Polite exclusion: high-performing immigrant students experience of peer exclusion

ABSTRACT

Integration problems are often explained in terms of segregation. Students with immigrant backgrounds are frequently associated with so-called ethnically segregated residential areas and stigmatized, low-performing, suburban schools. In contrast, this study investigates high-performing students attending a well-reputed school. While formally valued and included, they are subtly socially excluded by their peers. This exclusion is expressed in a subtle, almost intangible ways. It is, above all, polite, and expressed in tiny, everyday interactions. The fact that this exclusion is polite and intangible makes it hard to resist. There is little concrete action to object to, the risks of social stigma are too high, and the possibility of change too low. Thus the exclusion can continue unchallenged. The results show that formal, structural inclusion does not automatically lead to everyday, social inclusion. The research method consisted of participant observation, including audio recordings of interviews with students, their teachers and school leaders.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnicity
• inclusion
• exclusion
• school
• high-performing students
• immigrant

Introduction

The ongoing creation of a European citizenship on both discursive and practical levels has led to new dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, where certain types of migrants are regarded as unwanted, and faced with marginalization, vulnerability, and unemployment. As various parts of societies react to migrants, the migrants can find themselves both marginalized and segregated, but also, due to the complex social interactions and dynamics in play, wanted and accepted. Thus migrants may be both included on one level, and excluded on another, leading to ever-shifting dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. This creates new boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, where migrants can be regarded as both valuable, and threats to a national or political identity.

In Sara Ahmed’s work on what she calls the phenomenology of whiteness, certain bodies are more prone to being excluded than others. Whiteness tends to command inclusion, while black and colored bodies tend to engender exclusion. According to Ahmed, this leads to the situation where increased whiteness allows people to slide more comfortably through space and time (Ahmed 2007).

Thus, having the ‘right’ (i.e. white) body, along with having the ‘right’ citizenship and passport, allows for an increased ability to cross borders, pass or bypass social stations, and overcome challenges in society (cf. Bucholtz 2011; Hall 1996b). However, certain bodies are more inclined to being stopped than others. There is also a strong correlation to economic and social processes, where having the ‘right’ body brings economic and social advantages (Fangen 2010), which, in total, creates a monumental impact upon the emotional aspects of fitting in, and feeling comfortable, in a particular society, space, or situation. In other words, there is a dynamic to being included or excluded, and what that means to one’s feeling of fitting in or not. Gamson (1995, 3) stresses the many available flavors of exclusion, where some forms may barely be noticed by the included, but may hurt more than overt and more obvious varieties to the excluded.

A phenomenology of being stopped can help us understand young people’s experiences and feelings of social exclusion and discrimination. It can also explain the emotional dimension of being stopped, where a person is unable to physically pass a border, is redirected from their goal, or is forced to choose another path (cf. Ahmed 2007).

However, where Ahmed (2007) focuses on skin color as the main reason for being stopped, this study uses the concept of Swedishness as the ability of passing through or of being stopped. Swedishness is, of course, connected to whiteness and skin color. However, in a Swedish context there is a clear reluctance to discuss race, as the concept is inherently linked to racism in the Swedish political and public debate (cf. Eriksen 2010a). This is not to say that Sweden is devoid of racism. As Eriksen (2010a, 6) states, the concept of race is a cultural construct based on the idea of inherited psychological characteristics, a concept that carries social weight regardless of whether it has an objective, biological basis. In the Swedish context, this idea of race is articulated in terms of being ‘Swedish’ or being ‘Other.’

Thus the students in this study do not relate their experiences of exclusion to skin color. Instead, they focus on other aspects of being stopped, and by using the ideas of Swedishness, I hope to show how it influences young people’s feelings of inclusion and exclusion. Ahmed’s theory of being stopped has been used in a Swedish context to highlight immigrant youth experiences of exclusion (Herz and Johansson 2012).

The main focus of this study is the experiences of being stopped in relation to social exclusion, and the strategies used to handle this exclusion, with particular emphasis on the participant’s own experiences and feelings of exclusion.

The interest of this article lies in the complex variability between the positions of exclusion and inclusion. By taking into account both formal and informal structures, the aim is to shed light on the dynamic interplay between patterns of inclusion and exclusion. The students in focus of this study have already overcome several aspects of being stopping. They or their parents have crossed borders, legally or illegally. They have passed the compulsory admission test to the well-renowned high school program they attend. They pass their exams with good grades. Despite the fact that they are included in the Swedish education system, they face problems concerning social access to the peer group they refer to as ‘the Swedes’.

In the political discussion, integration problems are often explained in terms of segregation. Students with immigrant backgrounds are frequently associated with so-called ethnically segregated residential areas and stigmatized, low-performing, suburban schools, where they have no opportunity to meet Swedish peers, and this is provided as the explanation for their low chances of integration. In contrast, this study investigates high-performing students attending a well-reputed, inner-city school. Despite the students being high-performing and ambitious highgoal-setters with good grades, coming from a middle-class background, and being described in positive terms and seen as resources by school staff and leaders, they still faced problems concerning peer access.

