De är ganska segregerade, det är de, och det ärproblem : En studie om nyanlända grundskoleelevers skolgång i en förberedelseklass

My study is about a preparation class in a selected municipality. It is based on the child¹s perspective, and it tries to highlight the school situation of new arrivals in a school where the majority of the pupils are of Swedish origin. The purpose of my study is to visualize how the education for newly arrived children is organized in the municipality, and to get an understanding of a range of student’s view of the schooling in the preparation class as an introduction to a regular class. To reach my goal, I have used qualitative methods, based on qualitative interviews. The interviews were made with six newly arrived pupils, and one interview was made with the deputy head of the school, which is in charge of immigrant education in the municipality. The results show that the four primary schools in the municipality have two preparation classes located in a school for year 1-5 and 6-9. The interviewed pupils are between 13 and 15 years old. The interview reveals deficiencies in different areas, concerning the newly arrived children. The pupils are relatively segregated in school and they have no opportunities to form relationships with other pupils, which can lead to stigma. The education is characterized by lower expectations, and it is not ideal for the children’s cognitive development. The pupils also receive mother tongue education, and a few of them get student consolation. Most of them prefer student consolation, where the education is in Swedish simultaneously with their native language. The mother tongue education is not yet suited to the pupils’ abilities and needs, and the teachers in mother tongue language have a lack of qualifications