The multicultural society : a qualitative interview study about the importance of everyday racism for Swedish citizens

The purpose of this study was to investigate, through a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative methods, whether Swedish citizens with two foreign-born parents feel that everyday racism is expressed in the society. Collected empirical data were conducted through an online questionnaire and eight interviews, in which all key informants were born in Sweden but originated from Lebanon, Syria, Spain and Kosovo. Previous research shows that the concept of immigrants tends to represent only a homogeneous cultural of non-indigenous ethnicities and that this unit is subordinate to the dominant Swedish identity. Being categorized as immigrants in Sweden can lead to stigmatization, racism, discrimination and exclusion in areas such as education, working life and income regardless of generation. It is therefore believed that cultural and social rankings have emerged between “Swedes” and “immigrants”, which means that the concept of immigrants has become a category that also subordinates individuals and collectively. Collected empirical data was analysed on the basis of Erving Goffman, Jan Inge Jönhill and Charles Horton Cooley theories and the results showed that informants carry experiences of racism that are a combination of structural knowledge and personal experiences. One can therefore describe the experiences as a cultural legacy of consciousness or a high knowledge of both previous social and current existing exclusions that have historically occurred or usually occur within a society today.