Language as resource and challenge among bilingual social workers in the Swedish social services

ABSTRACT

This article explores how language informs work practice from the perspective of bilingual social workers in the Swedish social services. The analysis is based on empirical data from three focus group interviews. The article concludes that, on the one hand, social workers’ bilingualism has the potential of contributing to relationship building with clients; facilitating clients’ democratic participation; and destabilizing power asymmetries between social worker and client. On the other hand, social workers’ bilingualism runs the risk of being a marker of ‘difference’, disrupting relationship building with clients; becoming a source of self-consciousness in relation to oral and written performances at work; and finally, evoking a sense of responsibility of educating colleagues about clients’ vulnerable positions. Bilingualism is a professional skill that should be officially valued, but social service organizations also need to be responsive to the needs of bilingual social workers and address upcoming issues on an individual as well as organizational level. As bilingual social workers compose a significant part of the social services’ workforce today, it is necessary to further explore the meanings of bilingualism in various social work settings, and among various professional groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Representation
• social service
• language
• bilingualism
• difference

Introduction

This article explores how language informs work practice from the perspectives of bilingual social workers in the Swedish social services. In the 1970s, recruiting migrant social workers to Swedish welfare agencies was part of a political integration strategy. The aim was to ensure migrants’ social rights, but this strategy has also been presented as a way of managing the migrant population (Gruber 2016). Ten years ago, and in response to the large amount of migrants among welfare users, the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen 2010, 57) concluded that a heterogeneous work force in the social services was part of an ‘interculturally inclusive work method’. In 2020, the share of the Swedish population of ‘foreign background’, that is individuals who are born outside of Sweden, or has two parents who are born in other countries, reached 25,5% (SCB 2020). This is one of the reasons why the composition of the work force in the social services is still a highly relevant issue. The research question of the article is when does the linguistic position of bilingual social workers become a resource in their job, and under which circumstances are it associated with challenges? The question is addressed from a professional as well as organizational perspective.

The article starts with a brief overview of previous research. Then, follows a discussion on the method and the methodological considerations. In the next section, the theoretical framework is presented. The following part consists of the analysis, which is organized in two main themes; language as professional resource and language as professional challenge. Each theme is divided into subthemes where various aspects of language are explored through the voices of bilingual social workers in the Swedish social services. In the concluding section, the results are summarized and a general remark on the position of bilingual social workers is made.

Language and bilingualism in social work

Communication, verbal as well as non-verbal, has a profound role in social work and lies at heart of a social worker’s interaction with clients (Payne 2014). How to accomplish a meaningful dialogue with clients is a skill needed to perform good practice (Harrison 2006). Furthermore, written forms of communication such as assessments, reports and case notes are central parts of a social worker’s day to day duties (Dunk-West 2013). Even though language is the ‘lifeline’ through which all communication occurs, the interest in language in social work has traditionally been reduced to its communicative aspects (Gregory and Holloway 2005, 49). A conventional understanding of language as transmission from sender to receiver tends to overlook meaning construction taking place in communication (Harrison 2006).

In the early 2000s, poststructuralist and postmodernist ideas became influential in social work, and the role of discourse and power-shaping linguistic practices was emphasized (Dominelli 2004; Fook 2002; Hall, Slembrouck, and Sarangi 2006; Parton and O’Byrne 2000). Harrison (2006) makes an argument for an even broader conceptualization and acknowledges that social work today takes place in a global, postcolonial context, resulting in a linguistically diverse work environment. Despite the demographic changes that have taken place in many countries, research on linguistic diversity and its implications in social work is still limited.

Harrison (2006, 2007b) argues that bilingual social workers’ perspectives are particularly useful when investigating linguistic dynamics in the profession. Bilingualism refers to the ability to use at least two languages in a functional way. Harrison (2007a) shows how shared language allows identification between social workers and clients in Australia, but notes that linguistic diversity is generally devalued. Engstrom and Min (2004) discuss how social workers in the US use bilingualism to develop relations with client groups who usually distrust government authority. However, bilingual professionals experience heavy work load due to their capacities. In a later work with an additional colleague, they (Engstrom, Piedra, and Min 2009) note that agencies employing bilingual social workers often do not compensate the group for their language skills salary-wise. Social workers who are hired mainly because of their bilingualism have difficulties advancing professionally.

