In the fall of 2015 Sweden, over 160 000 men and women, among them 70 000 children, transcended Swedish borders within a few months. The fall 2015 has since then been referred to as the refugee crisis. A crisis for who? For the welfare state of the Swedish society? For the Swedish self-reproach as an open and immigrant-friendly country? Even though Sweden has been a migration country since the Second World War, the fall 2015 is nevertheless remembered for its refugee crisis. How to handle housing, schooling and in the next step – jobs for more than 160 000 new comers and overall, how to provide conditions for the integration process? Our research of how school’s principals are organizing and conducting the schooling for a certain amount of children raise questions of how the welfare state is responding to “the refugee crisis”. The organizational logic for taking part of the school services offered by the welfare state is based on the recognition of the child as an “immigrant”. His or her migration history is put aside and the making of the immigrant is taken place (Sayad, 1999). Here, two processes work concurrently – on one hand the formation of the identity of the immigrant, on the other the expected adaption to the general welfare society citizen. As Bourdieu has pointed out, the immigrant is, according to Socrate an atopos, placeless and unclassified, neither citizen, nor stranger. His position is, with the expression of the Algerian sociologist Adelmalek Sayad, a double absence. The educational actions for integrating the newly arrived students are based on the ethnocentric logic of “assimilation” (Ahmed, 2012, Hultqvist et al, 2017). The solutions for the “refugee crises” are, as you might call them, technical and administrative. Misrecognition of the condition of the emigration is the condition for the assimilation/integration process (Ahmed, 2012). In our contribution we would further reflect on: • the construction of “the immigrant student”, as an expected future participant in the Swedish society, but meanwhile, a stranger unable to fully adjust to the Swedish society, • how school leaders regard the tension between the immigrant students diverse identities and the policy of assimilation, • how research could elucidate the logic of “making the immigrant” while tracing the logic of “assimilation”.

Ahmed, S., (2012), On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bourdieu, P., (1999) Preface, in: Sayad, A. (1999). La double absence, Paris: Seuil. Hultqvist, E., Lindblad S., Popkewitz, T.S. (2017), Critical Analyses of Educational Reforms in an Era of Transnational Governance, New York: Springer. Sayad, A., (1999). La double absence, Paris: Seuil