Not knowing Swedish or not being a native speaker of Swedish is posed as a problem in similar ways to how disabilities affect cognition and learning (Swedish Special Education Agency, Multilingualism 2016.)  This is also evident in how information about what languages are spoken, or more importantly NOT spoken in the student’s home with caregivers, are often considered by educators as an additional challenge faced by multilingual students.

In 2017, the political debate in Sweden lifted the problem of how the immigrant stay- at-home- mother phenomenon was hindering newly arrived women from entering the work force due to what is portrayed as their lack of Swedish skills. Language plurality in this respect is posed as a weakness rather than a resource (Hyltenstam & Milani, 2012). These women are still largely seen “as workers rather than human beings with equal rights” (Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson, 1996). There is a general assumption that knowing the target language is paramount in becoming established in society which involves paying taxes. Non-governmental integration efforts draw on these types of descriptions when applying for funding.

Swedish with Baby is an NGO initiative focusing on organizing group meetings for parents of small children with different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. The activities build on the idea of a combined language and baby café, educational initiatives where language users with small children devote time to conversation practice with native speakers in the target language. The objective is described as supporting parents towards becoming established in society by learning to speak Swedish through language role models. In Swedish society one’s ability to find information and resources through social services is paramount to how parenting is done.  This comes down to acquiring the target language. In a context governed by economic models of social welfare which are reliant upon paid work and the tax revenue it generates, not knowing the language is seen as an intergenerational risk which has to be addressed so that good parenting can be guaranteed. This is a pressing political issue in all European societies concerning migration and upholding internal social welfare and support systems.

Parenting is an activity imbued with one’s own previous relationships and the processes of belonging which these relationships enact. To have been parented lays the groundwork of identification in respect to language, ethnicity, religion and nationality. Lived parenting as used conceptually in this analysis refers to how the becoming process, in a pedagogical and ethical sense, is embodied (Adams Lyngbäck, 2016).  The child’s body makes visible a path upon with a parent follows (Ahmed, 2006). This corporeality of direction points towards futures for the individuals and the familial bonds.

A pedagogy of the “not yet” is a way to describe how one leaves one way of inhabiting the world to embark on an open course away from a previous home. The becoming parent continues through life in a state of being in actions that are for the future, nurturing and protecting. Unpacking what a “not yet” pedagogical relation is will help to illuminate the phenomenon of ‘migration parenting´ or ‘migration of/in parenting´ in the empirical material.

The aim of the study is to described and explore parenting in spaces of migration in relation to language ideals communicated through integration initiatives. What notions about language, parenting and place emerge in interaction between newcomers and volunteers?

We have conducted a year-long fieldwork project in Swedish with Baby. The methodological framework utilizes ethnography and nethnography of parenting within an informal language learning space. The ethnographic fieldwork was conducted at two different places in Stockholm where Swedish with Baby meetings were held. We examine our findings in terms of how social justice is linked to tacit, unspoken policy objectives about what counts as appropriate language goals for groups seen as marginalized or in need of being de-marginalized through integration efforts. The groups most disadvantaged by language policies are girls and women, ethnic minority groups and social minority groups (Corson, 1993). We will discuss how the main integration goal, Swedish language knowledge, counteracts the broader ideals of inclusion through how language practices are enacted (cf. Street, 1983). Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed exploring how we inhabit different spaces and which bodies belong in which spaces (2006), the concept of be/longing will show how the lived experience involves imaginative exertion on the part of the parents (Adams Lyngbäck, 2016). Be/longing is how caretakers conceive the possibilities for one’s children in communities based on struggles involving identity. In spaces of differentness there is a type of yearning for particular conditions in the future for the child which are actualized in situations of societal uncertainty. What parents practicalize in these terms is explored in this study. Both researchers have first generation or second generation migratory and multilingual identities which we used to positon ourselves as ethnographers in the field. We introduced ourselves as researchers but also as mothers with a migratory history and multilingual background of our own. One of us entered the field the first time together with her own small child. This gave access to exchanges of a certain kind: that of being a fellow parent with a child just a little bit older or in approximately same age group as the participants’ children. Hearing the researcher speaking another language than Swedish with the child prompted comments and questions about bi-lingualism. When participating without a child we were sometimes identified incorrectly as “experts” that some parents with first generation migrant background asked questions about work, education or housing.

In our findings, it became evident that for many of the first-generation immigrants the goal of learning Swedish is secondary or unimportant. A large part of this group expresses that they are attending Swedish with Baby to meet other parents of small children and to exchange ideas on questions and thoughts which have come about through their new role as parents. This is regardless of how much or how little Swedish they previously knew. In fact, most of the parents in this group were communicatively competent in Swedish. Situations where not knowing Swedish were described as disabling, occurred in everyday encounters, not in looking for employment. Our results indicate that the idea of language as a skill for getting a job is missing the mark on what newcomer families need to actually be successful: a sense of community through social engagement. The experience of being limited by language had to do with parenting in the post-print society, involving issues such as choosing preschools and contacts with health care. If you don’t know Swedish you can’t be considered a ”good parent” mainly because you wont’ be able to find the right information and make choices as expected in a marketized parenting landscape. Swedish volunteer parents are reinforcing the skills language ideal in their actions. Two things are implied through embodied enactments: the ‘skill of no accent’ and the related ‘skill of whiteness’. It’s not just not knowing Swedish, it is not BEING Swedish that is being reproduced. Who is considered to be in place is formed through the practices of integration which becomes an intervention of how to not risk Sweden’s future due to weak parenting i.e. not being established, not being able to orientate in post-print society. The idea of intergenerational risk is upheld through ‘language as skills’ practice.

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