In the Nordic countries, research on bilingualism is not yet a separate field, issues of language is rather included in migration research. In the context of the social services and state-run residential homes, respectively, Kamali (2002) and Gruber (2016) critically examine how discourses and practices of ‘cultural competence’ in Sweden position social workers with immigrant background. The background of this group of social workers is acknowledged by themselves, and their co-workers as assets in the interaction with clients, but at the same time, their competence tends to be reduced to cultural issues where they are seen as experts. Valenta (2012) investigates how social identities influence the work of service providers of immigrant background in asylum-seeking centres in Norway. Like Kamali and Gruber, Valenta shows how shared background can be an asset. However, service providers of immigrant background also need to balance the expectations from both clients and colleagues, and their professionalism is sometimes challenged. Valenta’s results evoke Essed’s (1996) point, that issues of race, ethnicity and migration are not just about client relations, but collegial relations as well.

Method and methodological considerations

In this section, the methodological considerations of the study are discussed. The findings presented are part of a pilot study on how ethnicity and race inform work practice in the social services in Sweden. The project was approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority in February 2018. The study sample includes social workers who are born outside of Sweden, had one or two parents born outside of Sweden, or was transnationally adopted. The information letter was distributed electronically with assistance from personnel involved in municipal research and development in one city and one small town. In total, eight social workers expressed interest in participating in the study.

Because of the limited research in this area, focus groups appeared as an appropriate method for identifying relevant themes. Focus group interviews have been described as useful in explorative approaches (Hylander 2001), and they have also been seen as valuable in ‘understanding collective experiences of marginalization’ (Pollack 2003). Based on this, the focus group provides a potential space where participants collectively can support each other in formulating everyday work experiences related to race and ethnicity. Three focus group interviews were conducted; two with three participants, and one with two participants. In the following overview, relevant background variables of the participants are presented. The names are fictive and reflect birth region and age of the interviewees. To ensure the anonymity of the participants, no countries except from Sweden are specified. As the overview shows, there is a variety among the participants with regard to their background:

Table

Grp.	Name	Position	Degree	Age	Gender	Birth region	Bio. parents’ birth region	Grew up in
1	Maria	Social Worker	Master of Science in Gender Studies	30	Woman	Southern Europe	Southern Europe	Southern European Country
1	Saman	Social Worker	Bachelor of Science in Social Work	30	Woman	Middle East	Middle East	Middle East/Sweden
1	Eduardo	Social Worker	Bachelor of Science in Social Work	30	Man	Latin America	Latin America	Sweden
2	Minna	Social Worker	Bachelor of Science in Social Work	50	Woman	Sweden	Scandinavia	Sweden
2	Lasse	Social Worker	Bachelor of Science in Social Work	45	Man	Sweden	Sweden/Middle East	Sweden
2	Jenny	Occupational Therapist	Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy	45	Woman	Middle East (adopted)	Middle East	Sweden
3	Paula	Social Worker	Bachelor of Science in Social Work	37	Woman	Latin America	Latin America	Sweden
3	Anna	Social Worker	Bachelor of Science in Social Work	49	Woman	Eastern Europe	Eastern Europe	Eastern Europe

The interviews took place in conference rooms at the participants’ working places and lasted for about 1,5 hours. Some of the interviewees worked, or had been working, in the same unit, while others met for the first time during the interview. The interviews were structured around themes concerning how the participants’ ethnic and cultural backgrounds influenced their work situation. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in full length. The transcriptions were read, re-read, and the accounts were organized into themes relevant to the research aim. The centrality of language in the narratives became clear in the later stages of this work.