Young people with a migration background, i.e. those who themselves or whose parents have migrated, living in socio-economically disadvantaged residential areas in so-called segregated suburbs, have in recent years been a major research area in Sweden (Sernhede 2011; Haglund 2005; Wiltgren 2014b, 2016; Runfors 2016). A recurring theme in several studies draws attention to the fact that these students are viewed as different and subordinate, leading to marginalization and exclusion.

Instead, this study focuses on a group rarely addressed in research context, namely young people with a migration background in an inner-city school with a good reputation, who do not live in segregated areas characterized by exclusion and other forms of socio-economic problems. They are in this sense an example of how the sought-after integration, in the form of formal inclusion for those who manage to break the code to the Swedish education system, works in relation to ethnicity. The high-performing immigrant student who lives in privileged areas in the inner city destabilizes Swedishness, since immigrant students are associated with suburbs and low performance. This category does not have a name; ‘high-performing immigrant student’ is not a term that is used. This lack of nomenclature challenges ideas about Swedish and non-Swedish, where non-Swedish are not expected to perform.

The students in this study have broken the code to the education system, the vast majority have middle class backgrounds and parents who can help them navigate the Swedish school system. They have good grades, and high ambitions and goals. In this sense, they are included in society, and are very likely to succeed academically and professionally. And they have each other, a group of resourceful peers with the ability to support.

Their successful school performance, however, does not automatically spare them from encountering problems. The purpose of the overall project has been to investigate success strategies used by high-performance students with migration background, as well as the social obstacles and problems they face and how they deal with these. In this article I will highlight the gap between formal inclusion and subjective feelings of inclusion by focusing on how students with a migration background talk about what I will term a polite form of exclusion. The interest is directed towards how they are treated, appealed and interacted in an everyday school context in relation to the notions of Swedishness and non-Swedishness.

A key premise of this study is that identity creation and ethnic relations should be understood in relation to the normative but at the same time implicit Swedishness (cf. Hall 2013). Swedishness creates the framework through which individuals experience ease and acceptance in social and institutional contexts (cf. Ahmed 2012). Since Swedishness is normative, possessing it means not standing out.

Swedishness is a property of how others view one, rather than of self-image. Being perceived as having Swedishness has a direct impact upon the youth’s future by establishing them as belonging and giving them opportunities in the local social setting (Herz and Johansson 2012). Traditionally, inclusion and exclusion are presented as binary variables. In this view, a marginalized person can either move towards exclusion or towards inclusion. However, switching to a more dynamic perspective of inclusion and exclusion allows for the possibility that inclusion in one arena may be either correlated, or directly independent, to exclusion from another. By viewing inclusion in terms of an ongoing process, we can avoid a fix explanation to a binary either/or explanation (Fangen 2010).

Us and them

Hall points out that the boundaries have become more fluid, but it would be a mistake to assume that categorizations have become unimportant. On the contrary, questions about identities have become increasingly important over time (Hall 2000). Identification is constructed through ambivalence and differentiating between that which one is and that which is the other, when it comes to categories such as ethnicity, nationality, gender or class; to say ‘I am this, but not that’ (Hall 2000, 147; Wiltgren 2017). All individuals belong to several social collectives, sometimes referred to as multiple identities. The question of belonging may however not become a struggle or even an issue as long as individuals or groups do not feel excluded (Anthias 2006). Drawing on whiteness, Ahmed argues that whiteness is invisible for those who inhabit it or those who get so used to its existence that they learn to not see it, even when they are not part of it. This leads to the institutionalization of certain likeness, which makes non-white bodies feel uncomfortable, exposed, visible, and different, when they take up a given space (Ahmed 2007, 157). This reluctance to explain the difference of access to power in terms of race has been termed color blindness (Bonilla-Silva 2006). As Bucholtz (2011) argues, color blind discourse is enacted through its silence as much as its words.

In race research, driven by Critical Race Theory, there is ample evidence of implicit forms of racism, showing the prevalence of everyday racism and various forms of micro-aggression (Gillborn 2006; Kohli and Solórzano 2012). Although the students in this study do not mention the word racism, the concept of racially motivated micro-aggressions fits well with their descriptions and experiences. The concept of micro-aggressions, defined as ‘the subtle forms of racism that exist in daily life, which may be hard to pinpoint as racism but cause harm nonetheless’ (Kohli and Solórzano 2012, 6) was pioneered in the field of Critical Race Theory, and can be described as subtle verbal and non-verbal insults’ often carried out unconsciously, which are layered and cumulative in nature (Kohli and Solórzano 2012; cf. Pérez Huber and Solorzano 2015).

The analytic framework of this study is that identity categories are created in the meeting with other groups and that they are not a natural property of a group but rather an aspect of a relationship (Eriksen 2010b; Hall 2000). Therefore, focus should be on how identities and differences are created in various situations, how they are described, explained, communicated, distributed, and reproduced. Differences between groups are not absolute or objectively observable facts, but ongoing constructions that must constantly be recreated in new and changed social contexts (Hall 1996a).

