I det här kapitlet fokuserar vi på hur lärare resonerar om sitt agerande i relation till olika etiska dilemman som aktualiseras i arbetet med nyanlända. Kapitlet problematiserar gränssättning i arbetet och i mötet med utsatta grupper och lyfter yrkets relationella karaktär. Vi visar bland annat hur lärare ser på sin roll i relation till elevernas möjligheter att ta sig vidare i utbildningssystemet och att få stanna och etableras i Sverige.

Utbildning och arbete ses ofta som synonyma med social rörlighet. I detta kapitel fokuserar vi på de relationsskapande praktiker i andra sammanhang som ofta glöms bort, men som personer som har invandrat till Sverige ser som viktiga för sin sociala rörlighet. I kapitlet lyfts särskilt sport, civilsamhället och praktikplatser fram som viktiga sammanhang där meningsfulla relationer tar form.

This study investigates the formation of VET teaching practice when using simulation as a teaching method to support students’ vocational learning at upper secondary schools in Sweden. The study is based on repeated interviews with twelve VET teachers from two schools over the course of three years. Drawing upon practice theory, the findings show that the use of simulators brought about both new knowledge and new relationships in teaching practice, as well as side effects such as dependency on other relatings outside the school. A new practice for vocational learning emerged, which required rearrangement of teachers’ work, roles and relatings.

Detta kapitel handlar om unga migranters vuxenblivande, en process kantad av möjligheter och utmaningar. Kapitlet diskuterar studie- och yrkesval bland elever på språkintroduktionsprogrammet med fokus på vilka val som framstår som möjliga inför framtiden. Specifikt riktas ljuset mot hur dessa val förändras över tid och påverkar, och i vissa fall villkorar, elevers planer och drömmar om studier och yrkesliv. Den så kallade gymnasielagen utgör en viktig del i deltagarnas berättelser och träder fram som en illustration av hur hastigt införda förändringar på det migrationspolitiska området fått en avgörande betydelse i nyanländas liv.

This article is centred on the tendency to align education for newly arrived students with migration policy. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of interviews with four adult migrant students, we aim to investigate how the participants’ experiences of studying and how they imagine their future intersect with their immigration status. The interviews were conducted when they were first studying a language introduction programme, and then three years later. We focus on the participants’ narratives about transitions within the education system and later into the labour market. Using Sara Ahmed’s approach to the orientation of subjects in time and space, the analysis shows that all students expressed a desire to “be in line,” meaning finishing their studies and finding employment. Students with temporary and conditional residence permits were directed towards specific vocational tracks and sectors of the labour market. Migrant students are a heterogenous group and, based on the findings presented, we argue that immigration status constitutes a crucial part of this heterogeneity, influencing how students imagine their future in a new society.

I detta projekt undersöker vi vilka sammanhang och aktiviteter som framträder som centrala för migranters sociala inkludering. Vi har följt 58 vuxna migranter i tre år och resultaten pekar på att det civila samhället spelar stor roll för deras bana mot inkludering. Vidare framträder migranternas bakgrund i termer av ålder, utbildning och yrkeserfarenhet som centrala faktorer som villkorar möjligheten till social inkludering.

In public discourse, the social inclusion of migrants is often regarded as a challenge demanding migrants to increase their engagement in adapting to the new host country. Such imaginaries commonly declare migrants as being unwilling to acquire language skills and specific cultural values. In parallel, formal education is often proposed as the single most important remedy to inclusion, which generally solely implies labor market participation. However, there is a range of other, often neglected, practices that migrants themselves regard as important for their social inclusion in society. This article aims to analyze what practices are assigned meaning by newly arrived migrants in Sweden on their path toward social inclusion in the country. This is a longitudinal interview study with 19 newly arrived adult migrants that were interviewed on two occasions, three years apart. Drawing on a sociocultural perspective, we understand social inclusion as an ongoing process by which individuals become members of different communities. The result shows that important for social inclusion is access to valuable relationships and close social ties. These relations are important in all communities in which the migrants participate. The analysis illustrates three different communities, outside of formal education and employment, that migrants ascribe meaning to concerning language learning and social inclusion. These communities are sports, internships, and civil society engagements. Through its longitudinal design, this study also illustrates how migrants’ narratives and their meanings shift with time and how migrants relate to these communities over time.

It is argued that the use of high-fdelity simulators is educationally efective, since students are able to work more independently and can better control their learning. Therefore, simulations can be used as a teaching method to facilitate and ease teachers’ work situations. This raises questions as to whether teachers’ professional bodies are a bounded physicality, or whether we can understand teachers’ professional bodies in practice in terms of enactments? This article analyses and discusses the enactment of VET teachers’ professional bodies in the context of vocational and simulation-based training. The empirical material is based on ethnographic observations in three classes in two diferent vocational education programmes at two upper secondary schools in Sweden. Three diferent cases are presented and analysed as examples of how VET teachers’ professional bodies are enacted. Guided by a practice theory perspective (Schatzki, T. R. Social practices: a Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and the social (1996), Schatzki, T. R. The site of the social: A philosophical account of the constitution of social life and change (2002), Schatzki, T. R. & Natter, W. Sociocultural bodies, bodies sociopolitical. In T. R.Schatzki & W. Natter (Eds.), The social and political body (1996), the study shows that VET teachers’ professional bodies are enacted in multiples, distributed, and delegated in an interplay between the teachers, the students, the simulator, and its material set-up. In these enactments of professional bodies, VET teachers embody both a teacher identity and a previous vocational identity, which they perform simultaneously depending on the educational situation.

Today’s society is characterized by high unemployment, a prevailing trust in and demands for an academic degree, and an emphasis on the individual’s own responsibility for their educational choices. This study aims to examine adults’ vocational education choices, their intentions in connection with municipal adult education (MAE) studies, and how this relates to identity formation. The study is based on 18 interviews and compares students from two vocational MAE training programmes in assistant nursing and floor laying. The analysis has identified different pathways concerning adult students’ decisions to enrol in municipal adult education and a specific vocational education and training (VET) programme. We see educational choices and paths in terms of underlying causes or as forward-looking rationalities. The results show that the process of identity formation is larger than simply one of vocational becoming within a vocational community of practice, since MAE studies involve a student’s whole being, including both their personal identity trajectories and their vocational identity formation. With this article we hope to provide a foundation for a pedagogical discussion about student intentions, focusing on how different subjectivities affect students with regard to their future vocational becoming.