The study focuses on the richness, rather than the representativeness of the data (Baines 2002), and the goal has been to use excerpts illustrative of the topics explored. That said, not all of the informants are visible in the analysis. Inspired by Denzin (2001, 25), the interviews are viewed as ‘site[s] where meaning is created and performed’. Rather than being viewed as pathways to inner selves, the social workers’ accounts are treated as ‘narrative device[s] which allow persons who are so inclined to tell stories about themselves’ (ibid). The focus group is a particular setting, where the participants not only perform in relation to the researcher but also to the other participants. The methodological considerations serve to ensure the trustworthiness of the analysis, and the use of previous research has contributed to find meaningful contexts to the data.

Finally, there are linguistic aspects in writing the article that needs to be commented upon. There is, of course, a process of meaning construction taking place when researchers select and present accounts relevant to their aim, and also, to various extent, transfer narratives into a scientific frame and language (Temple and Young 2004). Additionally, methodological issues arise when empirical data are translated from one language to another (van Nes et al. 2010). In this study, all interviews were conducted in Swedish, but translated into English. Translating involves an act of interpretation where some nuances inevitably are lost. For instance, accents of the participants could not be translated in an adequate way. Vernaculars have been removed for the sake of readability.

Theoretical framework

The theoretical framework of the study consists of three parts, which are summarized in this section. Firstly, to acknowledge the social positions of the social workers, the study draws upon Watkins-Hayes (2009) conceptualization of welfare workers as socially situated actors. Social situatedness refers to locations such as gender, class, race and community, and are understood as multiple and intersecting. Watkins-Hayes (2009, 25) argues that professionals ‘bring personal conceptions of their occupational roles, as well as investments based on their social group memberships, into policy organizations’. She demonstrates how welfare worker’s professional identities are shaped in a complex interplay between personal/collective experiences and organizational dynamics. Furthermore, she emphasizes that professional identities are informed, but not determined, by social locations.

Secondly, to capture the social aspects of language, Dominelli’s (2004, 517) description of language as ‘a vehicle that is embedded in and used to form social relations through which people organise cultural practices, (re)constitute their world, make sense of it, and (re)present their ideas to themselves and others’ is useful. In this sense, language is fundamental in a person’s beings and doings, and also, linked to social positions. Bourdieu’s (1977) approach supports the view of language as socially embedded, and also, linked to power relations. Knowledge of how to use adequate language in a given situation could provide a person with the social value of being believed or respected. Bourdieu views such linguistic competence as ‘linguistic capital’. Bourdieu’s approach has been applied by Harrison (2009) to understand power relations in monolingual social work settings.

Thirdly, to explore whether language could be used in boundary making, Lewis (2000) conceptualization of ‘difference’ is used. From a poststructuralist perspective, she argues that ‘’difference’ signals a series of self/other, “us”/’them’, which are “known” and given meaning through the organization and professional practices of those working in welfare agencies’ (2000, 16). As Adrienne Chambon (2013) argues, ideas about Self and Other are interwoven in the development of social work in the English-speaking countries of the North. Traditionally, the social worker has been positioned as the majority Self, while the client has been positioned as the client Other. Bilingual social workers do not represent the majority position, and in that sense, they cross the common divide of Self/Other. Bilingualism brings with it the possibility of transgressing the boundaries of ‘us’ end ‘them’, which furthermore illuminates the fluidity of these categories.

Analysis

This section identifies and analyzes the research findings. The first part explores aspects of how language works as a professional resource among Swedish social workers, while the second part explores language-related professional challenges in workplace interaction and professional positionings.

Language as professional resource

Building relationships with clients

Howe (1998, 45) suggests that social workers’ professional roles ‘might be seen as a series of relationships of one kind or another’. From a relational perspective, a meaningful relation between a social worker and their client is decisive for good practice (Trevithick 2003). Sjögren (2018) highlights the importance of the relation not only in treatment or interventions but also in practices involving exercising authority. Regardless of the length of the contact with the client, Anna, Saman and Maria all comment that shared language is as a central aspect in meeting with a client. Anna partly works with counselling clients who have been subjected to violence and states:

I notice that there is a group who are not mastering the language [Swedish] […]. The interaction is not the same when I can speak my own language with them. I notice that they repeatedly seek contact with me, because they know that they can just send me an e-mail in their own language if that would be easier.