Depending on context, identities may be an assigned, enforced or self-propelled positioning. Identities are, in other words, not entirely self-chosen or subjective, since an individual’s self-presentation may differ from the interpretation of the individual’s interpretation (Brubaker 2004, 556; Bucholtz 2011, 2). Identities are complex, and include a number of ranking categories such as class, gender, and sexuality (Yuval-Davis 2006; Hall 1996b, 444; West and Fenstermaker 1995).

Research traditions of today perceive ethnicity as socially designed, but empirical studies indicate that ethnic background affects how we relate to people (Wiltgren 2014a, 2014b; Migliarini 2018). Ethnicity, as well as other social categories such as gender, are socially created, however their consequences are socially significant (West and Fenstermaker 1995, 25).

Fieldwork and interviews

As a participant observer, I followed an upper secondary class with an international profile during classes, lunches and breaks, during one semester in the autumn of 2016. Attending an International program is an active choice, giving access to higher education in Sweden and abroad. Admission to the program requires an entrance examination in math and English. All lessons are in English. The majority of the students have a middle-class background and highly educated parents. Two-thirds of the students have a migration background, i.e. the students or their parents have migrated. Some are newly arrived, either unaccompanied or with their parents who have migrated due to employment. Some have left war zones or are here to study on their own. I, too, have a migration background, as I was born in Syria but have been living in Sweden since first grade. Our shared migration background might have had an influence to the close relation I developed with some of the students. Most teachers and the school leader have Swedish background, some teachers in this study are white Europeans.

Beside participant observation including field notes, the study is based on a triangulation consisting of 36 individual interviews with students, one group interview (with five students), and six individual interviews with teachers and one school leader. All the participants got to choose the language of the interview, mostly Swedish or English. One interview was conducted in a mixture of English and Arabic, due to the fact that code switching was a common trait in the conversation with that particular student. The research project is approved by the Swedish ethical board (Regionala etikprövningsnämnden).

Field notes in combination with transcriptions of interviews were the core element in the analysis. In the field notes I wrote down observations of incidents, conversations between students or between students and teachers, interaction rituals, and participants. In addition to this, I wrote down observed body language, such as gazes, smiles, eye contact etc. Being in the field facilitated the interviews at the end of the fieldwork. I was able to ask directed questions and ask for clarifications concerning specific episodes I had observed, and the students could refer to incidents and group dynamics they knew I was familiar with. The analysis is based on thematic analysis as has been described by Braun and Clarke (2006). Participant observation, field notes and interviews resulted in a huge amount of data, which I handled in different steps. The first step consisted of familiarizing myself with the data, immersing myself by reading, rereading and combining the field notes and interview transcriptions. Thereafter, I began the coding process which involved generating labels for data features of relevance to the research question. The next step was the search for themes, a theme being a coherent and meaningful pattern in the data that holds relevance to the research interest (Braun and Clarke 2006). One of the emerging themes was the exclusion the students described. Since the students mentioned feelings of exclusion from the first day I met them and onward, I knew that it was crucial part of their everyday school lives, and could explore their social environment further during interviews.

The overall aim of the project was to investigate success strategies in conjunction with identity among high-performing students from immigrant families, rather than investigating exclusion. However, numerous field observations, coupled with students raising the issue of exclusion as a problem during informal conversations as well as in the interviews, made it hard to ignore, as my intention was to uncover emic perspectives (cf. Eriksen 2010b, 40).

The study is based in everyday school interactions, but the acts and experiences taking place there are part of a larger context. Marcus (1998, 58) views ethnography as strategically situated, meaning that local ethnography allows us to understand not only the local, but also the general. Thus, the way differences and similarities between specific groups are created and filled with meaning can tell us something about group dynamics in a larger social context.

Unwritten rules and unspoken boundaries; not Swede enough

Students with migration backgrounds, regardless of whether they are newly arrived or born in Sweden, are described by their teachers and the school management in this study as resources that enrichen the cultural environment of the school. Teachers describe the students as high achievers, ambitious, diligent, and hard-working. Thus, they are seen as positively contributing to the school’s reputation, and serve as a contrast to the prevailing media image of students with migrant background in so-called underprivileged areas.

However, regardless of their academic achievements, students with migration backgrounds suffer similar problems in regards to peer inclusion and contact with Swedish peers (cf. Nilsson Folke 2016; Wernesjö 2015, see also Crozier and Davies 2008; Kohli and Solórzano 2012; Migliarini 2018; Picower 2009; Welply 2018 for an international context). Inclusion can refer to the strength of an individual’s experience of being involved in decision-making and access to resources and information, but it can also refer to the feeling of belonging and of being appreciated for one’s unique characteristics. The results of this study show that inclusion and exclusion may co-exist for any given individual and in any given setting. One of the first observation that struck me, during field observation, was that the class was ethnically divided, where the white, blonde students, commonly referred to as ‘the Swedes’, sat to the right in the classroom, and the rest were mixed in the middle and to left side. A few exceptions were spotted and were regarded by the students as atypical. This is how two newly arrived students describe the segregation in the classroom:

