Newly arrived vocational students’ situation in life and at school : Understanding teacher stories through Foucault’s power and counter-power

• This study investigates prominent themes about newly arrived immigrant students’ situation in life and at school as reflected in interviews with four teachers in a vocational upper secondary school located in a Swedish city suburb dominated by residents with immigrant background. Foucault’s concept of power and counter-power as well as Riessman’s narrative analysis are used to discuss and analyse the interviewed teachers’ descriptions. The results highlight the power and counter-power mechanisms involved in the discrepancy between well-behaved and ambitious immigrant students and the media representations of the students' housing area as criminal. The study also points to the power and counter-power relations between certain immi-grant student groups with strong solidarity and other non-belonging students. There is also a power and counter-power dynamic between authorities making decisions affecting the immi-grant students' life situation and resistance to these decisions. The study contributes valuable information of the mechanisms involved in the lives of newly arrived immigrant young students in Sweden, with possible relevance to similar contexts in other Nordic and European countries.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

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

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogiskt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogical Work (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Power

Counter-power

Newly arrived immigrant students

Vocational upper secondary school

Foucault

Narrative research

Education

Pedagogik

Lärarutbildning och pedagogisk yrkesverksamhet

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)