Caroline Tovatt

Efforts to include refugees in Swedish society have changed since the Establishment reform was introduced in 2010. In this project, the implementation of the reform has been studied in the municipalities of Eskilstuna and Nyköping. The study shows that refugees have difficulties to decode the reception programs, due to the complexity of the reception system, composed of a mixture of different forms of governance: hierarchical governance, horizontal collaboration and market-based control. The centrally organized Employment service leaves relatively limited space for action at the local level. One of the conclusions is that the Establishment reform so far has not led to any development efforts for inclusion of refugees as the authorities have put the most efforts on solving administrative issues and build routines rather than to actively promote the inclusion of refugees.

In Sweden, 60-85% of all jobs are appointed through informal recruitment. The research has to a lesser extent focused on differences in the outcomes of different social networks with regard to ethnicity, gender and class. Questions about how information and recommendations are communicated within the social networks have rarely been studied. The project focuses on the relationship between the applicants and the information mediators perceived scope of action in strategies of network recruitment. What considerations are made when seeking job, and when recommending through social networks? What careers develop through recruiting via social networks and how these are affected by individuals' social background?
The study is theoretically grounded in research emphasizing networks and social capital in recruitment, with an interactionist perspective. Three sub-studies analyze links between qualifications and work: The sample is composed of both low-and high-skilled people in jobs with both low and high qualifications as well as Swedish and foreign-born men and women. Semi-structured interviews and so-called network map are the main methods.

In recent decades, tourism and travelling has increasingly come to be recognized as a highly complex field of research that raises questions that are both local and global, that involves questions about identity and self-understanding, as well as questions relating to human rights, development, global economy and international political relations. Still, there are yet few Swedish textbooks where contemporary tourism and travel is highlighted from a critical perspective, or where issues of global power relations are in focus. Therefore, the purpose of this project has been to produce text books in Swedish, in which international tourism and travel are confronted with new, critical, theoretical perspectives.

The project illuminates, with Stockholm as a case study in a national and international perspective, how institutional changes and reforms of compulsory and upper-secondary schools affect the social inclusion/exclusion of young people with immigrant backgrounds; their careers and experiences of education and employment in segregated metropolitan environments. Special attention is paid to local cooperation involving the family, ethnic associations, and local educational institutions. The overall research question concerns the impact of education, work and civic agency on social inclusion and full citizenship in multi-ethnic society. Reforms in the system of education and changes on the labour market are related to local community development in order to elucidate the interplay between structural and institutional change, civic agency and individual social mobility.