They [The Swedish classmates] won’t let other people, unless you are Swede, to be in their group, so I think that’s kind of segregation. (Christine)

The [name of program] tries to unite people and give you international perspective and accept other cultures, and I don’t really understand why they [the Swedish students] will join such a program that has those standards, when really you want to be isolated in your culture, you know. And it’s so extremely clear in the classes; foreigners, Swedish. (Emanuel)

Neither Christine, nor Emanuel refer to their non-white bodies as a reason for being excluded (cf. Ahmed 2007), instead they refer to their non-Swedish background. Christine describes the division in terms of exclusion and segregation, while Emanuel notes that the division is quite obvious. Both focus on those students who maintain the borders by not allowing those who are not seen as ‘Swedes’ access, and by isolating themselves in their own cultural sphere.

Both Christine and Emanuel describe those termed as ‘Swedes’ as having agency, and the power to allow or reject peers attempts to access the given social groups. During interviews, a notable number of students mention the ethnic segregation in the class, without me having specifically asked about it. When I ask Hassan about his experiences of the school’s social environment, he too, mentions the prevalence of factions within the class, with those he terms ‘the Swedes’ isolating themselves from the rest, and I ask him:

– But is it hard to, do you think it would be hard to get into that group if you wanted to?

– I dunno. Dunno! They seem, you know, you have to make a great effort. You have to change yourself. You have to change your personality.

– To? To what?

– To what they are! [snorts] I don’t know what they are [laughs].

The responsibility for potential inclusion in the group termed ‘the Swedes’ lies with Hassan. To be included, he needs to change himself and his personality (cf. Herz and Johansson 2012). In other words, he needs to become more ‘alike’ in order to be included (cf. Ahmed). At the same time, Hassan states that he lacks the knowledge of what is required to be ‘alike’, which makes the venture seem like an impossible project. This leads to Hassan being stopped (cf. Ahmed 2007). The current discourse on inclusion, according to Sara Ahmed (2012), risks making those seeking inclusion into a problem. Thus, it is Hassan who is burdened with the problem and, at the same time, expected to find a solution (cf. Gillborn 2006).

During a group interview with five of the students termed ‘the Swedes’, I ask how they experience the school’s social environment, they, too, mention the division within the class, stating that ‘our class is divided’. Hugo, explains: ‘we are a core group, and then there are those who participate now and then.’ But during this interview, the division is not explained in terms of ethnicity. Instead, the students point to commonalities and shared interests as the explanation for their impeccable community. Elsa explains: ‘we are all alike in various ways’ and Patrick adds: ‘and we have the same sort of humor’.

Elin reiterates that ‘I believe you can sense who is similar to yourself’. The students’ answers make me ask whether inclusion ‘requires some kind of similarity?’ and Elsa confirms that ‘yeah, some’. Her friends nod in agreement.

In other words: Hassan is not wrong in his analysis. To be included you need be alike. But Hassan can’t quite grasp what it entails, since he is not included in their community. To be potentially included, he needs to achieve likeness in some other way. This leads to a catch-22 situation: to be included, you need to be alike, but to be alike, you need to be included. The outcome being that only those who already are alike are included. This is also the explanation for the few students who, despite their migration backgrounds, are accepted by Hugo, Elsa and their core group. Emanuel draws the conclusion that ‘they are more Swedish’.

Swedishness, in this case, is not something concrete or formal. It is not about where you are born or what you ‘are’. It is rather about being alike, about emulating Swedish peers. Ahmed (2007, 158) argues that institutions are oriented around whiteness, so that even bodies that might not appear as white still have to inhabit whiteness, if they are to be accepted in the social group.

Part of the usually cited explanation regarding the lack of contact between Swedish students and students with a migration background is that they do not encounter each other (cf. Sernhede 2011). But the spatial segregation that exists in many places, for example through segregated living or segregated schools (Sernhede 2011), or because newly migrated students can become stuck in introductory classes (Nilsson Folke 2016), does not exist here.

In the studied school, students encounter each other in the hallways, in class, and during school activities. And during school, they meet on equal terms regarding education and school work. Since the class language is English, newly arrived students can start classes immediately, omitting the usual Swedish language introduction classes where students with migrant backgrounds might be placed and risk being stuck for several years. However, formal inclusion does not automatically lead to social inclusion. Rather, the students describe an indistinct distancing, which is a form of subtle exclusion.

Sometimes I have been assigned to do stuff with them, and it’s not really like they talk to me, and they know that I don’t speak Swedish but even though, they speak Swedish, so I …

[…] like imagine: I’m in a group with Elsa and August, and I’m there as well, so three people. They would talk among them in Swedish, which I don’t understand, and then, when it is extremely necessarily they will have to speak with me in English, but there is not like they would engage in to conversation with me or anything. (Emanuel)

Partially, this is a matter of adjustment. Emanuel possesses failings that hinder his participation in the conversation, he is being stopped (cf. Ahmed 2007). It is Emanuel who needs to fit in, not August or Elsa, who, after all, do talk to him when it is obviously necessary to complete their school assignment. This subtle verbal exclusion can be construed as micro-aggression (Gillborn 2006; Kohli and Solórzano 2012), as it is an every-day, small-scale and not overtly racist occurrence that still causes Emanuel to feel unease.

