In 2015, 2.8 million people sought refuge or asylum in European countries (UN 2016) and recipients of the largest numbers of refugees and asylum seekers were Germany (700,000) followed by Sweden, France and Russian Federation (300,000 each) (UN 2016). The refugees came from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and North West African Countries and many of them were unaccompanied adolescent minors, i.e. at school age (Donini, Monsutti &  Scalettaris, 2016; Menjívar & Perreira, 2019). In the case of Sweden, the refugees were unevenly distributed geographically by the authorities and small rural municipalities, often sparsely populated, received more refugees per capita than regions of the large cities.

The rapid and extensive inflow of refugees/asylum seekers (henceforth ‘migrants’) in Swedish rural municipalities brought with it challenges for the local administration in terms of integration (educational, social and labour integration), e.g. providing education and other municipal services. But the arrival of migrants also meant hope for the rural communities (Johansson, 2019). After a period in the rural areas, the migrants were relocated. Small rural municipalities continue (to varying extents) to receive quota refugees, and there is also some relative immigration to some extent, but the proportion of migrants in Swedish rural municipalities is significantly smaller today than in 2015.

Since 2015, structural changes of economic art have also taken place in Swedish rural municipalities. In the mid-2010s, during the large inflow of refugees 2015, Swedish rural regions were characterized by general depopulation, decreasing public services and labour market, etc, and some of them are still, more or less, in that situation. However, in Norrland (i.e. the Northern region of Sweden) where most Swedish rural regions are located, an industrial expansion related to ‘green industry’ is taking place. The industrial boom has led to a great need for labour with a need for also institutional support and access to services for this labour in certain Norrlandic regions, a labour market expansion with effects on all other regions and local towns in Norrland, in different ways. Small rural towns in the region, risk further relocation, now to nearby industrially expanding Norrlandic regions and cities. At the same time, there are examples of the industrial boom that applies to certain areas in the north having positive repercussions on local labour markets in smaller towns in the form of new establishment of companies, and existing companies that expand.

Against this background, we direct in this paper interest towards challenges and opportunities in the reception of new adolescent migrants from the perspective of local professionals. The research questions are:

• What did representatives of schools and municipal public services say about the influx of migrants during the great wave of refugees in 2015 and what do they say today?
• What hopes were/are tied to the reception of refugees for the future?
• What challenges were/are seen?
• How do descriptions from the past reflect in those of the present?

 The overall question guiding the inquiry is:

• What kind/s of integration is/are emphasized in the professionals’ narrations - educational, social and/or labour integration?

The findings will be discussed through the broad lens of educational, social and labour integration, and in relation to the rural contexts. Inspired by the idea that integration consists of sets of overlapping processes that take place differently in various contexts and spheres of receiving societies (Castles, Korac, Vasta, & Vertovec, 2002), the analysis takes notice of presences in local discourse regarding educational, social and labour integration.

The analysis draws on data from two Swedish research projects that connect to the issue of reception and integration of migrants. The first of them, Rural youth – education, place and participation , was ongoing at the time the Syrian refugee diaspora peaked in 2015. It addressed rural youth’s views on education, future, social relationships and differences in various and different types of places and the ways these are addressed (or not) in teaching. The project description did not include the intention to investigate migrant student reception and education, but this became an issue during fieldwork as the migrants arrived at the researched schools. The second (ongoing) project, Education and integration of newly arrived migrants in rural areas, includes ethnographic follow-up studies in the six schools from the previous project, focussing on experiences of various ways of organising teaching/reception of migrants and changes in teaching after reception (including representations of ’us’, ’the place’ etc). Additionally there are also interviews in other schools from 15 selected rural municipalities that accepted migrant students in 2015. For this paper we draw on interviews (N129) conducted 2015 and 2019-2022 with representatives of schools (teachers, principals and heads of the municipalities’ schooling) and other municipal community services (e.g. heads of municipalities’ reception and integration activities, head of the municipalities’ labor market initiatives) in 21 municipalities. The interviews have been analyzed by means of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and through the lens of social integration theory in relation to the time and place conditions for the social integration of new arrivals, as in Korac’s (2003) studies of integration in Italy and Holland. Concepts of trust and belief, reliance and safety and social relations and sense of community have been important in the analysis. Ethnic Group Conflict Theory was considered in relation to possible individual and contextual determinants of resistance to integrating the new arrivals but little obvious resistance was found. This may be a feature of the sample of professionals. Previous research with Ethnic Group Conflict Theory suggests resistance to integration tends to be stronger among manual workers, the petty bourgeoisie, and the unemployed (Conders & Scheepers, 2008).

Preliminary findings provide a homogeneous picture of challenges and opportunities in the reception of new adolescent migrants in terms of integration, but still, they related to educational, social and/0r labour integration to various degree over time. In 2015 the main challenge was to organize the reception and get hold of qualified personnel to cope with the reception of migrants at school age and achieve educational integration, and by those means social integration in educational institutions. Their hope was mainly that the reception would create jobs for the local population also in the long run, i.e. that the reception of young migrants would be long-term and community service maintained. ‘Today’ (2019–2022) the hope is more linked to make the young migrants staying on permanent basis. In terms of education, the tendency from 2015 to ’today’ (2019–2022) was increased hope for getting the migrants fast into education for lower skilled labour, i.e. to make them employable fast (cf. Benerdal et al., 2021). In particular, the data indicate increased hope for rapid integration in work in public service, in reproduction professions but in several of the municipalities there is also a need for labor in industry (in production jobs) and a hope that migrants will contribute to local economic growth. The main challenge is that the transition from education to work will be too extended and costly for the municipality and may add to existing economic burdens. The hope for educational/social integration was stronger than the hope for labour integration 2015. ‘Today’ (2019-2022), there is a strong hope for educational, social and labour integration. These preliminary findings will be discussed in relation to the wider economic and social contexts where the reception took place. This is of course a phenomenon of wider European not just a local or national interest.

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