In this quote, Anna gives examples of how shared language influence the ‘interaction’ between her and this particular client group. She recognizes that her language makes her more approachable to the clients. Anna’s statement could be linked to Engstrom and Min (2004) results, where bilingual social workers become facilitators in the communication between agencies and certain clienteles. Anna’s bilingualism thus benefits the organization as well as the clients. In another sequence of the interview, Anna remembers a situation where she was assigned a case with a non-Swedish speaking family. She was prepared to use an interpreter if the family would wish to do so, but she reflects:

[W]hy should I use an interpreter when I speak that language? We won’t just be speaking bureaucratic language, it’s about feelings too, it’s about them feeling safe.

Anna clearly draws upon a relational perspective when describing her work practice. She describes how the interaction with the clients extends the bureaucratic frame and highlights the importance of making the clients feel ‘safe’. Shared language not only facilitates communication but also bring relational qualities to the meeting. In other words, Anna’s language skills could be read as a form of capital with the possibility of being converted into trust between her and her clients. How shared language can make clients feel more comfortable and more quickly developing trust has been recognized in previous research (Engstrom and Min 2004; Harrison 2007a).

Maria strongly believes that her linguistic background informs the relationship she develops with her clients. In a meaning exchange with Eduardo, she is eager to prove her point and interrupts him when he claims that ‘for most clients, it does not matter who they meet’ in terms of gender, ethnicity and age. Maria outlines:

Actually is doesn’t matter, but […] in my case I can play that card because I have an accent and I can’t use the language in the same way as my colleagues who uses this static bureaucratic language. I use the language I know, and it also makes it easier for [the clients] because I remember exactly how it felt not knowing the language […]. There are certain clients with foreign background that I can communicate better with since I am a migrant too. […] It happens so often, when we have emptied a subject, I’m like “Ok, how is SFI [Swedish for Immigrants]?” and then I’m there, telling my own story; I have taken courses at the uni, this is what helped me, this is what not helped me and then you have a completely different relation […]. I guess it’s because of the interaction, but I feel that it establishes a kind of alliance […], that the ethnic background makes you find an advantage in your work […]. As I said before, maybe I haven’t been to the social services myself, I’m a privileged migrant coming here to study, and not because of war, but still, in terms of language, to a certain extent, we’re going through the same process. What we have in common is that we are from other countries and that we learned the language after we arrived.

Maria starts out by differentiating herself from her colleagues, based on the fact that she is speaking with an ‘accent’. Maria does not adopt a problem-based approach where she constructs her accent as a personal deficit (Harrison 2007a), on the contrary, she views it as an ‘advantage’. Her way of equating ‘bureaucratic’ language with something ‘static’ furthermore indicates this. Maria makes use of her own experience to create a relationship with her clients. It seems to be not so much about their shared language, as sharing the position of having ‘learned the language after we arrived’. She uses an informal style to make the clients – and possibly herself – feel at ease in the situation. The importance of using ‘small talk’ which shared language allows for has been recognized in previous research as well (Engstrom and Min 2004).

From Maria’s perspective, shared language facilitates establishing an ‘alliance’ with her clients. Her use of the word ‘alliance’ appears as a metaphor for her relational understanding of social work practice. Another important aspect of Maria’s statement is that while she confirms what the identification between her and her clients does, she also differentiates herself from the clients, pointing out that she has a privileged position compared to them. The difference between her and her clients exists not only because she represents the Swedish authorities but also that the conditions of arriving to Sweden most likely differ a lot. Maria’s critical reflection evokes Sainsbury’s (2012) discussion on how different forms of immigration can be conceptualized as ‘entry categories’. Asylum seekers and undocumented migrants are the most vulnerable groups in terms of entitlements to social benefits, which could be contrasted to migrants, like Maria, coming to Sweden to study from other European countries.

