Adult refugees’ meaning making in their new life in Sweden – a social constructionist perspective

Author(s):

Afrah Abdulla(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

07. Social Justice and Intercultural Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

07 SES 09 A, Intercultural Education and Global Mobility

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-10

11:00-12:30

Room:

332. [Main]

Chair:

Ghazala Bhatti

Contribution

Main purpose

The overall purpose of this study is to find out how newly arrived individuals construct meaning, i.e. the foundation for their understanding, in their new life in Sweden. The research questions will be “What is given meaning by the refugee in the new society?”, “What tools/means does the refugee use for understanding his/her new life?, and “How does this affect the refugee’s life and participation in the new society?”

Background

The example/setting for my research is the compulsory civic orientation course, which is 60 hours, and is equivalent to citizenship education. This course is included in the two years’ introduction programme for newly arrived, and is answered for by the municipalities, by order of the Swedish government. Citizenship education, as a concept, is not used in Sweden, but the civic orientation course has the same official purpose, i.e. to shape democratic citizens who actively participate in shaping and maintaining a democratic society.

Previously, all refugees gained the civic information through the language course Swedish for immigrants, but after a governmental reform in 2007, this course was divided. The state decided that the newly arrived would obtain civic information in their own mother tongues, since this would favour their understanding of the Swedish society, and by that, the newly arrived would get established easier and faster, both in society and working life.

Theoretical considerations

According to the social constructivist approach, we should differ between real objects in the world and our ideas/concepts of them. For instance, Hacking (1999) brings up the example of money, and explains that the real object is the piece of paper that we have named “money”. This object would not have had any significance to us, had we not put a meaning in it, i.e. the meaning of a trade value. Thus, it is we humans, as social constructivists, who ascribe the object etc. its meaning, to be able to understand and deal with it. This meaning is embedded in the construction. (Hacking, 1999). Similarly, Patton (2002) means that because “human beings have evolved the capacity to interpret and construct reality – indeed, they cannot do otherwise – the world of human perception is not real in an absolute sense, as the sun is real, but is ‘made up’ and shaped by cultural and linguistic constructs.” (Ibid., p.96).The refugees’ background, former experiences and knowledge function as meaning perspectives, spectacles, by which they make sense of and learn about new things or phenomena in their new society. Therefore, the new things they learn, are learnt by relating them to the meaning perspectives. Thus, meaning making and learning are closely connected in that the former can be said to be constituted by both the meaning perspectives and the new learning.

Also the transformative learning theory (TL) will be utilized, since it is focused on the meaning making of adults. According to Mezirow (1991, 2000) and TL, learning means, among other things, that one’s former experiences are put against new experiences in the social interaction, and then get changed or “modified”. Our former experiences and knowledge is a part of our meaning perspectives, which guide our understanding of and behaviour in our life context. Since the meaning perspectives guide our thinking and reasoning, and shape our points of view, we should critically reflect on them. Our aim should be to transform our meaning perspectives, by gaining new perspectives that make us more open-minded, reflective and judicious. This transformation leads us to become democratic citizens. Rather than completely following the TL theory, I have chosen those concepts and ideas that I consider as relevant for the purpose of my study.

Method

Methods The empirical data for this article will be collected by the conducting of individual in-depth interviews with participants of the civic orientation course. These interviews will be tape recorded, in order not to miss any important comments etc., and to be able to return to respondents’ statements whenever needed. Furthermore, I want to focus on what is said during the interviews, so that I can take notes on my thoughts directly after the interview. The latter is not possible when I have to listen and write at the same time. There is a difficulty in deciding the total number of respondents in advance, since it is dependent on how many of the individuals give their consent to be interviewed. Nevertheless, the intention is to interview approximately 15 participants, the number set to obtain a saturation in the data material. Prior to the interviews, the participants will be given both oral and written information in Arabic, concerning the purpose of the study. The oral version will be given in front of the whole group, during one of the course sessions, so that everyone gets the opportunity to ask questions if they need to. After this oral information, a written letter in Arabic will be handed out to the refugees, where all the relevant information is stated, including a brief introduction of the researcher’s academic background, contact details and the contact details of the dissertation supervisor. To this letter, a separate consent sheet will be attached, and I will make sure that it takes at least a week, before I visit the group again to collect the written consent sheets. This way, the newly arrived adults would get some time and space to think over whether to join the study or not. As there is a risk of inconvenience for the adult refugees in connection with the interview, since it might awaken bad memories to life, those participants who feel any inconvenience during or after the interview will be offered follow-up conversations with the interviewing researcher. Before collecting the data, a pilot interview will be carried through, in order to promote researcher reflexivity and avoid bias as much as possible. As Patton (2002) asserts, reflexivity “has entered the qualitative lexicon as a way of emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, political/cultural consciousness, and ownership of one’s perspective”. (Ibid., p.64).

Expected Outcomes

Expected outcomes/results The expected results will hopefully provide a deeper knowledge and insight into newly arrived individuals’ thinking about their new life situation in Sweden. The benefit which the social research field may obtain from this study is new insights into an area where there is a lack of scientific research. This would naturally also be a profit to those European societies, which host a large number of immigrants/refugees, in that the civil servants and authorities may better understand the refugees and their needs/wishes, by knowing how their meaning for their new life in the host society gets constructed and in what ways this meaning making may affect the refugees’ participation in society.

References

References Hacking, I. (1999), The social construction of what?. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard university press. Mezirow, J., (2000), Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of transformation theory. In J. Mezirow and Associates (eds), Learning as transformation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Mezirow, J., (1991), Transformative dimensions of adult learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Patton, M. Q. (2002), Qualitative research & evaluation methods. Thousands Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Author Information

Afrah Abdulla (presenting / submitting)

Högskolan Väst

Trollhättan

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