Online Digital Mentorship : How Might a Digital Communication Tool Facilitate Informal Learning and Integration of Newly Arrived in Sweden

• The arrival of large groups of refugees is one of the great challenges in Europe today. In Sweden around 100 000 new immigrants is expected to arrive from Syria only during 2017 and there are large groups from various countries already staying in Sweden that are not properly integrated. There are no quick and smart solution to solve the inclusion of the large number of new citizens and the idea should rather be a holistic approach combining several initiatives. Lack of language skills is one of the underlying reasons for new arrivals exclusion from the labour market and social networks. Online informal language learning and digital mentorship with two way communication between New Arrivals and established Swedes might be a way to facilitate the inclusion and integration process. The aim of the study was to examine to which extent a digital communication tool could act as a resource in order to make the integration process more effective for newly arrived immigrants and refugees. Research was carried out as a qualitative cross‐sectional study with data gathered by semistructured interviews. Five educators who are actively working with newly arrived immigrants and refugees were interviewed with use of the Skype tool. A thematic analysis was conducted to find patterns and to create themes and categories that could answer the main research question: How might a digital communication tool be designed to facilitate the integration and inclusion of new arrived refugees in Sweden? The answers could be structured according to two overall themes: “Usable” and “Flexible”. The theme “Usable” consisted of three sub‐themes Ease of Access, Improved language skills and Integrity Facilitation, while the theme “Flexible” was divided into two subcategories Adaptable and Educational content. The findings confirm that a digital communication tool would support integration of new arrivals by facilitating personal dialogues with established Swedes. The recommendation is to create an online platform that supports language learning and enables multi‐way digital mentorship in a social network with benefits for the established Swedes as well.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap -- Mänsklig interaktion med IKT (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications -- Human Aspects of ICT (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Lärande (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Learning (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Newly arrived refugees

Immigration

Integration

Inclusion

Online communication

Informal online learning

E‐learning

Computer and Systems Sciences

data- och systemvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)