Facilitating democratic participation and equal treatment

Power is a theme both implicitly and explicitly present in the interviews. With regards to the relation between the social services and their clients, the issue of representation has been on the Swedish political agenda for many years. Since the 2000s, the importance of employees in the public sector representing the diversity of the population has been officially recognized in Sweden. Arguments for representative bureaucracies involve ideas about heterogeneity in experiences among staff as resourceful in work practice, as well as strengthening the legitimacy of the organizations (Sundberg 2013; Watkins-Hayes 2011). Similar to Anna’s view, Saman, who is Persian-speaking, notes this about clients that speak her first language:

They call me more often on the phone, and that means more participation. It is also better from a democratic perspective, it evens the balance.

Here, Saman demonstrates how commonalities in terms of language between a social worker and a client not only has a symbolic value, but also, that it could enhance client involvement. Furthermore, for Saman, identification between her and her clients carries the potential of treating clients in a ‘conscious’ way:

If you are able to identify with someone, and listen to what they have to say, you create another kind of conversation, another kind of relation […]. A lot of the information I have is useful for the person, and treating that person in a good, and like, conscious way, not this stereotypical and ignorant away, to really see the person, is super important.

Compared to Anna, Saman argues from a political, rather than relational perspective, as she points out the democratic value of being approachable to clients and the importance of equal treatment. It is clear that Saman thinks highly of identification between her and her clients. She seems to view identification as key in developing ‘conscious’ practice, which here comes to mean the opposite to ‘stereotypical’ and ‘ignorant’ ways. This quote furthermore invites us to a discussion about the relation between language and culture, and the difficulty of separating bilingual from bicultural skills. Engstrom and Min (2004, p. 73f) study suggests that ‘knowing language made communication possible’, but ‘understanding of culture […] grounded the exchange and brought meaning to it’. In this sense, a shared language would not be enough to confront stereotypes, but what is also needed is a cultural knowledge.

Destabilizing power asymmetries

Power is a central theme in critical social work approaches and can be conceptualized in many ways (Fook 2012). Maria acknowledges power aspects of social work several times. She forefronts the asymmetries between social worker and client, and reflects upon how her background informs the relationship:

If two, like, stereotypical Swedes, enter someone’s apartment to do a home visit. Ok, ‘Now I am going to go through everything; your economy, your neighbors, your apartment … ’ – maybe that feels really offensive. In some way I believe that playing my card as an immigrant too could change that [power relation]. It will still be there, but I feel that me coming from somewhere else makes the power a little bit softer.

This quote can be read as an example of working creatively with power asymmetries in the social worker – client relationship. Maria suggests that how the power relation is experienced by the client, is informed by who is actually exercising that power. In her example, two social workers of Swedish background represent majority positions in a way that could re-inforce the control aspect already imbedded in the meeting. She, on the other hand, has, through her a background, a capital that could be used to destabilize power asymmetries. Maria’s statement has similarities with a participant in Harrison’s (2007a, 86) study who ‘uses his own experience of relocation and learning a new language and culture as a metaphor in his work with members of marginalized groups’.

The issue of linguistic or cultural skills in social work practice needs, however, to be taken one step further. While some of the interviewees clearly used a resource perspective to make sense of the implications of their backgrounds in their work, Saman adds another perspective:

I don’t want to be seen as ”You are Saman, you speak Persian, and because of that, you should work with unaccompanied minors”, but rather, ”I like this client group and I hope that I have the qualifications you are looking for”. Speaking the same language with 75% of your clients doesn’t make you right for the job. [S]ure, it can make things easier, that I speak Persian, that I know how to communicate with my clients, that they assimilate the information in a different way, but it’s no guarantee […].

In this quote, Saman raises the question of what counts as a qualification in a particular setting. She adopts a view where she wished her qualifications with regards to working with unaccompanied children to be valued in a broader sense, than just being about her language skills. In this context, Saman and Eduardo, as well as informants in other studies (Engstrom and Min 2004; Engstrom, Piedra, and Min 2009), remind us that shared language between social worker and client, is far from the same thing as having been trained to communicate with clients using professional terminology.