Even though his peers do talk to him, Emanuel feels that their motivation is based on duty and politeness, rather than interest. Christine points out that her peers reply when she talks to them, but out of politeness, not interest, and she comes to the conclusion that they do not intend to include her in their social circle. Thus the exclusion remains, in spite of daily encounters and interactions.

I mean they would like, you know, talk to you and that, but you would feel yourself like “oh this person doesn’t like me”. Or this person just wants to talk to me cause I’m talking to him or her, but is not actually going to, like include me in the, for example their kind of squad. […] Haven’t you noticed like no one except them has actually, you know, like, tried to, get in to their group because it’s like always been like that. (Christine)

When it becomes unavoidable, Emanuel and Christine are addressed. But at the same time, there is an implicit message that their class peers do not want to talk to them, or include them in their peer group. When Christine attempts to explain it to me, she suddenly stops and wonders, somewhat reproachfully, whether I haven’t noticed the processes she describes. After all, I have spent an entire semester in her class. Instead of answering her question, I ask another one, what she thinks causes this self-experienced distancing.

- They think that we’re weird.

- Why?

- Because I don’t know, we don’t, we are not like them.

- In what sense?

- We’re not Swede enough [laughs]

Christine’s father is defined as a Swede, but Christine has inherited her mother’s looks and skin tone, and Swedish is not her strongest language. Christine draws the conclusion that her peers consider her odd because the group they associate her with is considered odd since they are not Swede enough. This division is perceived as both obvious and inflexible. Emanuel describes it in terms of different worlds.

They want to have like their own world, they only speak Swedish among themselves. They don’t talk to you, like you, you probably have seen that in every class, there is like the foreigners and the Swedish. (Emanuel)

The insidious nature of micro-aggressions is that they are tacit and unconscious. The effect is that the perpetrators of micro-aggressions can deny any racist intent or claim that the victims of these insults have overacted or are too sensitive. The consequence is that victims can neither easily presume racist intent nor oppose these tacit aggressions because of their implicit nature and absence of concrete proof (Kohli and Solórzano 2012; Welply 2018).

This division into Swedes and others, which Emanuel describes in terms of different worlds, is never mentioned during the interviews with students that have Swedish as their mother tongue, nor with the teachers. When I mention it, the teachers admit that they have thought about it, but explain the cohesion between the students described as the Swedes with the fact that the students have previously attended the same school and live in the same area. This reluctance to explain the segregation in the classroom in terms of ethnicity has been termed color blindness (cf. Bonilla-Silva 2006; Bucholtz 2011). This is not something unique to Sweden. Crozier and Davies (2008) report how white British teachers regarded students of British South Asian heritage as excluding themselves, while in fact they were being pushed out and set apart as different by their peers. The reluctance to see racism as an institutional practice serve to maintain white supremacy (Picower 2009).

When I ask the students commonly referred to as ‘the Swedes’, it turns out that they live far from each other, travel to school in different ways, and have neither attended the same schools nor known each other before attending this one. But Elin explains that ‘it took very little time to decide which people you wanted to hang out with’. Once this selection process was complete, the spatial segregation in the classroom began, with the students commonly referred to as the Swedes choosing to sit along the right side of the classroom. Those excluded from this community chose to create a separate, more inclusive community of their own.

They always stick together, they’re always in a circle, they always stand in a circle. Where’s the rest, everyone else, that’s not excluding the left or right, this is everyone else except for the eight people who’re standing in the circle. Everyone else is moving, going talking to this person and moving to that person and moving to this person and moving to that person. We tend to move around, during the breaks that we have, asking people ‘how are you?’ and stuff. Whilst, I haven’t yet seen some of the people in that circle come up to anyone else other than that circle and say hey, good morning, what’s up?” I haven’t yet seen it. And every time I’m passing them I always greet them cause I know they’re there and I say ‘good morning’ and they say good morning back. But, I have never seen them have the initiative to come in and look if someone says ‘good morning, what’s up?’ other than with their group. (Ali)

Contact is desirable for students with migration backgrounds, but they do not experience that the desire for contact is reciprocal. Ali, a student living in Sweden for four years, with a background in Africa, describes peers who mingle and engage others, except the core group which always sticks together, and who politely return greetings but never initiate them. In Ali’s description there is a clear discourse of ‘us’ and ‘them’, where one group seeks contact, but is usually stopped (cf. Ahmed 2007). There lies a paradox, in that there is little exclusion amongst the excluded. The exclusion springs into existence in the juxtaposition with the normative majority. It is when compared to the majority that the minority is found lacking, and thus subject to a negative social hierarchy marking them as less desirable.

