The Application of the Structured Democratic Dialogue to Generate Action Plans for a Successful Integration Process in Swedish-Speaking Ostrobothnia

Abstract

In a previous study on integrating minority groups in Ostrobothnia in 2019, one of the most influential challenges was that Finland was not including native Finns in the integration process. This finding was made using the structured democratic dialogue (SDD). For the present study, the same participatory methodology was applied, wherein 12 participants from diverse socio-economical, cultural, and educational background who reside in Ostrobothnia were brought together to explore feasible action plans to facilitate the inclusion of Finns in the integration process in the city of Vaasa in this region of Finland. The participants generated 66 action plans categorized under eight clusters. Based on the influence map generated by participants, Action #62 stated that the most influential one was “All projects are inclusive”. Action #55 stated, “Balanced representation of all the people (Finns, minorities and foreigners) in the political parties” and Action #49 stated, “Social-emotional education curriculum” were perceived as having great influence on other actions. Thus, drawing from the results of this SDD Co-Lab, these action plans should be considered priorities in order to successfully include Finns in the integration process. The low number of participants and the narrow representation of some minority groups are limitations of this study.