Learner identity and belonging: inclusive education for newly arrived migrant students in Sweden

Sweden is one of the countries hosting the largest number of refugees and other categories of immigrants. In recent decades, the Swedish school system has been entered by a sizeable group of children who are at the same time learning a new language and acquiring new knowledge and skills in this language. The ongoing migration forces the Swedish education system to respond to the challenges associated with the need to integrate as soon as possible a fairly large group of students who do not speak Swedish and study at a Swedish school. The immigrant students in Sweden are a rather heterogeneous group with different levels of training, experience and needs. The Swedish National Agency for Education believes that it is necessary to improve the conditions for the integration of newly arrived students in the Swedish school system by better defining their needs. Since January 2016 an obligatory pedagogical mapping both of the newly arrived students’ language skills and of their knowledge in different school subjects has been introduced by the Swedish National Agency for Education. To this end, materials have been developed for mapping the experience, knowledge and skills of newly arrived students both in the field of language proficiency and in individual school subjects. The mapping should take place during the first two months of a student’s learning, and the result should be a profile of knowledge and skills that will be used to determine the students’ place in the Swedish school system and plan their further education. The article presents the approaches and methods used during this mapping, as well as the dual role of the mother tongue teacher as both a subject teacher and as a mediator between the school, the student and the family during the integration process.

Equitable educational opportunities, in terms of access to quality education and resources in the host countries, are crucial to the individual personal development of refugee minors, promoting psychosocial well-being and resilience despite significant adversity. Meanwhile, participation in the education system of the host country facilitates social integration. This qualitative study explored teachers’ views on factors influencing access to education and educational experiences of refugee students 12- to 18‐year old in Greece. Two focus groups were used to examine teachers’ views on the positive and negative factors affecting refugee minors’ access to education and educational experiences. Thematic analysis resulted in three main themes: (a) institutional barriers, (b) the pivotal role of an inclusive school culture, and (c) the reception class as a transitional space. Findings indicate that meaningful inclusion in terms of access to education, appropriate teaching, and a supportive learning environment remains elusive in Greece for students with refugee backgrounds, given that their educational experiences are usually limited to participation in reception classes designed almost exclusively to teach the host country’s language (Greek). Although, reception classes can indeed serve as an effective transitional space for refugee minors, facilitating school achievement, well-being, and social integration, they must be complemented by a long-term and broadened education policy that actively promotes refugee minors’ social inclusion in regular school classes alongside their native peers.

ABSTRACTIn Sweden, tutoring in the mother tongue is a special support measure primarily intended for newly arrived students to facilitate their transition into the Swedish school system. Tutoring is premised on the collaboration between the class teacher, responsible for subject-related expertise, and the tutor, who contributes with knowledge of the student’s mother tongue and previous context of studies. In this case study of class teachers’ and mother tongue tutors’ conditions for collaboration at a multi-ethnic primary school, six mother tongue tutors and six class teachers were asked about the purpose of their work, how it was organised, and what could be done to improve working conditions. Interviews with head teachers, and data on work organisation from observations, document study, and participation in meetings for a period of one and a half years supplemented the teacher interviews. The analysis focuses on whether tutors and teachers belong to the same or different Communities of Practice, based on shared concerns and opportunities for collaboration, as well as looking at the relative positioning of languages and teaching roles. Findings suggest that the degree of collaboration between tutors and teachers was not sufficient to allow tutoring to function in the way it is envisaged by national steering documents. Tutoring was instead based on the tutors’ own knowledge of the subjects they taught. Recruitment of suitable tutors was difficult. However, conditions for collaboration and more effective tutoring in the schools could be improved with relatively simple support structures at the level of the municipality.