The task of initiating and upholding a conversation rests on Ali and his contact-seeking peers, but the results are manifested as polite exclusion in the form of curt answers that do not leave much room for continued conversation. Describing this rejection, Christine uses the metaphor of building walls, concluding that ‘they are so used to having their old friends, that they build walls to new ones’.

‘Like a door slam in your face’

If you start asking questions for example, they will just answer with really short answers and end the conversation. And they will just start talking to each other, they will just start talking Swedish.

– And that’s a way of doing what?

– Ignoring you, just isolating you, from their group, if you want to enter their group. (Jozef)

Code-switching between languages can be a method of exclusion (Wiltgren 2016), something Jozef, a newly arrived student from Syria, terms being ignored, isolated, and excluded. Another exclusion strategy Jozef mentions is when his peers answer him politely but curtly, which he interprets as a lack of interest in keeping the conversation going. This is a strategy that several students mention:

When you just have to deal with people, and you have to like, talk to them, but you’re not really into it, so you give vague answers or just “yeah, okay”, you know. It’s not like they want to engage in a conversation with you, know your interests, know your perspective. It’s just like, yeah, like “don’t talk to me” [raises his hand in front of me and looks away]. But there is not like so explicit that they’re “I do not like you, I don’t want to talk with you”, it’s more like their actions. (Emanuel)

An implicit message of exclusion is hard to object to. Traditionally, research on bullying uses several criteria to define bullying, amongst others an intent to cause harm (Olweus 2009.) This type of open exclusion did not occur during my observations and was not mentioned in interviews. No one is verbally mean. Jozef and Emanuel are never told that their peers do not like them, or do not want to talk to them. But the peers’ disinterest in conversing with them, and their interests and perspectives, is clearly signalled. Christine explains it in the following words: ‘They don’t, say it out loud, but by their body language.’ Since this concerns subtle rather than explicit exclusion, it is hard to put into words, or to challenge.

When you start a conversation, they don’t really, I don’t know how to, I mean, haven’t you noticed? Like, being awkward, Swedes, like, they give off the vibe that they don’t want to talk to you. […] I mean they would probably answer nananana [looks away and waves her hands uninterested], but they wouldn’t like, they would just give a yes or no, but they wouldn’t take the conversation further. (Andrea)

Andrea’s peers do answer her questions, but the answers are curt and do not elicit further conversation. This makes Andrea interpret her peers’ reactions as a lack of inclination to talk to her. They are polite, but uninterested. This form of micro-aggressions is hard to challenge, and its target risks being regarded by peers as overly sensitive (Welply 2018).

Since the students have individualized class choices, they are sometimes apart from their friends in school. This is something Ali often uses in order to create connections with his Swedish peers. During numerous encounters I observe how he is treated with avoidance and curt answers. Here Ali describes how he attempts to start a conversation and a connection with August:

I tried to have a conversation with him and he kept on giving me short answers, and it, it was like “eh, what have you been doing the last few days?” “Nothing!” [shrugs and pauses] “nothing!” [pauses and stares at me]. That was his answer. How does someone continue from there? When someone direct gives you a cold answer. Other people usually say “eh, not much, actually you know, just going around”. And you can continue from there, but when someone just say “Nothing”, that cold “nothing!” You know when someone is uninterested in talking to you. But I’m still trying, I was like “What do you mean, you were just sitting at home?” and he was like “Nah, I was just at home, yeah”. And, it’s really hard to connect with someone that does not wanna talk […] You knock on the door and they open and then they close immediately, like a door slam in your face … (Ali)

The responsibility of initiating and sustaining a conversation rests with Ali. If he does not act, there will be no conversation. At the same time, no one is rude or mean to him. August does reply to Ali’s questions, although he shows a definite lack of engagement.

Despite the fact that Ali likens the attempts at conversation to a closed door, he stresses that one can never stop trying since that would be the final proof that one has failed and given up on oneself. But how does one get past a closed door, I ask Ali, and he cheerfully replies that:

You keep knocking! Eventually the person will open the door. You can’t, you can’t keep the door shut forever. Keep knocking and the person will finally get irritated and open it up for you.

As argued by Kohli and Solórzano (2012), in order to understand micro-aggression, attention needs to be given both to the act itself and to the response to these micro-aggressions. The responsibility for gaining admittance to the sought after community lies with Ali, who is expected to find a solution, a way in. Here a clear discourse in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is revealed, a discourse where gaining inclusion is a task set for the individual, the inclusion seekers (cf. Ahmed 2012).

Not even ‘Hi’

Even though the segregation is described in terms of building walls, closed doors and living in different worlds, the students with migration backgrounds keep attempting to establish rapport with those who are described as ‘Swedes’, in the face of continuing resistance.

Andrea is one of the school’s ambitious and hard-working students. Her father is a Swede, and her mother is from Indonesia, and Andrea has been living in Sweden for the past year, learning Swedish. It is early morning, and she approaches her locker, walking through the almost empty corridor.

By the students’ lockers, she encounters Elsa, one of the so-called Swedes. Elsa has just gotten her books and is heading for the classroom. The girls are about to pass each other in the hall.

