‘I see it as a privilege to get to know them’. Moral dimensions in teachers’ work with unaccompanied refugee students in Swedish upper secondary school

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to analyze the moral dimensions of teachers’ experiences of working with unaccompanied refugee students in language introduction in Swedish upper secondary school. Theoretically, the analysis uses Bauman’s postmodern ethics, focusing on the tension between the social and the moral space in teachers’ encounters with unaccompanied students. The empirical material is derived from interviews with three teachers, and a reflexive interview approach was used. The outcome of the analysis shows that balancing professional and moral responsibilities is a challenge, and also that while teachers strive to see their students as Other in a moral sense, the demands of the profession might get in the way. This aporia of proximity – the insoluble conflict between the social and the moral space – is faced by the teacher as a moral subject, adding complex moral dimensions to teachers’ work with unaccompanied students.

KEYWORDS:

• Unaccompanied students
• teachers’ work
• moral space
• social space
• aporia of proximity

Introduction

Like many countries in Europe, Sweden saw a steep incline of refugees seeking asylum during 2015, and simultaneously, there was an increase of unaccompanied minors. An overwhelmed system, changes in laws regarding residency permits and the changed housing rules have put unaccompanied students in a uniquely exposed and vulnerable position in Sweden.

When education for these students is addressed, it is usually to point out the failures of the introductory program in particular. The difficulties that unaccompanied students face in the educational system are more dire than that of younger students, and the support structures around them and the teachers who work with these students have been dismantled piece by piece (see Jepson Wigg 2020). All of this of course impacts the students, but also the teachers responsible for their education. Meeting young people who are especially vulnerable within the educational system, creates tensions between a teacher’s professional and moral responsibilities.

Building on the issues outlined in the introduction, the aim of this article is to analyze the moral dimensions of teachers’ experiences of working with unaccompanied refugee students in Swedish schools. The analysis is based on extracts from an empirical material consisting of teacher interviews, set in relation to concepts from Bauman’s and Levinas’ ethical theories. These ethical concepts are built on a view of morality as responsibility for the Other, a responsibility which precedes and transcends any other form of responsibility for instance in a profession. This distinction between the social and the moral space (Bauman 1993) allows for a discussion about a teacher’s different responsibilities in working with this vulnerable group of students; the professional responsibility of upholding the curriculum within a specific system, and the responsibility as a moral subject meeting an unknowable Other (c.f. Biesta 2008). In the analysis, I try to trace the potential opposition primarily between the professional tasks, understood as the social space, and the responsibility for the Other in the moral space. Put differently: How can the relationship between professional and moral responsibility be understood in teachers’ work with unaccompanied students?

Unaccompanied refugee students in a Swedish context

The presence of unaccompanied students in Sweden is not new, but in 2015 a significant rise in numbers occurred due to the events in the Middle East. In the years prior, between 1000 and 2000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum each year. In 2015, according to statistics from the Swedish Migration Agency, 35 369 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum (https://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migrationsverket/Statistik/Asyl.html). The temporary law put in place in 2016 which means that only temporary residency permits are given, has meant that the number of unaccompanied minors have dropped to about 900 in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Most unaccompanied students who arrive in Sweden have had sporadic schooling due to the conditions in their country of origin, and many have been living in other countries than their country of origin, sometimes for years. Many have had traumatic experiences, some have lost their families, while others have had to leave their families behind. According to Swedish law, students who arrive before the age of 20 have the right to attend school, including upper secondary education which is a voluntary school form. Students then have the right to finish their studies. Most students first attend the Language introduction programme, where they mainly learn Swedish, meaning that subject studies are often put on hold during the time in language introduction. The Swedish National Agency for Education (2016) found that as few as 9% of unaccompanied students finished upper secondary school during a five year period. Those who do mostly study practically oriented introductory programs and find employment through work-placed education within those programs. Those who do not succeed in language introduction are referred to Swedish for immigrants. After a new temporary law was put in place in 2017, many of the unaccompanied minors were given temporary residence permits and face deportation when they finish their studies.

Literature review

The following section is compiled from previous studies about newly arrived students’ experiences of education at the upper secondary level. Internationally, the term ‘newly arrived students’ isn’t an established term, and research about this group is found in several adjacent fields. By now, a rather large number of studies have been made in pedagogy, special education and closely related subjects about newly arrived students, some of which focus specifically on upper secondary school-age students.

