Social work in a multilingual world

Introduction

This thematic issue addresses social work as a multilingual work and practice. The main purpose of the issue´s contributions is to expand and explore the intersection of (1) social work as a language work; (2) the monolingual national framework and legacy of Nordic countries; and (3) the increase of multilingual clients in social work due to global migration. In doing so, the special issue responds to the fact that language diversity is commonly overlooked in social work research, education, and practice (Hall and Valdiviezo 2020; Harrison 2006, 2007).

Social work, language work, and language awareness

Social work is highlighted as ‘language work’ by Jonathan Hall and Sonia Valdiviezo in their article The social worker as a language worker in a multilingual world. Educating for language competence (Hall and Valdiviezo 2020). In using this concept, they want to convey that talking, listening, reading, and writing – along with other forms of communication – play a crucial role in social work. Meeting and communicating face-to-face with people in vulnerable situations is considered a core activity. Consequently, there is literature on how to communicate and lead a conversation with the purpose of creating working alliances and trust on one hand, and investigating, interrogating, treating, making decisions, and offering support on the other (Hall 2017; Hall et al. 2014; Hall, Slembrouck, and Sarangi 2006).

Likewise, there is extensive research that analyses actual conversations, and talk-in-interactions in social work settings, and social work education is filled with practical training in conversation methods and critical perspectives on professional encounters (Hilte and Bengtsson 2022; Holmqvist 2023; Larsson and Trygged 2022).

Still, a more profound discussion and awareness of the impact and meaning of language diversity and multilingualism is often missing in this literature as well as in critical reflections on the consequences of neglecting language. Other disciplines such as law, medicine, nursing sciences, and pedagogy, that are closely linked to professional welfare areas of the judiciary, education, and healthcare show more awareness of the impact of language. There are striking differences in how issues of language diversity and multilingualism have been dealt with as a fundamental condition in the everyday practices in these disciplines compared to social work (e.g. Hadziabdic and Hjelm 2014; Puskás and Björk-Willén 2017; Staaf and Elsrud 2018). The positive aspect of these differences is that it opens possibilities to listen and learn from other welfare areas as well as to avoid pitfalls and problems with which they already have experience. The backdrop of this special issue is that we know little about the meaning and impact of language diversity and multilingualism in social work settings. Hence, besides contributing to empirical studies on an overlooked research area, a goal for this special issue is to raise awareness about the plurality of languages as a fundamental condition for social work.

So how can we understand language awareness more concretely? It starts in an understanding of communication as a complex endeavour that includes (and excludes) languages, language skills, and styles at several levels and in different modes. Even situations when clients and social workers share language are, in a sense, marked by language diversity. For example, the social worker might use specialized terminology while the client may use everyday vernacular speech. Both parties’ cultural, educational, and professional backgrounds as well as age, gender, and class play a role in how they express, interpret, and perceive the situation.

Language is used in spoken, signed, and written forms, or is communicated by pictures and other visual methods. In addition, much of the communication and engagement between social work institutions and clients takes place in anonymous and/or distant digital encounters when, for example, the client finds information on a website, in a written brochure, or applies for support by submitting a template or form. Hence, an increasingly expansive use of digital technology and AI is an integral feature of social work and must consequently be included in any discussion of social work as language work.

That being said, Hall and Valdiviezo (2020) and Harrison (2006, 2007) have pointed out that a lack of critical understanding and awareness that social work is language work is based on a common norm about national majority languages. It is simply taken for granted that social work takes place in situations that are more or less monolingual, where social workers and clients share language. The predominant feature of social work (and other welfare areas) has been described as a monolingual institutional regime. A problem with such taken-for-granted norms about monolingualism is that they constitute a monolingual mindset that is difficult to challenge due to its invisibility (Piller 2016, 2017). One way to make norms and regimes tangible, however, is by studying situations that arise when this norm is challenged. This could include, for example, the constantly changing linguistic landscape that results from increased global migration, or any situation or social work practice where social workers and clients do not share a language. Accordingly, global migration makes the often-unexamined dominance of monolingual institutional regimes and mindsets (in contrast to language diversity) more explicit and tangible (Piller 2017).