Andrea smiles in recognition and seeks eye contact. As they glance at each other, Andrea opens her mouth; it’s clear that she’s about to greet Elsa.

But Elsa averts her gaze, and moves closer to the wall, away from Andrea. She locks her gaze on the featureless wall while passing Andrea.

Andrea purses her lips. Her smile vanishes and she appears focused and stressed as she removes her books from her locker.

Meanwhile, Elsa has moved further down the hallway, where she counters her friend Elin. The girls happily shout greetings to each other. They approach, and Elsa pats Elin on the arm. They giggle while walking to class.

In class, they take seats where they always sit: at the right side of the classroom, together with their good friends Patrick, Hugo, and August. All of them are native Swedes, and they call themselves a core group when I interview them, after which they mention a number of students from class, whom they like to spend time with. Andreas is not one of them.

Andrea is not the only one this so-called core group do not greet. When I interview this group of students, I wonder whether they feel left out and whether that is why they stick together so fiercely. At first, they do not seem to understand the question. Then they explain that it is only natural to be unable to socialize with everyone in a class. This conclusion is shared by a number of students, including those with a migration backgrounds, but they all stress the need to be able to greet and talk to everyone.

Ali has developed a strategy of constantly taking the initiative to verbally greet the members of the core group, and they always politely return his greeting. But if he do not initiate a greeting, they pass him without one. Jozef has an opposite strategy; he has stopped greeting them at all. He explains that he has come to realize that they dislike greeting him, and that they feel discomfort when returning his greetings. He seems to suggest that he do not want to subject them to this discomfort, and at the same time wants to spare himself the unpleasantness of an obvious exclusion. He sadly explains:

Not even hi! I used to say hi to everyone but some of them just started not looking me in the eye when I pass. Okay, he doesn’t want to say even hi, so I’m just like “okay”. (Jozef)

These types of avoidance can be related to the norms of ceremonial distance, as Goffman describes it. Goffman relates ceremonial distance to class background in the sense that ‘the higher the class, the more extensive and elaborated are the taboos against contact’ (1967, 63). While describing a number of examples of non-person treatment, i.e. where lower status people are treated as if they do not exist, Goffman briefly relates it to matters of ethnicity and race (Goffman 1967). It is, however, hard to draw any conclusions concerning the intentions the high-status person has with their avoidance. Regardless, the result is hurtful to the person not being recognized through presentational rituals.

The most subtle and indirect form of exclusion is, according to Gamson (1995), social invisibility. Even though Jozef shrugs and says that he does not care, the descriptions of his exclusion take up a large part of the interview, without me having asked about it. Why spend so much time on something that one does not care about?

Leaders of tomorrow

Why is it considered of value to be greeted in the school corridors, to show interest by chit-chatting or be included in social interactions? Andrea explains that ‘it’s their country’ and thus that the core group are the higher-status group, the one with more power and influence. They are the ones everyone is supposed to emulate. Thus their exclusions carry different connotations than if a low-status group would have committed the same acts. When Andrea explains the situation, she conveys a sadness over how the situation plays out, but makes no accusations.

I think it kind of makes me feel inferior, because, they, they are not trying to but it’s just that I kind of feel like you know, this is their country, they’re the Swedes. Like, we’re, we just came here nanana, but that, of course that’s not what they’re doing. No, they can’t help it if they can only relate to themselves because they come from the same country. But, I just kind of feel like, why can’t we like all, talk to each other and be friends? (Andrea)

Andrea removes blame from those classmates she terms ‘the Swedes’. As several of her peers, she notes that there is a problem, but due to the fact that the exclusion is polite and subtle, it does not convey any legitimate causes for objection.

Occasionally, students with migration backgrounds state that ‘the Swedes don’t want to be with us’ or ‘our class is divided’. In spite of this, only two students with migration background mention the word ‘racism’. One of them, Emanuel, says in an apologetic tone that he sounds like a racist when he describes Swedes as introverted and culturally stifled. The other, Poneh, who is born in Sweden but whose parents come from Iran, states that ‘I don’t believe it’s about racism’. She had earlier described the division in her class in terms of unfortunate coincidences, such as not sharing the same interests.

I ask her what this division might convey in a societal perspective. This makes her reflect in ways she has not considered before, and she thinks out loud: ‘well, if you see it already, that we’re so divided, then you’re going to keep fraternizing with only the people you believe you have the most in common with’. Poneh takes the analysis a step further, and explains that this would mean that those in positions of power only further the interests of, and employ, those they consider ‘alike’. Suddenly she exclaims: ‘wow, that’s the root of racism!’ She then retreats and says: ‘no, just kidding’, but regains her serious disposition and states dispiritedly:

I haven’t actually thought about this before. It’s interesting. Yeh, it’s not so good! Really not good! But there’s not much you can do about it.