Newly arrived students are often assumed to lack knowledge in relation to the education system in the arrival country, and this can be reinforced if students have had traumatic experiences (Pastoor 2015; Devine and McGillicuddy 2016). This is labelled the deficit model; when newly arrived students fail to reach the goals and achieve passing grades, the students are made the bearer of the problem. The deficit model excludes the perspective of the students (Nilsson and Bunar 2016). A lack of coordination and structure in support offered to the students entails a risk that teaching becomes ad hoc, leading teachers to lower their expectations and demands (Devine and McGillicuddy 2016). The student is considered lacking by for example not learning Swedish, by having too little school background, or not reaching the goals (Axelsson and Nilsson 2013; Jepson Wigg 2016).

Several studies show that students experience introductory education as a waiting room or a dead end, both of which affect motivation to study, health and life outside school. When the students do not move on to regular instruction it can undermine motivation and create feelings of alienation (Skowronski 2013; Nilsson Folke 2015; Jepson Wigg 2017; Hagström 2018). Many students remain in language introduction for several years in a kind of ‘permanent temporariness’ (Skowronski 2013).

At the same time, there are a number of studies that show that late arriving and unaccompanied students often have a strong drive to succeed. Teachers often find these students diligent and eager to succeed in school (Stretmo and Melander 2018). The students know that is the gateway to creating a good life in Sweden (Sharif 2017; Jepson Wigg 2017). The school as an organization is forward-looking and thereby also offers a possibility to plan for the future (Hagström 2018).

The research situation about unaccompanied students provides a picture of a group of youths who in the world of school have particular challenges, pedagogically and socially, but who also have a strong drive and ability. The research also shows that introductory education as an institution is perceived by many students as a waiting room on the way to ‘real’ school, or even as a dead end, which affects motivation to study and possibility to become established in the new country. The research often focuses on students’ experiences or the structure of the education, while few if any studies focus on teachers’ work, including moral dimensions of the work with unaccompanied students.

Theoretical framework

The ethical theory formulated by Bauman proceeds from Lévinas’ assumption that ethical responsibility comes before being; it is pre-ontological (Lévinas 1969). Bauman (1993) builds on this, stating that morality cannot build on gaining knowledge about the other, but rather is only possible through the face-to-face encounter. In the encounter, I give the Other the right to place demands for responsibility. The pre-ontological condition means that other principles for ethics become impossible to formulate, because ethical principles are grounded in that which exists and that we can know something about.

Bauman (1993) describes different forms of encounters: being-beside, being-with and being-for. Being-beside designates coexistence only in physical space, without interaction between persons. In a being-with encounter people interact and have meaning for each other, but without those relationships becoming deeper or personal. It is possible to spend a longer period of time together without ever moving to a deeper form of encounter and the participants remain in their institutional roles. In a being-for encounter, however, predefined roles and expectations are exceeded, and unexpected situations can arise. It is in the being-for encounter that responsibility for the Other can be taken, as the Other’s alterity is also recognized, and there is no demand for reciprocation. This can also be expressed as a moral impulse (Bauman 1993).

Social responsibility also differs from moral responsibility in the sense that they appear in different spaces. In the social space there is right and wrong, principles and rules. In the moral space there is only the moral impulse; it is its entire ground. The moral space is a way to be together which does not follow the order in the social space. The cognitive or social space must counteract the moral impulse, in order to maintain the order that is created. As a moral person I am alone, even if as a social person I am always with others; I cannot lean on norms or other precepts (Bauman 1993).

But when responsibility is denied an aporia of proximity, a contradiction without a resolution, arises; when the command is answered and responsibility for the Other is taken, and when at the same time, knowledge of the Other is created that risks taking away the Other’s wish (Bauman 1993). Knowledge of the Other may lead to thinking we know what is best for the Other, and thereby no longer need to be receptive to their alterity and construct an ethical response on principles instead of the pre-ontological demand for responsibility. Knowledge is responsibility’s primary obstacle in this sense.