Background: As global healthcare demand rises, the nursing profession faces critical challenges like staff shortages and high turnover, threatening service quality and team stability. Recent focus on positive psychology has highlighted Perceived Professional Benefits (PPB) - nurses' positive gains and personal growth through work, enhancing professional identity and self-worth. Simultaneously, self-efficacy - one's belief in successfully performing tasks - significantly influences nursing interns' performance and career decisions. Those with higher self-efficacy manage workplace stress better, leading to greater job satisfaction and retention. Objective :Through the investigation of the current situation of the sense of occupational benefit and self-efficacy of nursing interns, the data were analyzed to explore the relationship, to provide reference for self-efficacy of nursing interns. Methods :175 intern nursing students were selected as the research subjects through convenience sampling method, and relevant scales were used for investigation. Results :The results of the study show that the intern nursing students scored (114.21±13.18) points in the sense of professional gain and (27.48±4.85) points in the sense of self-efficacy. There was a statistical significance in the scores of their academic qualifications, reasons for choosing nursing, degree of liking nursing, thought of engaging in nursing industry after graduation, and the sense of professional gain of interns who were satisfied with their teachers (P<0.05). The results showed that there was a positive correlation between the sense of occupational benefit and self-efficacy of nursing interns (P<0.05). Conclusions :The study found that the sense of occupational benefit and self-efficacy of nursing interns are at a medium level and in direct proportion. Therefore, colleges and hospitals can take targeted measures to improve the sense of professional benefit of nursing interns, so as to enhance the level of self-efficacy and stabilize the nursing team.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of Syrian students under temporary protection in Turkey on social cohesion and personal development through their participation in sporting activities. The study, which was conducted with a descriptive phenomenological qualitative research design, included 36 Syrian students selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyzed thematically. As a result of the analysis, four main themes were identified: (a) support and participation in sport activities, (b) diversity of sport activities and motivation, (c) barriers to participation, and (d) the impact of sport activities on social cohesion and personal development. The findings suggest that sporting activities play an important role in migrant students’ social integration and self-confidence. However, misunderstandings and perceptions of discrimination caused by language barriers and cultural differences can negatively affect participation in sports activities. It is emphasized that culturally sensitive supports in school social work play a critical role in this process.

Transformational learning experiences for counselor training can be described as experiential activities that facilitate the ability to express feelings and meanings related to life issues. The authors investigated the impact of a 2-day seminar using transformational learning experiences on the personal and professional identity development of counselors-in-training. Quantitative results indicate that participants' self-reported professional performance scores were not significantly different following the training. However, in the qualitative inquiry, participants noted that through the transformational learning experiences, they became aware of past and present challenges, the need for change, the impact of processing within a group, and the application of transformational activities in clinical practices. Such findings indicate how transformational learning experiences-particularly through the use of reflective journaling-might influence personal identity development among counselors-in-training.Keywords: personal identity development, professional identity development, transformational learning, counselor-in-trainingThe promotion of professionalism is a significant component of counselor training and is recognized by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) as a core curriculum requirement for graduate counseling programs (CACREP, 2009). Professionalism includes knowledge and understanding of professional organizations, legal and ethical standards, the role of counselors, professional competencies, and personal and professional growth. Development in this area includes both personal and professional growth and is often referred to as counselor development (Gazzola & Theriault, 2007; Rabinor, 2004; Skovholt & Ronnestad, 1996; Thompson, 2004) or counselor professional identity (Auxier, Hughes, & Kline, 2003; Cashwell, Kleist, & Scofield, 2009; Nugent & Jones, 2009; O'Bryne & Rosenberg, 1998; Reisetter et al, 2004).Independently, professional development encompasses the acquisition of skills and knowledge, and is concerned with the doing needs (Donati & Watts, 2005, p. 476), and personal development includes the needs (p. 476), like authenticity, interpersonal engagement, intimacy and self-evaluation. As dependent concepts, one can imagine the significance each has for counselor identity. A counselor lacking skills and knowledge will function quite differently than a skilled practitioner with years of experience and knowledge. Concurrently, counselors must attend to their own form of personal development (Skovholt & Ronnestad, 1996). Wilkins (1997) went so far as to suggest that personal development embraces everything else that facilitates being a practicing counselor. For example, personal development might include ways in which the counselor maintains a balanced lifestyle, or ways the counselor manages the stress brought on by difficult clients. A counselor lacking in personal well-being might not be considered fit to practice.Many counselors view counselor identity development as a process (Auxier et al, 2003; Brott & Myers, 1999) that results in congruency between personal and professional worldviews (Reisetter et al., 2004), or consider it an equal combination of professional (e.g., roles, decisions, ethics) and personal selves (e.g., values, morals, perceptions; Auxier et al, 2003). This view suggests that personal and professional development are not mutually exclusive and are just as much interrelated as dependent concepts.Research on counselor professional identity development has examined areas such as personal or professional fit (Woodside, Oberman, Cole, & Carruth, 2007), critical incidents experienced by counselorsin-training (CITs; Howard, Inman, & Altman, 2006), career concerns of CITs (Busacca & Wester, 2006), evaluation of personal and professional development (Donati & Watt, 2005; Hensley, Smith, & Thompson, 2003; Lamadue & Duffey, 1999), and ways for counselor educators to address problematic behavior of trainees (Bhat, 2005; Gaubatz & Vera, 2002; McAdams & Foster, 2007; McAdams, Foster, & Ward, 2007). …