The powerlessness that Poneh expresses is found among most of the students. Nikos, whose parents have recently migrated from Greece and hold high-status positions in the healthcare sector, says that he understands his Swedish peers, and that he would likely act the same, if their roles were reversed. Later on, he states that he does not want to be in Sweden, and intends to move back as soon as possible. Jozef likens the situation to a wider social context and, engaged in the conversation, switches to Arabic, his native tongue. He explains that the peers who will not greet him in the hallway will end up:

- In the government! [switches to Arabic] In the government! In the parliament. Anywhere. The class is like a miniature society, but they’ll spread. If all classes are like this, it is a disaster.

- Disaster?! [Arabic]

- That’s why I’m not really encouraged to stay in this country. (Jozef)

Ali is one of the enterprising students, and sees it as his responsibility to engender change. His family has a background in two African countries with long-standing conflicts. One day, when we are alone in the cafeteria, he explains the importance of being able to socialize over group boundaries, and the dangers of not being able to do so. Like Poneh and Jozef, he contemplates how the social processes in the school relate to society at large. He explains: ‘They are our future. They are the leaders of tomorrow. What will happen to our society if they only stick together?’ During the interview, he continuously returns to the subject, and his misgivings:

I know Hugo is aiming for politics. I know August is also aiming for politics. I know many who are aiming for politics. If these socially closed groups are the ones that are gonna someday rule the country or even run it in some way, they will maybe, I hope that’s not true, make the social gap between the classes and also the people worse. (Ali)

There are grounds for the student’s avoidance of the word racism. No one in the class would describe themselves using that terminology, nor would anyone describe someone else using it. But racist processes and actions can exist even amongst groups that describe themselves as anti-racist (cf. Bonilla-Silva 2006). Racist processes do not have to begin with racist intentions as they become racist by their effects. It is therefore crucial to investigate how certain actions are felt, rather than the intentions of those imposing them (Fangen 2010).

Discussion

Inclusion is not a matter of either/or. The results of this study indicate that inclusion can very well coexist with exclusion, and formal inclusion is by no means a guarantee of social inclusion. In other words, inclusion cannot be reduced to the physical placement of students beneath the same roof. Ergo, while the students in this study are formally accepted and appreciated regardless of their backgrounds, they experience problems when interacting with those peers termed ‘the Swedes’.

No one mentions formal exclusion. Everyone is part of the educational system. Everyone is allowed to sit wherever they want. Everyone is allowed to walk wherever they want, and speak to whomever they want. And yet the differences in response differentiate certain students, and show whether their presence is appreciated or merely tolerated.

These types of polite exclusion and micro-aggressions are hard to challenge because they are subtle and not overt. Its covertness reduces the affected students’ ability to oppose or resist it. As their peers do reply when spoken to, even if curtly, and their teachers do not seem to see this division and exclusion as a question of ethnicity, the students have limited or curtailed options for objections and resistance (c.f. Crozier and Davies 2008; Kohli and Solórzano 2012). And even though the teachers say, during interviews, that they have observed the segregation present in the classroom, they explain it away as unfortunate circumstances, and since nobody objects, they do not act to break it up. And since nobody acts or objects, the possibilities of change remain minuscule. This form of exclusion relies, according to Gamson (1995) on collusion with the excluded.

A recurrent strategy among the students is to shrug and say that one does not care. Still, the problem does consume time and energy, as they do think about these subtle and hard-to-discern forms of distancing, rejections, and exclusions. I never asked any questions regarding exclusion during my fieldwork nor during the interviews as this was not the focus of the study. And yet, a majority of students mention different forms of exclusion, and tied it to ethnicity.

Shrugging and trying to persuade oneself that one does not care is a way to control the only thing one can control: one’s reactions and feelings. It is an attempt to make the situation insignificant, to remove its ability to affect one’s life. The fact that this exclusion is polite and intangible makes it hard for those experiencing it to object or resist. There is very little concrete action to object to, the risks of social stigma of doing so are too high, and the possibility that it would lead to changes are too low. In addition to this, the risk for the protesting student to be seen as the source of the problem is acute (cf. Ahmed 2012) since they cause trouble for unsuspecting classmates who, without violating any formal rules, are portrayed as bad guys (cf. Bonilla-Silva 2006). Thus the exclusion can continue unchallenged.

The alternative becomes to accept a painful situation, or for single individuals to attempt to violate the codes whenever opportunity presents itself. It becomes an individual project rather than a collective one, and individual successes do not change the conditions for the community as a whole. The individual simply becomes exempt.

During a visit to the school some weeks after the end of my fieldwork, Ali tells me that one of their teachers has broached the subject of the segregation in class, and exhorted the students to sit by someone they have not talked to that day. I am reminded of my interview with the particular teacher, and his mentioning that particular strategy as a way to get students to get to know each other. But I do not mention this to Ali, who happily relates:

I actually really like the idea, because I got to talk to someone who I haven’t spoken to the whole year, Patrick. I haven’t spoken to him cause I thought he was such an unsocial person, because he really gives off the feeling that you can’t talk to him. But he’s actually a nice guy. I told some jokes and he laughed, so I think I have a chance of getting a seat with him. I’m trying my best! (Ali)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working life and Welfare under Grant [2015-00302].