An important theoretical distinction is that the Other’s ‘otherness’ should not be seen as socially or culturally determined. The otherness, or alterity, should instead be understood as a condition for being, independent of social position. The Other, in Lévinas’ (1969) terms, is infinitely unknowable. Observing the Other in that way entails an approach that does not commit violence against the Other. It is this principle that for example Todd (2003) highlights as an important aspect in education:

That we simply need to know someone in order to be able to act responsibly toward (and receptive for) him, is a common way for people to talk about the conditions for ethical interaction. Especially within education this way of getting to know the Other (for example, for teachers to know their students via their experiences, cultural backgrounds, etc.) often become prerequisites for building relations that better attend to the affected persons’ needs (Todd 2003, 23).

Biesta (2008, 2017) also draws on Lévinas, when discussing uniqueness and subjectivity in education. Subjectivity is not identity, it doesn’t answer the question ‘who am I’ but rather ‘how am I’. Further, subjectivity is not in our own hands. Subjectivity does not exist in itself; it exists in the ethical relationship. This is relevant for education, because it calls in to question our assumptions about the role of education and teaching. Biesta (2008) talks of ‘pedagogy with empty hands’, in which knowledge, systemic conditions and ideas about best practice are put aside in order to: ‘ … be able to approach newcomers without an agenda or preconception, but in a way in which we can ask them what they are bringing to the world´(Biesta 2008, 208). It is this ethical approach that I have attempted to trace in the teacher interviews, and how that might create tensions in relation to the professional responsibilities within a specific educational system.

Method and materials

The study which this article draws material from had a qualitative design and the method used was reflexive interviews. The overall aim of the interviews was to explore teachers’ work with newly arrived students more broadly, and to accomplish that, a reflexive method was applied. Reflexive interviews are, according to Denzin (2001), instances in which people tell stories about themselves. He states that:

The interview is a way of writing the world, a way of bringing the world into play. The interview is not a mirror of the so-called external world, nor is it a window into the inner life of the person (Denzin 2001, 25).

Performing reflexive interviews mean acknowledging the historical, situational and interpretive aspects of doing research. The purpose of the interviews was not to gather information, but rather to put the stories told by the teachers into an interpretive relationship with the world (c.f. Denzin 2001). There is an ethical dimension to reflexive interviews; the statements made by the teachers reflect the moral and ethical issues of their specific context. Focusing on moral dimensions in teachers’ work, and the potential clash with demands on their profession is in line with a reflexive approach in that sense.

The material for the analysis in this article is based on a set of three teacher interviews. In preparation for the interviews I had formulated a few, broad themes on the topic of their work with newly arrived and unaccompanied students to centre the dialogue around. The teachers had the freedom to choose which theme to start with, and to take the interview in another direction if they wished. I took a more passive role in the beginning, and towards the end the interviews became more of a discussion. The issues regarding moral dimensions were not one of the themes, but rather was an aspect that came up during the interviews when the teachers talked about their work in relation to the framework of demands put on them as professionals by themselves and others.

The study was carried out in accordance with ethical guidelines provided by the Swedish Resarch Council (2017). Participation was voluntary, and the interviewees were informed that they could end the interview at any time. The names of the teachers have been altered, the material has been handled confidentially and all names and references to specific places or persons have been altered or removed. The focus on moral dimensions in the analysis was not an explicit purpose when the interviews were carried out, but given the reflexive approach and the closeness in the analysis to the teachers’ statements the analysis is still within the scope of the information given.

I have called the teachers Judith, Stephen and Tanya. Judith works as an upper secondary school teacher with newly arrived students in a medium-sized municipality, while Stephen and Tanya work as upper secondary school teachers at the same school in a large municipality. All three work within the introductory program for newly arrived students.

The interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the statements which I interpreted as touching on moral dimensions were extracted. The interview material that is presented is of a descriptive nature, not in order to reflect a supposed reality, but to, in line with a reflexive approach, show how the analysis of the interviews is interconnected with the teachers’ context. I then divided the statements into two themes, which were given the names Offering the classroom as a refuge and Balancing commitment and distance.

Results and analysis

Offering the classroom as a refuge

The teachers emphasize that an important part of encountering different experiences is about meeting the students as individuals. Tanya states that she hopes she tries not to see her students as belonging to a certain culture, but instead to always see them as individuals first in the classroom. Even if she can see certain cultural differences, all students are different, and how close Tanya as a teacher gets to students depends on how close they let her get.