Furthermore, for Saman, language skills are not equivalent to good work practice. While shared language facilitates communication, it is not the only factor influencing the relationship between social worker and client. Saman’s quote challenges us to reflect critically upon the relation between particular social, cultural or linguistic positions, and work qualifications. Saman’s argument could be linked to Watkins-Hayes (2009, 11) point about professional selves being informed, rather than determined by social categories, and that the meaning of social categories is also linked to particular organizational settings.

Language as professional challenge

In the previous section, examples of language as a resource in social work practice were discussed. Present section focuses on examples where social workers link language to challenges in their professional lives.

Marking (expected) difference and sameness

Barzoo Eliassi (2017) concludes that migrant social workers have an ambiguous position. As official representatives, they are institutionally empowered, but at the same time, they run the risk of facing marginalization and exclusion in the wider society. While the main concern of this study is the professional arena, Eliassi’s point of departure is still useful when exploring the complexities of bilingual social workers’ professional positions. One of the participants, Lasse, is of Swedish and Middle Eastern background. He has a Swedish first name and – nowadays – a Swedish last name. When asked about his name change, he refers to it as an effect of discriminatory treatment based on his Middle Eastern name. He is born in Sweden, passes as a white Swede, but speaks Arabic. In shared language, there is, as discussed earlier, a potential of relationship building between social worker and client. While Lasse notes that his bilingualism has been a resource in his work, he also points to situations where the opposite has occurred:

Lasse: When I worked as [children and young people assessor], I occasionally spoke Arabic with Arabic speaking families. I don’t do that anymore [short laugh], because it wasn’t always helpful […]. Once, they asked “You are not all Swedish, Lasse?” “Ok, how did you notice?” Then I said: “I speak Arabic too”. From that day, I was ”the Arab” [short laugh]. In [the town], there was – there is – an ongoing conflict between Albanian and Arab groups […]. Based on the ethnicity they assigned to me, it was like … “No, I can’t talk to you”. That teared town the bridge we had built, we had an alliance before that.

This quote well illustrates how bilingualism has more than one meaning in the relationship between social worker and client. As long as Lasse’s bilingualism is not known to the young people he is working with, they speak Swedish and develop a relationship of trust, even an ‘alliance’, from Lasse’s point of view. When his Arabic skills are revealed however, they become a marker of Arabic ethnic belonging. In this situation, it seems irrelevant how Lasse identifies himself. Rather, it is his language that immediately makes some of his clients distance themselves from him by categorizing him as ‘Arab’, which, in this context means being ascribed the position of ‘the other’ (Lewis 2000) or ‘the stranger’ (Ahmed 2000).

Lasse gives other examples of challenges related to language. For instance, he describes how clients, when they get to know that he is also Arab-speaking, want to speak solely Arabic with him. Furthermore, he describes it as a ‘dilemma’ that there is sometimes an assumption that ‘because you speak another language, you have like … another view on the nature of things, that we don’t have to express here’. In Lasse’s quotes, a play between distance and closeness related to language appears. In some situations, language becomes a barrier of communication and trust, while in other situations, it becomes a vehicle in relationship building. What link Lasse’s examples, however, is that language is associated with cultural knowledge or views, which the clients sometimes want to distance themselves from, or at other times, want to engage in as it might be a source of a common, un-articulated, standpoint.

Being a source of self-consciousness and insecurity

The official language in Swedish social work agencies is Swedish, but in practice, social work is linguistically diverse. Harrison (2006) uses the term monolingualism to describe the normative function of a certain language. As with other norms, the position of the Swedish language becomes visible when people break it. Paula who came to Sweden when she was 6 years old, and Anna, who had lived in Sweden thirteen years at the time of the interview, describe various feelings invoked in speaking Swedish with an accent:

Paula

[I]f I write something I need to check it over and over again, to see if it’s correct. I can get that feeling sometimes at [staff meetings] too, that maybe I say something wrong, that kind of things. Sometimes, after all these years I can still … ‘God, do they notice this now’?