The welfare state, global migration, and language rights

From a historical and societal perspective, literature discusses how global migration makes receiving societies all over the world more diverse in many aspects, of which language is only one. This development has been described as non-negotiable and fundamental, and labelled in terms of superdiversity (Blommaert 2013; Grzymala-Kazlowska and Phillimore 2018; Meissner and Vertovec 2015). This literature is critical as to how welfare states and societies neglect super-diversity and how most national welfare states tend to treat diversity resulting from migration as a temporary and transitory condition (Ibid.) Thus, states tend to safeguard their monolingual institutional regimes rather than challenge them and strive for change. Understanding migration as a temporary condition is of course a misconception. Migration, or human mobility, is a fundamental feature of people’s living conditions (Canagarajah 2017). While it might be a temporary condition for individuals and groups of people, but as a human living condition, it is constant. People are and always will be moving.

Returning to the issue of how migration changes the linguistic landscape and how it might be dealt with by welfare states and welfare institutions such as social work, it is important to look closer at laws and conventions. Most nation states have legislation on language. One example familiar to us is the Swedish context (Gustafsson, Norström, and Åberg 2022). In Sweden the Language Act (SSB 2009:600) regulates the position and status of the Swedish language and other languages in Sweden, and stipulates the following:

Section 1

This Act contains provisions on the Swedish language, the national minority languages and Swedish sign language. The Act also contains provisions on the responsibility of the public sector to ensure that the individual is given access to language and on the use of language in the public sector and in international contexts.

Furthermore, the purpose (section 2) is to specify and protect the Swedish language, language diversity in Sweden, and individuals’ access to language. Besides the Language Act (SSB 2009:600), there are several other laws of significance to language rights and language diversity. In line with The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages Committee Directives (1995:84) and The Nordic Language Convention (1981), national minority languages and Swedish sign language hold particular rights. There are also specific regulations on language positioning and status in relation to the legal system and welfare authorities in the National Minority Languages Act (SSB 2009:724; cf. SSB 1999:1175 Act on the right to use Sami in administrative authorities and courts, SSB 1999:1176 Law on the use of Finnish and Meänkieli in administrative and criminal courts).

Legislation in different welfare areas, The Social Service Act (SSB 2001:453), The School Act (SSB 2010:800) and The Health and Medical Care Act (SSB 2017:30) do not directly address the position or status of language, but are based on fundamental values about the individual’s right to be part of and involved in their own cases, decisions, and treatments. The actions of these welfare authorities are also regulated by The Administrative Procedure Act (SSB 2017:900, § 13), which includes a section on authorities’ duty to use interpretation and translation services during contact with non-majority language-speaking clients and clients with hearing and talking impairments.

Based on the Swedish example, we can see how national legislation mirrors broader international debates in political philosophy that are expressed in human rights conventions (Alcalde 2015; Bonotti, Carlsson, and Rowe 2021; Kymlicka and Patten 2003; May 2017; Van Parijs 2011). The main questions in this body of literature pertain to why, when, and for whom there should be language rights. The argument about nation-states giving priority to a majority language is strong and based on theories of democracy and a shared language ideology that underlines the inclusive effect of a lingua franca that all members of society can learn and speak. Arguments for recognition and particular rights for minority languages are also strong, based on identity politics and the need for societies to recognize historically oppressed minorities and to protect their languages. In Nordic countries, this includes, for example, Sami, Romani, and Yiddish.