Judith also stresses the importance of seeing all students as individuals, and says that many people she encounters have, in her opinion, a strange view of what problems this entails. She says that many people seem to have a perception of immigrant boys in particular as extremely rowdy and difficult, while she thinks it is the exact opposite:

The majority who come here are really amazing, you see … I see it as a privilege to get to know them, I don’t recognize myself at all in that picture that you read in the newspapers, that you can’t take in unaccompanied refugee children because it will be noisy and disorderly and … I don’t know what they’re talking about … Little boys who write in their essays that ‘I miss my mom’ and ‘I often cry for my mom’ and then when they arrive late and you ask, ‘Why were you late?’ they say ‘Well, I couldn’t sleep last night’ or ‘I sleep at night and then I dream about my family and then I can’t go back to sleep’ … The majority are very diligent, especially those who arrive alone, they have enormous motivation to learn and become something.

Stephen also says that the great majority of unaccompanied students that he encounters are very dedicated and motivated, even if they have different backgrounds and experiences. He thinks that in many cases the students feel as if they have arrived when they get to start school in Sweden, almost like coming home. Even the students who have had very little in the form of previous schooling, and who struggle more, think it’s fun to go to school, because they make friends there. He does not recognize the image either that unaccompanied students would somehow be more disruptive or see the teacher less as of an authority, even if he thinks that the difference between a possibly authoritarian school system in the student’s home country and the Swedish school can sometimes mean that students feel a bit uncertain about what is expected of them, and that he as a teacher has to put his foot down.

Another aspect of meeting students with respect and as individuals is about setting boundaries while also building trusting relationships. For example, it will not work at a future workplace to pound the boss on the back and say ‘what’s up, man’. Boundary setting is also about helping make things understandable, as Stephen puts it, so that the social contexts and conventions become explicit.

Tanya relates that sometimes students get into conflicts, or get tired of classmates who don’t behave themselves and that requires her being more strict:

A student who doesn’t work so well in the classroom, then others can get a little tired of that … I think that as a teacher you should be very clear and have limits, but it must be conveyed with warmth, I always say ‘a clear framework and hugs’ … They like when it’s a little strict like that, ‘Well, but you came a minute late’, although they can do that anyway, but they still like that you notice and show what is okay and what is not okay.

Furthermore, she states that she does not want to talk too much about the students’ problems in the classroom. If they don’t bring it up, she usually doesn’t either. Somewhere the students need to have a refuge, and the classroom can be that. If however she notices that a student is depressed, then the student needs support from a counselor or the like, but the whole group doesn’t need to go through the discussion, simply because many of them wouldn’t bear it.

Judith expresses a similar approach to the students. As stated previously it is about placing demands on the students, but at the same time treating them as individuals, with respect and warmth:

I think that they [the students] want a school where they are seen as individuals who have the possibility to learn, that you have expectations for them, that you make demands even if you do it in … you can do it in many ways, you can do it lovingly but strictly, or you can simply do it strictly, but I think that everyone who works here understands rather well what kind of difficulties they have and have it in the back of their mind somehow.

Judith also thinks that it is extremely important for the students to have a school to go to, regardless of their situation. The students make friends at school and that becomes a distraction from their own problems, and a routine in an existence that can feel uncertain. Having friends at school have a central significance for these students, according to the teachers. For that reason Judith does not want to bring up the students’ problems in the classroom, and keep the focus on the studies.

Moral impulses in the social space

The interactions and experiences that the teachers relate all take place within the social space of the classroom and the contingencies that come with it. The social room, and the ontological being, sets boundaries for encounters with the other. The teachers emphasize the importance of seeing each student as an individual, and not to form judgments or base communication on preconceived opinions about culture or background. They also talk about the importance of encountering each student with respect, one aspect of which is not to let what is private and difficult take up space in the classroom when it does not seem like the student would want this. This can be understood as meeting the Other, and taking on the responsibility that is fundamental in face-to-face encounters. Letting the school be a refuge and not being intrusive with questions can be seen as a response to the moral impulse.