Anna

That’s interesting, I’m thinking about the others, who struggle like me [quick laugh] […] and I’m thinking that others notice it too, but I’m not thinking about the accent because you can laugh about it, you get it immediately, and you say strange things. I have to live with that – you have to live with that […]

Paula

[silently]: I’m not thinking about it …

Em

You are not thinking about it?

Paula

No, I don’t think I do, like, if someone speaks with an accent, I just find it charming that they have another language, but I guess you’re always self-critical …

Em

[smiles]: Maybe being disclosed in some way … ?

Paula

Yes, sometimes it feels a little bit like that.

The fact that Paula is bringing staff meetings to the fore in this quote is worthy of attention. Svennevig (2012) points out the role of workplace meetings as arenas of organizational communication and negotiation of organizational culture. He describes workplace meetings as ‘prime sites where organizational roles and relations are manifested’ (Svennevig 2012, 3). Following Svennevig, a staff meeting may serve a professional as well as social function in the organization. In the quote above, the staff meeting could be read as a situation where people inhabit various degrees of linguistic capital (Bourdieu 1977), and varying degrees of distance to the Swedish linguistic norm meet.

In Paula’s account, the staff meeting appears as a work arena that makes her hyper self-conscious about her own language use. On the one hand, she is very inclusive regarding how she sees other people speaking with accents – she finds varieties in linguistic backgrounds ‘charming’. On the other hand, she judges herself in a different way. As she has lived both most of her childhood and all of her adulthood in Sweden, her accent is not necessarily audible for others. Still, ‘after all these years’, speaking in front of colleagues makes her very ‘self-critical’. In the end of this dialogue quote, I suggest that what could happen if the colleagues notice her accent, or possible mistakes, is that she in some way would be ‘disclosed’. Paula replies in an affirmative way, but unfortunately, we do not elaborate upon the theme during the interview. A possible way of reading the kind of self-consciousness that Paula is expressing is that it is the risk of being deprived of the legitimacy as a speaker (Harrison 2009). As Bourdieu (1977) notes, linguistic resources are tied to social factors such as being believed and respected in a given situation. Being ‘noticed’ because of linguistic mistakes at a staff meeting would be the opposite of that.

When Anna enters the dialogue, she deploys another perspective. In this context, and in relation to Paula, she appears less self-conscious and self-critical, and even approaches the theme with a sense of humour, which however also could be read as a coping mechanism. In another section of the interview, however, Anna adopts a perspective similar to Paula:

Anna

As I see it, you are never done with language when you arrive to Sweden as an adult. This is something I carry with me even though I came [here] thirteen years ago. I had to say something in front of the group, and I feel like suddenly everyone is watching me, listening, and noticing every mistake I make. You set higher standards for yourself, and that’s the case also when you write. It’s no secret, I have said it to my boss since three years: ‘Ok, I have never thought about that’. No one reflects upon that, that it’s not my language that I am using, that maybe I still struggle with it […].

In the context of arriving to Sweden at an adult age, Anna expresses how language becomes an ongoing project. Like Paula, she has experienced feelings of being ‘watched’ when speaking in front of colleagues. In this case, not speaking Swedish as a first language adds a challenging dimension to Anna’s professional life. The challenge is not just about learning to use another language professionally, but also, this burden not being recognized by work managers or colleagues. Her perspective is supported by Engstrom and Min (2004) who concludes that work complexities faced by bilingual social workers are often poorly understood at the workplace. In this sense, the ambiguity discussed by Eliassi (2017) is relevant: while the social workers are institutionally empowered, there are aspects of their professional lives which make them vulnerable in the organization and in relation to their colleagues. Dominelli (2004, 3) considers ‘language exclusion as a form of oppression that devalues both the contributions of other people and their agency or ability to act as subjects.’ Anna’s account does not have to be read as an example of ‘language oppression’, but not being recognized or not getting the proper support could be seen as a form of devaluation of her agency and her ability to act as a professional subject.

