Insufficient Social Orientation For New Arrivals

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- The officials who produce national presentation materials for social orientation feel that they are scrutinised by politicians, journalists and the public,” says author of the thesis Linnéa Åberg. A large part of their work involves providing a description of Sweden that external actors will be satisfied with, rather than focusing on the needs of new arrivals.

Social orientation is an educational initiative that aims to provide new arrivals with information about Sweden in order to help them become established in work and social life.

Linnéa Åberg has studied how the so-called instructional model is used in social orientation in relation to other activities. By following the various steps of the model, the performance of a particular intervention can be quality assured from a scientific perspective.

The results show that healthcare, social work and schools, for example, have made good progress in developing methods to ensure that various initiatives are delivered in the best way in accordance with the instructional model, but that this is not the case when producing national teaching materials for civic orientation.

Expanded assignment for Swedish values
The Swedish Government has decided to expand social orientation, and has tasked the county administrative boards with producing more comprehensive information on Swedish values for inclusion in the programme. According to the instruction model, an initial step is to find out about the individual’s need for initiatives, but new arrivals’ need for this type of information has not been assessed.

- In order for social orientation to be meaningful and of high quality, authorities and organisations need to be able to assess the need for initiatives based on current research, and to follow up on the effects and usability, Linnéa Åberg adds.

In order for social orientation to be meaningful and of high quality, authorities and organisations need to be able to assess the need for initiatives based on current research, and to follow up on the effects and usability.

Another complicating factor is that the experts are required to produce unambiguous explanations that can be easily presented to new arrivals, while they themselves point out that information about Swedish values requires depth, complexity and the presentation of contrasting perspectives in order to be as accurate as possible.

- In the study, officials described the task of finding out what Swedish values are – and how they should be presented – was described as the most difficult thing. Those who work with the material handle it as if it were made of glass.

When the material is simplified and adapted to avoid criticism, the truthfulness of the information risks being lost to some extent.

Officials feel scrutinised and express concern that the material produced for teaching will cause offence in certain political camps.

- When the material is simplified and adapted to avoid criticism, the truthfulness of the information risks being lost to some extent, she concludes.