration dans des écoles séparées pour enfants présentant une déficience intellectuelle en Suède. 620 textes politiques ont été examinés après une recherche initiale, dont quatre ont été jugés pertinents et inclus dans l’étude. Les deux principaux discours identifiés sont celui de la différence et celui de l’homogénéisation des expériences, et la déficience. La pratique discursive sous-jacente qui génère et reflète les discours est la “culturalisation” du processus de référence, rendue possible par: l’écart entre la politique en tant que texte et la politique en tant que pratique; la localisation de la racine de l’écart et des tensions concomitantes dans les constructions sociales chargées de valeurs des parents et des enfants en tant que groupe culturellement différent et homogène; un appel à l’action sociale (politique) exhortant les professionnels à concevoir leurs stratégies sur la base de ces mêmes constructions chargées de valeurs de la différence “culturalisée.” L’une des principales conclusions est que la construction d’une différence “culturalisée” dans les discours conditionne significativement le processus d’orientation, détournant l’attention de la compréhension de la nature des troubles d’apprentissage vers la compréhension de l’ascendance migratoire. J’affirme que la surreprésentation des enfants issus de l’immigration dans les services d’aide à l’enfance est le résultat de cette manœuvre irréfléchie, confirmée par des relations de pouvoir inégales entre les acteurs politiques.

The extended basic education programme in Norway was initiated to promote integration, majority language acquisition and academic achievement of newly arrived migrant students (NAMSs) as a preparation for mainstream upper secondary education. Theoretically rooted in critical policy analysis and empirically based on semi-structured interviews with principals and programme leaders in three schools in Oslo, the study aims at exploring how these major policy actors understand and discursively construct their NAMSs and their own institutional space. Furthermore, we explore and analyse the impact of these constructions on the enactment of the EBEP policy. Prevalence of minoritized students in mainstream classes and in the programme constitutes a defining principle of discursive construction of the students as a different and challenging group, and schools as segregated. The programme itself is discursively constructed as incapacitated to ensure attainment of the policy goals. Thus, the students’ background, the schools’ social-cultural contexts and the programme’s steering policy are understood and discursively constructed as constraints that hinder rather than promote its goals. Taken combined, these discursive constructions are turned into a foundation for the policy enactment. In its practical consequences, the programme further exacerbates the very problems it was set to remedy.

This chapter addresses the educational and social needs and rights of students with diverse backgrounds - in respect to first language (other than Swedish), ethnicity, culture and migration-status - enrolled in the Swedish school system. Disability Critical Race Theory in Education (DisCrit) is the framework used to examine policies and practices regarding inclusion. The concepts of ableism and linguicism are used to interrogate how education responds to migratory effects and how this response impacts access to equitable education for these groups. The first part of this chapter will focus on disproportionality in relation to compulsory school for students with intellectual disability and migration background, focusing on previous research and patterns in enrollment over time. The second part of the chapter deals with different aspects of language in relation to special needs education in the Swedish school context. The chapter’s last part will provide a description of the organization and practice in a ‘resource school’ and the emergence of new local practices. The concluding discussion will lay the groundwork for the emerging research field at the intersection of migration and disability in education.

The aim of this article is to advance knowledge on how Swedish primary schools organise education and what strategies they deploy to ensure inclusion and attainment of newly arrived migrant students. The article is based on semi-structured interviews with 30 teachers and school administrators, and one-year of fieldwork undertaken in two multicultural urban primary schools in the Stockholm region. One of the schools initially places students in separate classes, while the other one places them directly into mainstream classes. Both are evoking inclusion and attainment as a reason for using their respective models. As such, do both ‘get it right’? Using inclusion as the theoretical and conceptual framework this article addresses the broader question: How is the meaning of inclusion constructed in the processes of its practical implementation in these two schools? The results show the ambitious tale of inclusion in both schools was, in the process of the construction of its meaning and implementation, reduced to some of its aspects. Teachers and school administrators are allowed to include or leave out of their model whatever they deem necessary, obsolete, expensive or unrealistic and still fitting under the umbrella of inclusion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not, and both schools ‘get it right’ and ‘wrong’ in some aspects.

Based on a thorough review of mainly recent Swedish literature, the aim of the chapter is to present and explore organizational models for reception, schooling of and provision of support measures to newly arrived migrant students (NAMSs) in Sweden. Inclusion is used in the article as a semi-theoretical concept, understood as a dynamic process, molded at the intersection between policy goals, organizational practices and discourses and the school actors’ individual willingness and ability to act in the best interests of their students. Two main organizational models for elementary schools (separate classes and direct immersion) and one for upper-secondary schools (Language Introduction Program) are presented and explored. An overall conclusion is that the organizational models deployed in elementary schools affect conditions for inclusion of NAMSs only to a certain degree. The Language Introduction Program does not facilitate inclusion by removing obstacles, focusing on individual needs and strengths and by providing shared physical spaces. As evident from research accounts, precisely the opposite seems to be taking place. Additionally, two major support measures are presented and explored: a) the initial assessment of students’ background and experiences of learning and schooling; b) multilingual classroom assistance. The overall conclusion is that high ambitions of both are being considerably distorted in the enactment process, undermining their capacity to promote social and pedagogical inclusion of NAMSs. Finally, the chapter calls for more attention to how ambitious support measures are negotiated in the process of their enactment and that a critical gaze ought to be redirected from only focusing models, without underestimating their impact, to individual circumstances and educational needs and strengths of every student.

The aim of this article is to describe and analyze how school leaders as key actors in policy enactment understand, talk about and act in relation to Newly Arrived Migrant Students (NAMSs) enrolled in a separate Language Introduction Program in Sweden. Drawing on the work of Stephen J. Ball and colleagues, we argue that a particular discursive formation of NAMSs, operating within constrains of various contextual factors, has a decisive impact on how policy as text is interpreted and enacted. Discursively formulating NAMSs as having multiple challenges, beyond Swedish language and insufficient grades, introduces various barriers. Policy flexibility in combination with power disparities thus allows school leaders, framed within legitimacy of ‘rational explanations’ and ‘affirmative intentions’, to negotiate policy meanings which are not always working in the students’ best interests. Our empirically grounded and theoretically informed discussions showcase why there can be no inclusive education if NAMSs, during a protracted period, are physically, pedagogically and socially separated from mainstream structures. Consequently, and with the support in international research, we call for the overhaul of organizational approaches that allocate Newly Arrived Migrant Students to separate educational forms.

Barn och ungdomar i stadens olikheter handlar om barn och unga från ett antal bostadsområden i Stockholmsregionen och villkoren för deras uppväxt, utbildning, fritid och hälsa. En viktig bok för blivande och verksamma lärare, rektorer och politiker i strukurellt missgynnade områden som arbetar för att barn och ungdomar ska få samma möjligheter och livschanser. 

This article examines the intersection between teacher agency and national language policy in Sweden. We present data from qualitative research across multiple urban Swedish school districts that explores the experiences and perspectives of multilingual classroom assistants (MCAs) on their work and in relation to national and district-level policies. We interrogate what it means to uphold translanguaging stances in otherwise monolingual Swedish classrooms. Data showcase the complexity with which MCAs articulate their roles as advocates for their students in translanguaging spaces, and in relation to school, district, and national policies. This inquiry also uncovers the need to position the experiences of MCAs more centrally in educational policy to support alternative visions for inclusion of newly arrived migrant students in school. It concludes with insights regarding the multifaceted nature of teacher advocacy and its relevance to future scholarship on the education of newly arrived migrant children.