Polite Exclusion: Peer Exclusion of High-performing Immigrant Youth in a School Setting.

Abstract

Integration problems are often explained in terms of segregation: students with immigrant backgrounds are frequently associated with so-called ethnically segregated residential areas and stigmatized, low-performing, suburban schools where they have no opportunity to meet Swedish peers. This is provided as the explanation for their low chances of integration in the short and long term, whether in a school setting or in general society. In contrast, this study investigates high performing students attending a high-performing program at a well-reputed upper secondary school. While formally valued and included, by both the school, and the faculty, they express feelings of social exclusion by their Swedish peers. This exclusion is expressed in subtle, almost intangible ways, and it is, above all, polite. Students with migrant backgrounds are not termed with derogatory epitaphs, teased, or verbally challenged. Instead, the exclusion is expressed in tiny, next to imperceptible, ways in everyday interactions.

The students with immigrant backgrounds in question explain these acts of exclusion in terms of ethnicity and ethnic background. They describe access to and acceptance by the Swedish peer group as requiring a perceived sameness to this group. This is partly confirmed by students with Swedish backgrounds, who state that they chose friends based on sameness. This leads to a Catch-22: in order to be included one has to possess a sameness. But in order to acquire the sameness, students need to be included. Thus they remain subtly excluded.

This type of subtle exclusion is hard to challenge because it is covert, and its covertness reduces the affected students’ capabilities in resisting and opposing it. The peers termed as Swedes do reply when spoken to, but do so in a sharp or abrupt manner. Thus there is little concrete action to object to. The teachers, who claim that the class is very integrated and accepting, do not appear to regard this exclusion as involuntary and do not mark it in terms of ethnicity. Thus the affected students have limited options for objection and resistance, and even though the teachers, when interviewed, state that they have observed the segregation present in the classroom, they do not attempt to mediate it due to the fact that there is no visible resistance to it. Instead, they explain it in terms of unfortunate circumstances. As nobody acts or objects, the possibilities of change are faint.

Resistance carries a double risk for the affected students, as in resisting, they might be seen as the source of the problem. This as their resistance would cast a negative shadow over peers who have not trespassed formally or socially. This allows the exclusions to continue unchallenged.

Inclusion is not a matter of either/or. As this study shows, inclusion can very well coexist with exclusion, and formal inclusion is by no means a guarantee of social inclusion. Inclusion cannot be reduced to the physical, in terms of the placement of students from different backgrounds beneath a common roof. The students in this study are formally accepted and appreciated, regardless of their backgrounds. And yet they experience problems when interacting with those peers termed “the Swedes”.