Educating colleagues

There is another aspect of invisibility among colleagues. Lasse and Anna both give accounts of situations where they have found it necessary to remind co-workers about their background and bilingualism. When Lasse still had his Middle Eastern last name, he once got an on-line offensive letter in his private life. At the time, he had a job at a workplace where people, according to him, were ‘quite opinionated about different nationalities’. One time, he chose to share the letter with his colleagues:

Lasse

I just read the letter from the beginning to the end. [Lasse imitates a dialogue]:

‘What is that?!’

‘It was was [written to] me!’

“To you?! But you … You look Swedish!

‘Yes, but I’m not Swedish. Just think about that when you speak about these things’[…]

In this quote, Lasse describes how he uses his own personal experience at the workplace. As Lasse passes as a white Swede, his colleagues are surprised when confronted with the letter. In another example, Anna mentions situations where she has told her co-workers that there was a long time since she saw her friends, that she misses them. If the colleagues understand that she has been in a challenging situation, Anna reasons, there is a possibility that they also see that it must be even harder for people arriving to Sweden from non-European countries:

Anna

Sometimes, we are stressed, we put high demands on everyone because that’s what you supposed to do, but you can always discuss it. I remind them of those who are struggling, who are having difficulties in the labour market. I’m just saying, they are in a vulnerable position, they don’t know the language, their economy is not like everyone else’s. I know this because I started there myself when I arrived to Sweden.

Em

So you are using your experience to help.?

Anna

To create a better understanding.

Em

To create a better understanding, right.

Based on these quotes, Lasse and Anna seem to have similar strategies when they confront colleagues with, as they see it, ignorant views. These two quotes can be read as examples of situations where Lasse and Anna respectively distance themselves from ‘us, the colleagues’ and take the position of ‘the other’, to urge their colleagues to be more conscious about categorizations. In this sense, they take responsibility of educating their colleagues about their clients’ vulnerable positions.

Concluding remarks

Since the 2000s, the importance of employees in the public sector representing the diversity of the population has been officially recognized in Sweden. The aim of the present article has been to explore how language informs work practice from the perspective of bilingual social workers in the Swedish social services. More specifically, the analysis addresses situations where the linguistic position of this particular group becomes either a resource or a challenge in the professional lives of the social workers. Language is here conceptualized as closely linked to social positions informing work practice and professional identities of the social workers. As a marker of difference/sameness, the roles of language are played out in various ways in welfare agency settings.

The results show that bilingualism can be a resource, as well as a challenge, for social workers. As a resource, bilingualism has the potential of contributing to the three following aspects; relationship building with clients; facilitating clients’ democratic participation; and destabilizing power asymmetries between social worker and client. In these dimensions, social workers actively use their bilingualism in their work in a way that makes it part of their professional identities. Here, bilingualism becomes an asset, not only for the individual social worker, but for the organization, in terms of both its legitimacy and actual competency of working with a heterogeneous clientele.

As a challenge, bilingualism comes with three potential risks; becoming a marker of ‘difference’ and, as such, working as barrier, or a disruption, of relationship building between social worker and client; providing the social worker with a profound self-consciousness when it comes to oral as well as written work performances; and experiencing a responsibility to use oneself as an example to educate colleagues about clients’ precarious situations. Compared to the resource aspects discussed above, the challenges appear to be met on the individual level, by the social workers themselves. This suggests an ongoing individualization of work challenges, which seems to be invisible to both colleagues and the organizations.

To conclude, bilingual social workers have a complex position at work. As state representatives, they are institutionally empowered, but their bilingualism is associated with challenges causing vulnerability. Important to note, however, is that language and social positions do not fully determine the work or the professional identity of a social worker, rather they inform work practice. While social workers’ bilingualism can be utilized on an organizational level, support structures for bilingual workers seem very limited. As a first step to meet possibilities as well as challenges in this context, bilingual social workers’ position needs to be recognized. Bilingualism is a professional skill that should be officially valued, but social service organizations also need to be responsive to the needs of this group of employees and address upcoming issues on an individual as well as organizational level. Lastly, as bilingual social workers compose a significant part of the social services’ workforce today, it is necessary to further explore the meanings of bilingualism in various social work settings, and among various professional groups.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.