At the same time, it is also possible to see the unwillingness to address troublesome issues during school hours as way of giving the social space precedent over the moral space. School as an institution has its own demands, norms and rules to follow, which might hinder or make responding to the moral impulse more difficult. The teachers also talk about setting boundaries, both in relation to the students and to their own professional role, as well as upholding what is their professional task. Providing space for the moral impulse can often be done, but perhaps not always. They do work to see the individual, but perhaps the full responsibility for the Other has to take place in encounters outside the social space of the classroom.

Balancing commitment and distance

Tanya states that the hardest thing about working at the school has to do with unaccompanied students who are depressed. Often the these students have had difficult lives. When they start school in Sweden, Tanya states that the worry the students carry is ever present. To begin with, the students have a feeling of having arrived at their goal, but if later the asylum application of a friend is rejected, worry spreads in the group:

It is visible in the classroom that there is chaos, then we send [the student] to the counselor and try to console, but it is an extremely heavy process … At the same time they don’t always know where their family is, or that you know that perhaps they are alive, but you have to lie and say that they are dead, that’s also denying their family in some way.

Tanya also says that even though the situation is the same for many of the students, the students handle it very differently. But there can also be a certain contrast between how the students are feeling and the requirements the school makes, which she finds difficult to handle:

At the same time as they come here and they are so battered, we have very high demands on them: ‘you have to come to school at eight-thirty, you must do your homework, you must do this and this and this and this’, at the same time the students are extremely worried, don’t always sleep, so it’s a rather difficult balancing act actually … and how you face that as a teacher, ‘cause my role is still to teach them Swedish, and a student who is depressed can’t be allowed to ruin it for the others either … So it can be pretty hard.

Even though Judith thinks that many of her unaccompanied students are doing surprisingly well, many still experience the situation they are living in as extremely difficult. Judith tells that many of her students suffer from the uncertainty and the very circumstance of being in an asylum process, and that it takes purely physical expression in some of them:

There are many here who have trouble sleeping so they’re late, and when you ask why, “I can’t sleep at night.” There are 16-year-olds who have to take sleeping pills to be able to sleep, many who go to BUP [pediatric psychiatry] and such … It’s probably good for them to have school to go to, I usually think … They know that the teachers here are on their side, I think that’s important for many of them.

Sometimes Judith is told about students’ troublesome experiences with the Migration Agency. The students who end up in these situations are also those who are the most depressed, and some students feel so bad from the uncertain situation that they think about committing suicide. Judith expresses great frustration about the decisions that the authorities make, such as sending an 18-year-old girl, whose mother died during the flight to Europe, alone back to the first European country she had arrived in. The most recent word Judith got about this girl was that she is living on the street, and no longer attends school.

Stephen says that being unaccompanied or not is not necessarily what determines how the students feel. He also thinks that it is as a class responsible teacher that he gets close to the students’ problems. Otherwise he doesn’t get to know the student in the same way, which can be an advantage:

I think a great deal in terms of that I don’t have time and can’t get to know each and every one in that way and each and every one’s life story, it’s the residence where they are staying that has to take care of much of that … My primary task is to give them instruction that works for them in that situation, and that means there is a lot about these students that I don’t know … At the same time, many of them who arrive alone, they see it as ‘this is my chance, now it’s important to take it’ they work hard even if they have little school background and exert themselves.

Also in those cases where students are depressed, Stephen works to have a functioning classroom. If it does not, there’s other support for the students that he can refer them to. Sometimes students are affected in the classroom, and then the teacher must show sensitivity; by allowing a student to be mentally absent and to place reasonable demands when he notices that someone is depressed. Sometimes situations arise when he feels a need to distance himself, in order not to get depressed himself or be drawn into the situation in a way that is not constructive. In those situations he asks himself how far his responsibility extends.

