SPRINT is the Swedish acronym for Language Introduction, a special programme were newly arrived students have the opportunity to learn Swedish, qualify for upper secondary education and eventually enter the labour market. Research has documented a strong desire among these student to become eligible for regular national programmes and get upper secondary diplomas and access to higher education (Bjuhr, 2019; Hagström, 2018; Sharif, 2017). Educational success is seen as crucial in order to fulfil goals, secure social integration and achieve “respectability” (Sharif, 2017: 183). Since students can only apply for national programmes until the year they turn 20, SPRINT is described as a “battle with time” (Hagström, 2018: 197). Unfortunately, national statistics show that few students manage a direct transition to a national programme. Among students that started SPRINT in 2011 and 2012, about 20 percent made such a transition within four years (asylum seeking students without a social security number are not included in the statistics and this proportion of students has increased from 14 percent in 2011 to 61 percent in 2016) (Skolverket, 2018).

Students enter SPRINT with different preconditions. Some have never attended school and may even be illiterates, others join SPRINT with qualifications that even extend the curriculum of the Swedish nine-year compulsory school (Bjuhr, 2019). Unaccompanied children with experiences of war and trauma share classroom with students who have their parents and siblings close and can rely on their help and support. SPRINT thus reflect growing inequalities of the Swedish society where life chances are unequally distributed (Suhonen, Therborn, & Weithz, 2021), patterns that also exist in the rest of the western world (Alvaredo, Chancel, Piketty, Saez, & Zucman, 2018).

In a sense, SPRINT is a social and educational micro cosmos that in a condensed and accelerated form constitutes an example of the market driven meritocratic ideal that sees individual educational merit as a solution to growing inequalities and social integration. “The rhetoric of rising”, is not only a core theme in US politics (Sandel, 2020: 22), but also in Sweden (where upward mobility – just as in US – is declining). Policy initiatives to achieve social mobility through equal opportunities and education are advocated by both the right and the left. A recent Swedish state report on school segregation and equivalence concludes that ”equipping individuals so that they themselves can deal with structural inequality is keen and therefor the question about equivalence in school of outmost importance” (SOU 2020: 28: 86-87). Researchers have drawn attention to a range of obstacles and preconditions that must be managed before “newly arrived students get access to equal opportunities in education and fair chances from the beginning” (Bunar, 2017: 15).

This paper draws attention to meritocratic ideals as the root of the problem, rather than as something that must be perfected. It uses SPRINT and newly arrived students’ educational transitions as empirical examples to discuss social inequalities and the dark side of meritocracy (Sandel, 2020) in education. The paper’s critical focus on meritocracy and education in the context of market driven social inequality is closely related to the conference theme, i.e. “the tensions that exist between the broad social, political and economic demands placed on education systems and the realities of daily engagement with learners” (EERA, 2020). 

The aim of the paper is to explore newly arrived students educational transitions through SPRINT by focusing on the role of meritocratic imagination and practice. The paper raise the following questions:

- How do newly arrived students understand the role of education – and SPRINT more specifically – in their lives?

- How do newly arrived students explain educational success/failure and individual responsibility thereof?

This research is part of a larger project and builds on collective data collection with fellow project members conducted in six municipalities belonging to three categories of Swedish municipalities: (a) commuting municipalities close to big cities, (b) small towns/municipalities, and (c) rural municipalities. The research team conducted field studies in compulsory schools and upper secondary schools between 2018 and 2020, i.e. in the aftermath of the more acute phase of the refugee crisis. Researchers visited each setting several times and spent time in the schools. Data collection was based on an ethnographical approach and included observations of classroom activities, career-guiding activities, staff meetings and interviews with school actors at different local levels and students at risk of not completing compulsory school. The interviews focused on local processes, content and structures that complicate or facilitate transitions within compulsory and secondary education, and eventually, further on to the labour market. In this paper, we focus on interviews with 35 newly arrived students in SPRINT conducted in 2018-2019 and follow up interviews with 20 students in 2020-2021 after they had left SPRINT. In order to get analytic insight into the role of meritocratic imagination and practice the data was organized around the two research questions. Using the literature on meritocracy as a theoretical backdrop, we moved back and forth between the different phases of coding in order to tentative conceptual categories (Thornberg & Charmaz, 2014).