Compared to the strong arguments on rights for majority and minority languages, there is no such kind of legislation or ongoing philosophical debate about language diversity that comes out of global migration and that today covers about 200 languages in Nordic countries (cf. www.isof.se). In short, it is rather treated in line with one of the rights that Alan Patten (2009) has categorized as ‘accommodation rights’; that is, rights designed for people who lack sufficient proficiency in the dominant language. This might imply the provision of interpretation and translation services in contact with judiciary and welfare institutions (Alcalde 2015). One reason for the lacking legislation in this area is the aforementioned viewpoint that migration and a changing linguistic landscape are temporary conditions. Another reason is the emphasis on the protection of the majority language as a fundamental nationalistic feature (the nationalistic idea of one land, one culture, one language) and simultaneously an inclusive lingua franca that promotes social cohesion (Eriksen 2010). These are only two of many interpretations, however. In most nation states, the demand that immigrants learn the majority language is spearheaded by politicians for more oppressive reasons. In these cases, learning the majority language is a goal connected to social integration by joining a collective and shared national identity through assimilation rather than perceived as an emancipatory endeavour that would be beneficial for the individual migrant (Bonotti, Carlsson, and Rowe 2021; Fioretos, Gustafsson and Norström, 2020). To learn the majority language and become ‘Danish’, ‘Finnish’, ‘Norwegian’, or ‘Swedish’ is also a condition one must meet to access welfare benefits as well as education and the labour market (Davidsson 2016). Perhaps most evident recently, proficiency in the majority language has become a condition for citizenship (May 2017; Kahn and McNamara 2017). Not learning the language sufficiently then becomes a ground for exclusion from civil, political, and social rights.

Equating integration with learning the majority language is oppressive in the sense that it dismisses migrant-produced multilingual practices (May 2017; Sabaté Dalmau, Sardà and Codó, 2017). Furthermore, it is linked to an instrumental perspective on languages-as-commodities, which hides the fact that language is an existential condition closely linked to identity-making and belonging (Alcalde 2015). It conceals power asymmetries related to peoples’ and groups’ legal, economic, and social statuses; for example, ethnicity, class, gender, and age. People´s possibilities and access to language learning are not equal (Dahlstedt et al. 2021). Research in social work has, for example, identified older migrants as extra vulnerable when it comes to language learning (Buchert and Wrede 2021), as well as children (Weisskirch 2017).

Research has also addressed how the legacy of imperialism and colonialism plays a role; for example, in the way that languages hold different statuses in a global hierarchy (Angu 2018; Mignolo and Walsh 2018; Piller, Zhang, and Li 2020). Despite the postcolonial condition, the colonial legacy still has an impact on how state administrations are organized. This is highly embedded in linguistic hierarchies and manifests in how administrative terminology is held as superior to everyday vernaculars, and in relation to which languages are eligible to be used in administrative procedures. Hence, the impact and dominance of a majority language can be related to a wider debate about administrative or bureaucratic violence. Abdelhady, Gren, and Joorman (2020, 13), discuss how bureaucratic violence often involves the denial of rights, freedoms, and opportunities to respond to perceived injustices. They emphasize that bureaucratic violence does not necessarily involve threats or physical violence.

Returning to the topic of this special issue, we can conclude that understanding language is a fundamental condition and premise for social work, and is crucial for avoiding oppressive practices and in achieving social justice. A general lack of language awareness and competence can have devastating effects on decision-making, policymaking, and legislation in such a way that it undermines equity, social justice, and legal security both nationally and globally.

Social justice and social work

Initially we stated that it is a problem that there is both a lack of research on language diversity and practical language awareness in social work. This is an understatement. There are, of course, studies; as well as a high level of awareness in social work about working in a diverse society marked by global migration. But these studies tend to focus on diversity in terms of culture rather than, or exclusive from, language. There is, for example, a large body of social work literature that recognizes the need for intercultural competence. Yet, there are at least two pending issues: one relating to invisibility and lack of language awareness; and the other to the complexity of the concept of culture and the risk of reproducing ethnocentric, stereotypical, and even racist notions about clients who have a different cultural, economic, religious, and social backgrounds than the social worker (Buzungu 2023; Chambon 2013; Eliassi 2015). Consequently, there is also an extensive quantity of literature on how social work reproduces oppressive and racist procedures and contributes to othering processes by using culture as a tool to understand clients (Dominelli 2002, 2018; Gruber 2015; Jönsson 2013). One of the most influential scholars in this field is Lena Dominelli (Dominelli 2002, 2018), who writes about the need to recognize language diversity in the context of anti-racist social work:

High quality translation resources are integral to delivering appropriate services to families with limited knowledge of English. Demands for these services are rising, but funding them are scarce./—/. The absence of such supports for social workers constitutes institutional racism. Often disguised as a shortage of resources, it indicates lack of priority for their provision.