This study aimed to investigate how migrant students' group permeability and parental involvement affect the relationship between perceived personal discrimination and social integration. A total of 755 migrant students at three schools in mainland China were investigated in the study. The results indicated that perceived personal discrimination negatively predicted migrant students' group permeability, whereas group permeability had a positive effect on social integration. Group permeability partially mediated the relationship between perceived personal discrimination and social integration. In addition, parental involvement played a significant moderating role between perceived personal discrimination and group permeability and mitigated the negative effect of perceived personal discrimination on group permeability. These findings suggest that we could reduce migrant students' perceived personal discrimination by improving their group permeability and parental involvement, thereby increasing their social integration.

This article examines how educational transitions in Hong Kong are concurrently classed processes and practices, and how learner identity is developed and negotiated in an education system that prizes English as capital. Through the lens of habitus, the connected but distinct autobiographical accounts suggest that the stronger the insulation between the home and the school, the keener an individual’s sensitivity may be towards class distinction in adapting to a new field. Learner identity associated with academic success is potentially negotiable and self-sustained through determination, self-regulation, and reflexive strategies, rendering the availability of resource support less important for working-class students’ identity development.

Using TIMSS 2015 data and a person-centred approach, the chapter focuses on academically resilient students in Norway and Sweden in grade eight. The self-belief profiles of academically resilient students compared with the nonresilient groups (i.e., low SES/low achievement, high SES/low achievement and high SES/high achievement) are investigated. Further, we evaluated the characteristics of the classroom environment for each of the profiles. After accounting for student SES and achievement, personal characteristics, advantages and disadvantages in the classroom and the school environment, we identified distinctive student profiles that might be more prone to risk. In the context of the equality–inequality paradigm, recognition of these profiles can strengthen the possibility to reduce the gap in battling different aspects of inequality across social groups. Concurrently, although we distinguish the same student groups across Sweden and Norway, their distribution within the countries differs. The latter results contribute to the ongoing debate on the dissolution/unification of the Nordic model, especially regarding particular trends within the Swedish education system.

Background: A ‘learner identity’ can be broadly defined as how an individual feels about himself/herself as a learner and the extent to which he/she describes himself/herself as a ‘learner’. The literature suggests that those from non-traditional backgrounds may struggle to adapt to a university environment with all its related expectations (e.g. Reay, Crozier, and Clayton 2009). This paper examines the idea of learner identity in the context of marketing undergraduates. Learner identity is investigated from a widening participation (WP) perspective.Purpose: This small-scale study investigates the links between marketing students’ learner identities, backgrounds and subject choice. It was hypothesised that marketing students, having selected a degree in a specific business discipline, were likely to be aware of employability issues and may be committed to their learning, leading to relatively strong learning identities. This hypothesis was based on an assumption that those students who have chosen a degree subject allied to a specific career may have thought about the end result of their study and may have a more deliberate approach to employability.Sample: The sample was composed of undergraduate marketing students at a university in England. A total of 99 students participated in a questionnaire survey, resulting in 83 completed questionnaires for analysis. A sample of six self-selected students participated in follow-up interviews.Design and methods: The research consisted of a questionnaire about learning experiences/attitudes administered to undergraduate marketing students and follow-up semi-structured interviews with a small number of students. The interviews examined issues in more depth and sought individual narratives of educational experience. The particular topics for exploration in the interview were the study of marketing, future employment and whether subject choice was in any way affected by previous educational experience, family background or ideas about employability.Findings: On the basis of questionnaire responses, students were categorised in terms of learner identity. Nearly half the sample was identified as having positive learner identities. Students’ perspectives from the interview data are presented within this framework.Conclusions: This exploratory study suggests that students of business disciplines are not necessarily strongly focussed on employability. It is hoped that this case-study examination adds to the growing body of knowledge about learner identity by providing specific examples from a defined group.