The tension between moral and professional responsibilities

The teachers’ reasoning can be understood as an aporia of proximity, and in relation to different forms of meetings. An example of this is the instructional situation, where students and teachers relate to each other based primarily on their institutional roles (Todd 2003). But Bauman also states that there is a longing for more complete encounters; being-for. Being-for is the same as what Lévinas (1969) sees as the encounter with the Other. The goal is not to bridge a gap of difference, but instead to preserve respect for the alterity. Not bringing up the students’ problems during school time could be seen as a kind of being-with each other, in which both teachers and students are bound to their institutional roles. But it could also be a being-for encounter; the teachers show sensitivity for the fact that they still cannot understand the situation that the unique student is in, by respecting when the students do not want to talk about what is difficult. The teachers provide a picture of how onerous the uncertainty can be for the students; getting to start school feels like getting to start over, that life can start again. At the same time there is the uncertainty of whether you will get to stay, which is reinforced when others get negative news. For the teachers this concerns finding a balance between engagement in the professional task and in the students, and the distance that is necessary in order not to get burned out. An aporia of proximity arises when the command is answered and responsibility for the Other is taken, and when at the same time, knowledge of the Other is created that risks taking away the Other’s wish. This creates a tension between the professional and the moral responsibilities.

Discussion: a challenging and rewarding task

That we simply need to know someone in order to be able to act responsibly toward (and receptive for) him, is a common way for people to talk about the conditions for ethical interaction. Especially within education this way of getting to know the Other often becomes a prerequisite for building relations that better attend to the affected persons’ needs (Todd 2003, 23). This sort of thinking is based on the fact that someone else’s otherness can be understood, and that learning about others is something teachers should strive for; to ‘de-Other’ those who are different. Seeing the individual but nonetheless maintaining a certain distance to the students can be seen as a prerequisite for respecting the students’ otherness, and not necessarily trying to ‘de-Other’ them in order to better understand them on a personal level. The teachers’ statements can be interpreted such that they want to take responsibility for the Other, but this is not always possible. In part this is because education as social space sets limits for the interaction, in part because they could not cope with their work if they took to heart everything they learn about their students.

Encountering unaccompanied students demands a lot from teachers. It demands an ability to be sensitive to the student’s specific situation, to be able to decide when the student needs support, to be sensitive to cultural differences, without reverting to simplified cultural explanations. As far as teachers’ encounters with unaccompanied students are concerned, it is a possible conclusion that rules and principles are needed and have a role to fill, for example routines for students who are depressed. Waiving the demands that school makes can, according to these teachers’ experience, upset rather than help the students. School, with its routines and demands, can constitute a fixed point when everything else is moving.

But there is a potential conflict between the task of education (goal fulfillment, everyone should advance along the same lines at the same time) on the one hand, and the concern for the individual student as the Other, the moral impulses and the desire to ‘be-for’ on the other hand (Todd 2003). Education is arranged in the social space, and does not always provide space for the moral impulse. But perhaps the professional responsibility creates a positive distance; a possibility to allow the Other to show himself/herself. Not imposing interpretations or ideas on the Other about what the Other may need, but instead setting up limits and letting the Other show himself/herself – and being prepared for that encounter when the possibility arises and the moral impulse is felt – would demand a balancing act between professional and moral responsibility.

The expectation on teachers to fulfill certain requirements is a tenet of the profession, both academically and socially. In addition there is a set of ethical principles to adhere to, which stem from the social rather than the moral space. Unaccompanied students can be said to be particularly vulnerable, and are often associated with other kinds of otherness than that to which Lévinas is referring. Considered as a group, they are often spoken of as different from other students, while at the same time the need to see each student as an individual is emphasized. In addition, these students often have had difficult experiences. The professional framework – the social space – thus has a built-in opposition between a school focus and an individual focus. To this, we can also add the opposition between the social space and the moral space. Even if the responsibility for the Other is a moral demand, the encounter with a person in a particularly vulnerable position can bring the question of responsibility to a head. Pedagogy with an empty hand (Biesta 2008) might not always be attainable when the responsibilities of the social space take precedence.

The analysis in this article can provide an additional means of understanding conditions for newly arrived and, in particular, unaccompanied students, as well as providing ways of encountering these students that lead away from preconceived ideas and the deficit thinking which previous studies have shown is prevalent (c.f. Pastoor 2015; Devine and McGillicuddy 2016; Nilsson and Bunar 2016). Putting the tension between professional and moral responsibilities in focus also puts the challenges for teachers who meet unaccompanied students within the educational system in a new light, while also reminding us that as moral subjects, we are alone. It is the rewarding and challenging task of the professional to face the aporia of proximity and to uphold the sometimes-conflicting moral and professional responsibilities of their work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).