The quote identifies layers of disadvantages that are reproduced each time interpretation and translation services are needed but not used in social work settings. Above all, this is something that affects the client’s rights and situation negatively, but it has also negative effects on the ambition of the social workers who cannot provide the client with sufficient services. In a wider perspective, although legitimized by organizational conditions and limited economic resources, 2002; 2018), suggests that the absence of interpretation services constitutes institutional racism, and is manifested through the lack of priority given to such services. Her statement likens a lack of language services to opening Pandora’s box; many negative and disastrous things result from seemingly simple neglect based on rational arguments about budget limits.

The high risk of institutional racism and structural discrimination that Dominelli is warning about has been confirmed in several other studies; both our own and others (Bredström and Gruber 2015; Buzungu 2023; Chand 2005; Gustafsson 2021; Gustafsson, Norström, and Åberg 2022; Gustafsson, Norström, and Höglund 2019; Kriz and Skivenes 2010; Lucas 2021). A common conclusion in these studies is that each time a social worker or other welfare professional neglects to use interpretation or translation services, even though they were needed; accept low-skilled interpreters; or ask the client to bring a relative (often a minor) or a friend to translate, they are complicit in structural discrimination. Structural discrimination is defined as the rules, norms, routines, and taken-for-granted perceptions and behaviour in institutions and other societal structures which create obstacles for certain groups in accessing the same conditions and rights as the rest of the population (SOU 2005:56:75). Structural discrimination, therefore, means that laws, directives, and principles are not followed but are consciously or unconsciously ignored, and can continue regardless of whether this happens behind closed doors or in full view.

The answer to the question as to whether this should be considered as an individual responsibility is both yes and no. First, this is a wider societal challenge, where, for example, the lack of skilled interpreters has been highlighted in the literature mentioned above as a constantly recurring societal problem. In this context, the writings of Hall and Valdiviezo (2020) are again relevant. They are looking for ways forward and are disputing the dominant discourse of language as a barrier that is the fault of the non-majority speaking client. They remind the reader that providing equal social service, working towards social justice, and combating poverty and vulnerability in society are the main goals of social work and to do this, social work as a field has to assume this responsibility (www.ifsw.org). Accordingly, it is not legitimate to ‘hide’ behind budget limitations or level blame on low skilled interpreters or a client’s lack of language competency. On the contrary, it is time to re-address issues of language diversity not as a problem but as a right and a resource (Harrison 2006, 2009).

Looking forward – expanding the research and practices

Addressing these issues has become important not at least due to the appalling current political situation in Nordic countries, Europe, and beyond, where migration is defined as a threat and security problem. Discourses about the collapse of integration and stricter requirements for migrants lay the ground for increasingly repressive migration policies whose primary goal is to keep migrants from entering the EU and to push them away once they’ve arrived (Abdelhady, Gren, and Joorman 2020, Gustafsson and Johansson 2018; Elsrud, Gruber, and Lundberg 2021). In relation to this bigger picture of hostility towards migrants and the upsurge of xenophobia, asking for more language awareness in social work might seem like a particularly narrow approach. Yet this could be related to the critical question raised by Beth Humphries in 2004. She asks: what does it mean for the profession of social work and its practitioners to become the professional group that must implement an increasingly racist and repressive migration policy? Humphries’ conclusion is that if social workers do not oppose this, they are guilty of crimes not only against the users of their services but also against the ethics of their own profession (see also Kunstreich 2003; Lorenz 1994).

