Bringing diversity – Institutional thoughts on newly arrived students in a newly diverse Swedish school

Abstract

The aim of this article is to contribute knowledge about how newly arrived students are perceived as bringing diversity, and how that relates to the potential to be included in a newly diverse Swedish school. The research questions guiding the analysis are 1. How are the newly arrived students perceived in the teachers’ statements in relation to diversity and inclusion? 2. How can the teachers’ statements on this be understood in relation to Ahmed's concept of institutional thought? Theoretically, the analysis in this article draws on the work of Sara Ahmed, specifically institutional thought, which refers to routines and norms within an organisation. The study was carried out through qualitative interviews with nine teachers at a newly diverse, countryside upper secondary school. The results of the analysis show that the teachers view is that students already at the school were lacking experiences of diversity, while the newly arrived students added diversity merely by being there. Further, the analysis indicates that the students already at the school become the hosts, and the newly arrived students become guests who by all intents and purposes are welcome but remain guests within the organisation. If diversity is identified as a property of “others”, then this view on newly arrived students as bringing diversity is in line with the institutional thought. But as Ahmed (2012) points out, when diversity can be achieved by adding people to the institution simply to be diverse, the result may be that nothing really changes within the institution.