Sports as a method for integration : A qualitative interview study about a Swedish municipality's strategic integration work

As a result of the significant increase of migrants coming to Sweden in 2015, the Swedish government has increased the strategies on integration within agencies and municipalities in the country. Integration through sports is one of these methods. To summarize, previous research on sports as an integration method shows that sports can be viewed as a field for meetings between differentiated ethnic groups. Integration in this matter measures by how well the migrants familiarize and adapt to Swedish society and the cultural norms and values within Sweden. The aim of this upcoming interview-study is to examine how a Swedish municipality explain their method of integration through sports, performed by non-profit sports associations. Municipality workers, viewed through previous sociological research and theories, tend to idealize the image of how they value their work. However this doesn’t necessarily add up with the actually performed work. Because non-profit associations form the integrative sports activities, one could argue that there is in fact a split opinion between what municipalities aims to do themselves, and what is achieved by external resources incorporated in the municipalities guidelines. This is therefor the subject that the upcoming study aims to examine. However, in contrast to previous research on the field, this study examines the question; how is integration through sports designed and what challenges has come with it?, rather than further investigating how well integration is achieved through sports.