Whether Humphries’ questions are something that social work/ers can agree on is an empirical question. Going back to the purpose of this special issue, we are convinced that there is an urgent need for more critical theories as well as for creative ways to promote language diversity, language awareness, and multilingualism in social work to improve professionalism and practice. Theory development would involve examining linguistic diversity, hierarchies, privileges, subordination, and justice in social work. It also involves investigations into how language is handled, manipulated, and negotiated in relation to different mindsets; ones that see language as a problem, a possibility, or a right. Furthermore, theorizing includes the recognition of how language diversity and multilingualism lay the foundation for power asymmetries.

However, the need for more theorizing must be preceded by empirical studies that push the aforementioned perspectives and challenges forward and explore the contemporary situation of Nordic welfare states and beyond; where social work performed in formal and informal settings, by authorities as well as by civil society at large, takes place in an expanding multilingual and textual landscape.

Presentation of the articles

This special issue includes eight articles, all based on recent empirical studies that critically investigate and discuss various fields of social work with migrant clients, where language diversity is a fundamental condition. Each article provides the reader with concrete examples of what language awareness or unawareness might mean in practice as well as what language-competent social work might imply.

The first article, Scope of Multilingual education, teaching, and training: Perspective of post-graduate social work students in India, is written by Abhimanyu Datta and Ajeet Kumar Pankaj. The article is an intriguing starting point contributing critical perspectives from a country with official multilingual language policies based on colonial legacies, creating a multilingual mindset that has just as oppressive implications as a monolingual mindset. Thus, it widens the scope of this special issue, pushing it beyond a Nordic and European context. The article investigates how social work students tackle higher education that is based on the English language and how they are targets for linguistic injustices during their education. It also illustrates how language policy strengthens the gap between social work as a discipline based on the English language – and a practice based on language diversity.

The next article, Assessments of foreign language-speaking children’s well-being in Finland: A frame analysis of child welfare and family service supervisors’ accounts by Eveliina Heino, Majja Jäppinen and Minna Veistilä, is an empirical study conducted of social workers. It contributes hands-on social work experiences of working in multilingual contexts using different discourses and frameworks of culture, language, and universalism to underpin their assessments. Their article is followed by Hilde Fiva Buzungu´s and Marianne Rugkåsa´s article—Lost in culture: Language discordance and culturalization in social work with migrants—which takes this issue a step further into an analysis of how language-discordant social work encounters might become discriminatory if the impacts of language diversity are not recognized. In the next article, Social workers as targets for integration, Kristina Gustafsson, Eva Norström, and Linnéa Åberg ‘write against integration’ (Rytter 2019) and investigate in what ways social workers need to be targets for integration (as opposed to the non-majority language speaking client) by expanding their lack of institutional self- awareness, language competencies, and empathic abilities. Their empirical material stems from ethnographic observations among public service interpreters.

In the following article, Configuring public service interpreting in Finland as a sentient professional practice and affirmative social service work: emotion in the work of public service interpreters, by Hanna Kara and Camilla Nordberg, interpreters’ perspectives and experiences are once again at the centre of the analysis. The study is based on self-reflexive diaries that contribute important inside perspectives on language and emotional engagement in social work settings from a profession that often is described in a very instrumental way, as someone who ‘only translates’. The article Language brokering as acts of care: experiences of young migrants born in Poland and Romania living in Sweden by Charlotte Melander and Oksana Shmulyar Gréen provides another inside perspective; that of children who take on the task of language brokering in their migrant families. In the two final articles, we return to training and education issues. The article Learning a shared language: Theoretical concepts as tools for empowerment in social work interventions by Sara Hultqvist and Katarina Hollertz is an example of what happens when language diversity is considered a resource, both in practice and for existential reasons, in training situations in eldercare. Finally, the last article, Designing and developing interprofessional education: An example involving social work and interpreting students in Sweden by Helena Bani Shoraka, gives a concrete hands-on example of praxis in challenges of language diversity in social work settings, as she describes and discusses an interprofessional training module for social work students and public service interpreters.

Besides these articles, the special issue includes a review of the book Language Discordant Social Work in a Multilingual World: The Space Between, by Hilde Fiva Buzungu (2023).

Disclosure statement

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