Societal orientation from a sender and recipient perspective : A qualitative study of how societal orientation is given by Umeå region and received by newly arrived refugees

This investigation is about how the Civic Orientation Course within Umeåregionen has been received among newly arrived refugees. The purpose of the essay is to research how the Civic Orientation has worked within the Umeåregion with focus on the municipality of Umeå, with both a perspective of transmitter and receiver. The Civic Orientation Course is a legal right for all refugees between 18-64 years in Sweden and it is an introduction to the Swedish society. To do this, interviews have been done with one Social Consultant from Umeå kommun and three newly arrived refugees. The requirements on interviewed newly arrived refugees have been that they have finished the Civic Orientation course and are over 18 years. To answer the investigation questions; what kind of information and through which communication channels have Umeå kommun addressed their communication to newly arrived refugees, how have the information from Umeå kommun been received among the newly arrived refugees and how cultural and social differences may matter in the receiving of the information, three theories have been used; orientalism by Said, Shannon and Weaver “Model of Communication” and the Encoding/Decoding by Hall. The result shows that language is the largest barrier for newly arrived refugees to interact within the Swedish society, even though it is not the purpose of the Civic Orientation to teach Swedish the course has to give ideas about where interaction can happen with other Swedes. Overall social and cultural experiences have been the purpose to the distance between refugees and Swedes. The interviewed are pleased with the course and the teachers but lack information about how they in certain specific situations are supposed to act in the Swedish society