The aim of this article is to write against normative discourses and interpretations of ‘integration’ by nominating social workers and social work as the main subject of ‘integration’ and find ways to overcome exclusionary and discriminating social work practices. To do that, we use material collected when observing public service interpreters giving lectures to social workers about their experiences from encounters in social work settings. In a critical analysis, we found two ‘integration’ problems, that is, certain problems that social workers have in making themselves accessi-ble and where they risk reinforcing exclusion and discrimination. One problem is ‘the failure of handling perceptions that social services take children’. The other is ‘the failures of (re)producing bureaucratically driven social assistance’. These problems might lead to exclusionary practices towards migrant families, often with disastrous outcomes. The analysis shows that these problems appear due to social workers’ lack of institu-tional self-awareness, language competencies, and emphatic ability. To overcome these shortcomings, the interpreters emphasized the impact of encounters that social workers were already involved in during their everyday work. The interpreters recognize that social services are unknown to most families who are newly arrived in Sweden and point out the importance of making more efforts to be clear, rephrasing ques-tions, explaining, avoiding abbreviations, and becoming proactive in dialogue outside of the offices, i.e. recognizing that social work is language work.

Presentationen bygger på några preliminära forskningsresultat från en pågående (2022-2024) forskningsstudie som är finansierat av Forte. På familjecentraler bedrivs förebyggande socialt arbete riktat mot föräldrar med små barn. En typ av riktat socialt arbete som blivit vanligare och där familjecentralerna efterfrågar mer kunskap, handlar om familjer som har särskilda problem som kan kopplas till migration. Som en följd av migrationen och senare års förändrade asylregler lever många familjer i så kallad temporalitet, en ny typ av levnadsvillkor till följd av väntan på viktiga beslut som rör familjens liv och livsvillkor, som väntan på var man ska bosätta sig, - på den andre föräldern eller- på hur länge man får stanna i Sverige. Studien syftar till att identifiera och analysera hur det förebyggande föräldraskapsstödjande arbetet utformas och anpassas till behoven hos föräldrarna och hur föräldrarna använder sig av och värderar de insatser som erbjuds. Vi kommer att presentera en delstudie från projektet som bygger på mixad metod, där vi har analyserat omfattningen av utmaningar som familjerna tycks ha, samt vilken typ av (osynligt) arbete som utformas för att försöka möta familjernas behov.

Integrationssatsningar riktade till nyanlända har kritiserats för att sakna likvärdighet och ha svag kunskapsbas. Krav har ställts på åtgärder för att höja kvaliteten på satsningarna. Den här artikeln handlar om det interprofessionella arbetet för att ta fram ett standardiserat, nationellt informationsmaterial för att förbättra samhällsorientering för nyanlända. I studien som genomförts följdes processen när olika yrkesgrupper tillsammans arbetade med att ta fram materialet om det svenska samhället. Analysen visar hur arbetet präglades av att de olika grupperna orienterade sig mot olika delmål: att skapa det vetenskapligt korrekt, det pedagogiskt förenklade, det politiskt neutrala eller det relevanta för de nyanlända.

Today people migrate and leave societies that cannot secure human life and safety, where one's worth as a human is being violated. People are fleeing not only from, but also to places. When arriving to a new society it needs to be described, to make it possible to meet it and act in it. In dialogue and interaction with groups, society therefor must find and describe models for inclusion. In Sweden, as residence permits are obtained, so called ‘integration workers’ are engaged in Civic Orientation, to support the process by means of which individuals are to become knowledgeable enough to exert their agency as citizens (knowing your rights and obligations).

The overall object is to create linkages between the state and the ‘newly arrived immigrants’. Civic orientation is a course for 60 h, regulated by Swedish law and EU has given directions that every member state is supposed to have some form of civic education, but every country is responsible for organizing and develop their own content. Often, in Sweden, the integration workers themselves have immigrated to Sweden and the course is given in the mother tongue of the immigrants.

This study is a workplace study with interest in professional knowledge to create stable and flexible knowledge in the work, understood as how the workers construct relevance for their doings in interaction. In this study the specific interest is to understand the construction of newcomers' information needs, the problem being worked with. The need of information is understood as not given or static, but as a (re)produced in regular social practices (Edwards, 2005), and both integrationworkers and newcomers mutually orient to a set of ideas when constructing needs. The analytical interest is also to outline how some views is made more significant or more authoritative with respect to the matter at hand (Heritage and Raymond, 2005).