Preliminary results show that SPRINT is organised around meritocratic principles where educational success is awarded with further educational opportunities and even possibilities to gain Swedish citizenship for those asylum seeking students who are encompassed by the so-called New Law on Upper Secondary Education. The role of education is central among the interviewed students. Swift progress is both an ideal and a constraint as students take on the sprint through SPRINT. Credentialism in is displayed in a constant focus on tests, courses merit qualification points and grades. Social inequalities in SPRINT resembles well-documented patterns in terms of economic, social and cultural capital, but are arguably more pronounced than in most other educational contexts. Meritocratic flaws are present in many ways. For example, asylum-seeking students may or may not have their race randomly interrupted and delayed by redeployments of the Swedish Migration Agency. The interviews show that newly arrived students typically embrace meritocratic ideals in terms of individual responsibility and the idea that success can be gained by hard work. The less fortunate blame themselves for their failure, but their narratives are not unambiguous – there are also signs of resentment and anger as well as indications that, as opportunities diminish, desperate paths may lead to criminality. Returning to the conference theme and one of the urgent questions raised in the conference call – “How can knowledge transmission in educational settings contribute to the solving of social problems?” (EERA, 2020) – the paper discuss meritocratic notions of individual upward mobility as a solution to increasing social inequality and points to potential harmful effects of market driven meritocracy on esteem and dignity among the losers that may also deepen social divisions (Sandel, 2020).

Alvaredo, F., Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2018). World Inequality Report 2018 Executive Summary. Wir2018.Wid.World, 20. Retrieved from https://wir2018.wid.world/files/download/wir2018-summary-english.pdf Bjuhr, Å. (2019). En studie om övergången från introduktionsprogrammet Avslut och fortsättning. Luleå: Institutionen för konst, kommunikation och lärande. EERA. (2020). Conference Theme: Education and Society: expectations, prescriptions, reconciliations | EERA. Retrieved January 14, 2021, from https://eera-ecer.de/ecer-2021-geneva/programme/conference-theme-education-and-society-expectations-prescriptions-reconciliations/ Hagström, M. (2018). Raka spår, sidospår, stopp. Vägen genom gymnasieskolans språkintroduktion som ung och ny i Sverige. Linköping: Linköpings Universitet, Institutionen för Tema - Tema Barn. Sandel, M. J. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit. Whats Become of the Common Good? New York: Macmillan. Sharif, H. (2017). ”Här i Sverige måste man gå i skolan för att få respekt” Nyanlända ungdomar i den svenska gymnasieskolans introduktionsutbildning. Uppsala: ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS Studier i utbildnings- och kultursociologi. Skolverket. (2018). Uppföljning av språkintroduktion: Beskrivande statistik på nationell nivå och nyanlända elevers övergångar till och från språkintroduktion. Retrieved from https://www.skolverket.se/download/18.6bfaca41169863e6a65d385/1553967975102/pdf3955.pdf SOU 2020: 28. (2020). En mer likvärdig skola - minskad skolsegration och förbättrad resurstilldelning. SOU 2020 : Betänkande från Utredningen om en mer likvärdig skola. (U 2018:05). Retrieved from https://www.regeringen.se/498b68/contentassets/fcf0e59defe04870a39239f5bda331f4/en-mer-likvardig-skola--minskad-skolsegregation-och-forbattrad-resurstilldelning-sou-202028 Suhonen, D., Therborn, G., & Weithz, J. (2021). Klass i Sverige. Ojämlikheten, makten och politiken i det 21:a århundradet. Lund: Arkiv förlag. Thornberg, R., & Charmaz, K. (2014). Grounded Theory and Theoretical Coding. In U. Flick (Ed.), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis (pp. 153–169). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.