Purpose: This study probes educational leaders and practitioner's views about social integration with newly arrived im/migrant and refugee students. A sociological perspective of education is used in conjunction with a thematic analysis of neoliberal approaches to diversity management and its social implications for the health and well-being for im/migrant students.Methods: An interview study with 15 educational leaders and practitioners in schools and recreational centres was carried out. Thereof, seven department heads, three principals, and five educators. Data-production consisted of a semi-structured interview guide about practitioners' views on social integration. Results:The results of the study indicate that there is a tendency to emphasize academic achievement and individual effort in compulsory education and in voluntary settings. The im/ migrant students' needs for help, assistance with social and psychological support are viewed as obstacles to social integration. Conclusions: Findings suggest universal approaches to diversity management in education tend to stress individual agency but fail to acknowledge individuals' lack of control over structural factors. The organizational structure of schooling creates both affordances and obstacles for social integration beyond the control of the individual which add to the burden of social integration on the individual im/migrant students.

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According to the national framing of the Swedish preschool system, educators are expected to act as mediators of the dominant language while simultaneously promoting multilingualism. Previous research shows that educators display an insecurity as well as a lack of knowledge of how to implement this dual undertaking. This article examines educators’ dual undertaking of linguistic diversity (changeability), on the one hand, and a national standard (stability) on the other, based on ethnographic data from three preschools with socioeconomic differences. The data are analysed employing concepts from pedagogic theory and linguistic diversity. Bernstein’s competence model with weak classification and framing accommodates translanguaging, giving room for the children’s own linguistic initiatives. Translanguaging is understood from a local as well as a global perspective; the local is based on global norms and global norms relate to local practices. The results show that educators support children as linguistic and multilingual beings. Unlike previous studies showing that middle-class children benefit from the competence model, this study shows how children with different socio-economic backgrounds benefit from the competence model. The diversity of language practice in Swedish pre-schools has the potential to create opportunities for new forms of agency and identity for children.

The purpose of this paper is to present some of the main findings from my thesis (Lundberg, 2015) (Lundberg, 2015).