During 2015 Sweden received more than 160 000 refuges among them about 70 000 children, mostly from the Middle East. Every municipality and every school have to reconsider its organisation to be able to receive newly arrived children. This is a radically new situation even though Sweden has been a country for immigration since WW2. The situation raises challenges of integration, both in terms of housing, employment but also in terms schooling.

In the last twenty years, NPM has been part of restructuring of school. In a Swedish context, evaluations, assessments, international and national testing point to a need of raising the quality by restructuring school organizations and introducing school management and leadership at the local level. The role of the teacher has been redesigned according to theses changes.

Our argument are that the newly arrived immigrant children will in a significant way challenge some of the fundamental assumptions of about schooling, teaching (leadership) and even learning.

First, the liberal assumption where everyone is equal when it comes to education is questioned.  In a system based on free choice of schools, financed through students bringing a school voucher, the presence of 70 000 newly arrived refuges challenges the idea of “school effectiveness” and measurable outcomes.

Second, teaching strategies mainly related to “school effectiveness” and measurable outcomes are not sufficient when many of these newcomers have to be integrated into the Swedish society – meeting a new and different country with other norms and traditions. Concepts as democracy and citizenship become crucial. This new situation will challenge the role of teacher profession, from its unilateral focus on knowledge dissemination and results, and learning as an individual project separated from its social context.

Third, the learning processes will differ between newcomers and traditional students. The relation between school and home must be renegotiated. The overall idea of supporting students to be responsible for their own learning is also severely questioned.

Altogether, this situation will have a radical impact on school as organization, on the teacher challenges and on students’ learning strategies. We will present observations from two different secondary schools.

THOMAS MORE 1516 Utopia, éd. Dirk Martens, Leuven BLOCH E. 1954-1959 Das Prinzip Hoffnung.Frankfurt. DROUIN-HANS A.-M. 2004 Éducation et utopies, Paris, Vrin MANNHEIM K. 1929 Idéologie und Utopie Berlin. PESSIN A. 2001 L’imaginaire utopique aujourd’hui, Paris, PUF WRIGHT Erik Olin 2010 Envisioning real utopias, Brooklyn-London