In reasoning about needs, the access to countries, as epistemic domains is often used to make claims about what kind of information that is needed. In other words, the country that the immigrants comes from is often arranged to be the source of knowledge. The data material was generated through video recordings and interviews over a period of 1.5 years, from backstage (workmeetings) and frontstage work (with ‘newly arrived immigrants’). I identify two patterns that are analytically distinctive when looking at how the problem- presentation in civic orientation is negotiated. Either is it the knowledge about the Swedish society that is the matter at hand, or is it to educate those who have not yet come to a certain ´understanding´. This are two very different worktasks, but they seems to be connected in the practice.

Integration support is a rather new professional field, and it is common for paraprofessionals (PPs) with personal migration experiences as their main qualification to perform the work without having a job description, education or ethical principles to follow. In previous research, migration experiences have been contested as a professional competence and criticism has been raised about a lack of professionalism. Organisational professionalisation directed from above – such as education, guidelines and standardisation – has been requested. This study raises questions about occupational professionalisation from within, from the working group itself. Based on workplace learning theory, the study explores how a working group of 30 PP integration workers in Civic Orientation are enhancing occupational capacities jointly. They identified a lack of client responsiveness as a problem and developed an explanatory model where their own biographical experience of migration (themselves as former migrants or their family members and recollections of their former ‘home country’) play a crucial role. Thus, the results indicate that one’s own migration experience can be a part of and a motivator for occupational professionalism of PPs if it is allowed to be collectively reflected on, critically scrutinised and contextualised.  

Societal efforts to support the integration of newly arrived immigrants have been repeatedly highlighted in the political debate in Sweden and they are described as inadequate and ineffective. Demands have been made for improvements and one of the designated efforts is Civic Orientation (CO). The Civic Orientation programme is a course about Swedish society, targeting newly arrived refugees and their relatives who have received a residence permit. It provides basic information about Swedish society to aid and expedite integration (SFS 2010:1138). The criticism has led to the production of written, national instructions containing correct information that should be provided by the civil servants in CO. The aim is that quality should be high and equal across the country. The overall aim of the dissertation is to deepen the understanding and knowledge of the work-process to develop standard guidelines, that will be used in a welfare sector, where it is difficult to establish definitive knowledge. The dissertation's purpose is also to deepen the understanding and knowledge of instruction work as a collaborative activity. The term 'instruction work' covers both work that experts and managers undertake when they develop written guidelines, and work done when implementing these guidelines in local practice. The thesis is rooted in activity theory where work is viewed as a collaborative activity aimed at taking on a task, event or object, such as interpreting, paying attention, participating, thinking, and performing. The study involves five different categories of actors: a representative from the county administrative board, experts from various authorities and universities, coordinators and the head of a unit from a management group in a municipality, and integration workers, who are the local civil servants. The study is based on a field study where video recorded observations of meetings, lectures and workshops have been conducted. Semi structured interviews and written communication have also been used. The result shows that there are different perceptions of what work needs to be done to ensure that the instructions are correct. A variety of, sometimes contradictory, tasks developed: to make the information scientifically correct with multiple perspectives on social phenomena, to make educational simplification, to provide an ideal image of Sweden according to policy, or to describe Swedish society as irrational with hinders and obstacles (papers 1- 3). Another major task was to make the instructions politically neutral which meant producing information that was not offensive for external readers such as politicians and the general public (paper 1). When guideline models have been used for other welfare activities, the work is usually based on analysis of the needs of the target groups. That task took on an obscured role and was first noticed as important by the civil servants in the latter part when the material was used during implementation (papers 1, 3). A further result concerns the work of developing standard guidelines. The study shows that there is formal instruction work (paper 1) which is the planned work, most often done by experts and/or researchers, and informal instruction work (paper 2) often hidden and performed by civil servants in the implementation phase. This informal work is about transforming the instructions to be useful for the individual in the local situation. But the study also shows a third type of work - semi-formal instruction work (paper 3) that is also carried out by the local civil servants, where they, with their biographical and informal instruction work experience, try hard to influence formal instruction work. One conclusion is that it is more fruitful and accurate to perceive standardized instructions as dynamic and integrated in the practical work, than to see them as fixed by an externally controlled process. Developing standards to be used to improve practice is an ongoing fluid process that never ends, and that involves tensions and conflicts that need to be addressed.