This study explores the communication challenges faced by Erasmus students during their short-term learning experience at the University of Oradea in the 2023-2024 academic year. By examining the impact of language barriers on academic performance and social adaptation, the research highlights the difficulties encountered by 25 Erasmus students from diverse cultural backgrounds, including Turkey, Portugal, Spain, and France. Communication issues emerge as a critical factor influencing students’ ability to integrate both academically and socially. The paper provides an overview of the Erasmus Program, emphasizing its objectives and the opportunities it offers for academic and personal growth. It then explores specific challenges, including cultural differences, homesickness, variations in academic systems, healthcare access, transportation difficulties, financial constraints, bureaucratic hurdles, and dietary restrictions. Among these, language barriers stand out as a pervasive issue, affecting students’ interactions with faculty, colleagues, and the local community. The study further investigates the role of language proficiency in facilitating or hindering students’ academic success and overall well-being. Institutional support, such as language courses and integration programs, is discussed as a crucial element in mitigating communication difficulties. The methodology involves data collection through questionnaires and interviews, offering valuable insights into students’ experiences and perceptions. The findings indicate that communication barriers significantly impact Erasmus students’ academic engagement, social integration, and overall satisfaction with their study-abroad experience. The results emphasize the necessity for targeted interventions, such as enhanced language training and structured support mechanisms, to ensure a more inclusive and rewarding exchange experience. The study concludes with recommendations for improving language proficiency initiatives, fostering cross-cultural communication, and strengthening institutional support to enhance students’ overall Erasmus journey. Ultimately, while recognizing the Erasmus Program’s transformative potential in fostering international mobility and cultural exchange, the research underscores the need to address communication challenges effectively to maximize students’ academic success and personal growth.

Personal growth is usually considered an outcome of intrapersonal processes-personal resources residing within the person. Comparatively, little research has examined the interpersonal processes underlying personal growth. We investigated how one interpersonal factor-people's relationships with others-influences personal growth. Study 1 showed that brief reminders of a supportive (vs. nonsupportive) other led people to choose a job that promoted personal growth over one that offered a higher salary. Moreover, feelings of self-confidence from thinking about a supportive (vs. nonsupportive) other mediated personal growth. Extending these results, Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated that people's perceptions of how supportive their close others are predicted personal growth in two distinct cultures with varying emphasis on individual (vs. collective) growth. Consistent with Study 1's findings, the results were also mediated by feelings of self-confidence. These findings suggest that the link between supportive relationships and personal growth may reflect a general process.

Identity and Personality Development for Desirable Characteristics of Mahasarakham University Graduate Students

Introduction This study uses a systematic literature review to analyze the current state of psychological needs among students in higher education institutions in Morocco. Students' psychological well-being is a significant public health concern in Morocco and is essential to both their academic success and social integration. Despite growing recognition of the significance of mental health in the academic setting, research on this topic is still incomplete and fragmented. Methods This article examines the current state of students' psychological needs at the level of higher education institutions in Morocco through a systematic review of the literature. By analyzing existing literature, the study seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the well-being of Moroccan students, identifying key psychological needs and risk factors. Results The analysis of 11 studies from 2010 to 2024 revealed critical information about the multifaceted nature of students' psychological needs in Morocco. The results were organized into several thematic categories: autonomy, competence, social relationships and support, self-esteem, and personal development. The review highlighted patterns of psychological needs and identified important risk factors such as mental health disorders, psychosocial stressors, and socio-economic challenges. Conclusion This systematic review clarified the landscape of research on students' psychological well-being in Morocco and identified critical needs and risk factors. It is imperative to develop appropriate support strategies to improve students' well-being and foster their academic success and social integration.

This study aimed to identify cognitive (reasoning and executive functions) and resilient behavioral variables of (im)migrant university students which are related to different aspects on their adaptation to academic experiences. It is a descriptive exploratory cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 64 undergraduate and graduate students from three universities of Porto Alegre, with average age 23.75 years old (DP = 2.9), from other Brazilian state or other country. The results pointed that significant predictors of all five academic experiences’ dimensions were resilience’s aspects and none cognitive. Among these resilience’s aspects, it was highlighted Structured style, which predicted three different dimensions. Those findings show the relevant role of resilience in adaptive process faced by this population and, consequently, in their academic success.