This study analyzes the immigration policies of the Social Democrats, Moderates, Swedish Democrats, and the Left Party in Sweden in 2013, before the refugee crisis 2015, using Carl Dahlström's theoretical framework differentiating different types of immigration policy. It aims to uncover their policy positions on immigration, based on Carl Dahlström's three dimensions, where he emphasizes the combination of these three dimensions that further generates eight different types of immigration policies. Carl Dahlström is a professor of political science and dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Gothenburg. His research primarily focuses on public administration and welfare policy, but he also investigates immigration policy and anti-immigration parties.

Method: Idea analysis is utilized to dissect the immigration narratives of these parties from various texts. Results: Findings indicate that the Social Democrats and the Left Party advocate multiculturalism, advocating diversity and inclusion. In contrast, the Sweden Democrats push for assimilation, emphasizing cultural uniformity, while the Moderates support universalistic policies focusing on rights and economic integration. Conclusion: Prior to the refugee crisis, immigration policy was highly politicized among Swedish parties, each adopting distinct stances. The study underscores the politicization of immigration, marked by ideological differences and public discourse, offering critical insights into Sweden's immigration policy landscape.

The agri-food sector in Sweden, as in much of Europe, faces dramatic pressure to promote entrepreneurship, especially in rural areas where population aging and population decline pose grave economic threats to local communities. One solution is the government policy of supporting the entrepreneurial ambitions of newly arrived immigrants. The policy is seen as doubly beneficial: support for rural areas and support for immigrants not yet prepared to enter the regular workforce. Immigrant entrepreneurship seems to have the potential to lessen the harmful effects of current socio-economic challenges. This paper examines the immigrant entrepreneurship experience in the agri-food sector in Sweden. A qualitative research approach is used to evaluate interviews with 25 immigrant entrepreneurs on the various factors that motivated them to become self-employed entrepreneurs. The main factors are the lack of other employment opportunities, the desire for work autonomy and flexibility, and the chance for a better standard of living. The results show that personal characteristics and previous entrepreneurship experience are the best predictors of business success. The paper concludes with a call for a model for immigrant entrepreneurship and for more government reforms and policies aimed at supporting the immigrant entrepreneur.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore health from the perspective of young immigrants in Sweden.

Design/methodology/approach: A total of 25 newly arrived young immigrants attending Swedish language classes in northern Sweden participated by drawing and writing open letters. They continued the open-ended sentence “Now I’ll draw and describe a day when I was feeling good, that was […].”

Findings: The phenomenological analysis resulted in three themes: longing to be in control for a better life, searching for power in the good and the bad, and striving for a sense of belonging in the new society. The findings illuminate young immigrants’ perspectives of a health-promoting everyday life consisting of agency, reflection and a sense of community. The findings also highlight the young immigrants’ experiences when health-promoting aspects are lacking, characterized by disillusionment, anxiety and loneliness. The findings are discussed with health promotion, health literacy and young immigrants in mind.

Practical implications: According to young immigrants, meeting basic needs such as food, sleep and housing is health promoting but easily taken for granted. Being able to have a say in matters concerning everyday life, social inclusion and finding power in memories – positive and negative – can promote health in young immigrants.

Originality/value: The young immigrants were able to communicate via drawings and words to overcome language barriers. © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Purpose: This study focuses on higher education as a pathway to establishment in a new society for female immigrants and its role in well-being. Building on previous research that highlights social capital and empowerment as significant factors for successful establishment in a new society, and experiencing well-being, this study aims to explore if higher education can promote female immigrants’ establishment in Swedish society. Methods: Interviews were used to explore female immigrants’ experiences of higher education and establishment in Swedish society. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the empirical material, generating a nuanced understanding of the studied topic. Results: Higher education was found to promote establishment in Swedish society, ultimately leading to an experience of well-being. Pursuing higher education was perceived as a means of achieving personal fulfilment and success while fostering new social connections. Important factors in pursuing higher education included favourable living conditions, personal motivation, and a positive educational attitude. Conclusion: The study provides insights into female immigrants’ higher education experiences in a context that promotes establishment in Swedish society and well-being. However, more research is needed to fully investigate the driving factors for female immigrants pursuing higher education, considering their migrant background and living conditions. © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Migration has been seen as an issue that needs to be addressed by governments as well as international organizations such as the European Union, IOM and so on. Over the last twenty years or so many political and scholars designed to combat the problem of migration at both national and international level. This thesis aims to explain whether migration is becoming viewed as a security threat for the EU or it’s just a challenge. I will focus primarily on the issue of migration to the European Union. The theory of securitization has been used to examine the process whether the issue of migration has become seen as a threat to the European member states. In this study I will use case study methods to analyze the process of securitization of migration to the EU and support my arguments with official political data.

Uppsatsen ”Jude eller same, i religionsundervisningen, då får ni inte vara med?!” utgår från de nationella minoriteterna i Sverige och hur de framställs i läroböckerna för eleverna som läser religionskunskap A på gymnasiet. Uppsatsen är gjord med en jämförande litteraturstudie bland fem religionskunskapsböcker för gymnasiet. Med Anthony Giddens teori om minoriteter och etniciteter kommer att tolka hur läroböckerna framställer minoritetsreligionerna. Problemformuleringen grundar sig i hur läroböckerna framställer Sveriges minoriteters religioner med inriktning på samernas religion och judendomen. I uppsatsen har jag kommit fram till att det inte förekommer någon information om de undersökta nationella minoriteternas religioner, då med inriktning på minoritetsreligioner. Det är viktigt att belysa att det finns mycket information om judendomen, men informationen är inte kopplad till judendomen som religion till ett minoritetsfolk i Sverige.

The research mainly carried out on the Syrian immigrants in Sweden who are working in Swedish society and also living with their families. The primary objective is to find out how the Syrian immigrants combine their work-life as well as family life in Sweden and also the difficulties they are facing. It is mainly a qualitative study and the data has been collected from the five in-depth interviews immigrant those who are living in Halmstad, Sweden for five to six years. The collected data depend on the idea such as involvement in working life, social integration, and involvement in family life, communication with a particular community, health, and lifestyle as well as religious factors. Sweden is one of the multi-cultural countries in the world where equality between persons to persons is emphasized everywhere. Besides, immigrants are contributing to the development of different sectors. Nevertheless, people from another country like Syrian immigrants are living in Sweden and they are involved in different organizations. Besides, they are integrated with the Swedish work life and family life. The interpretation of the collected data is based on the health and lifestyle theory (Cocker-ham. 2005) and acculturation theory (Sam and berry, 2006). The interpretation resulted in four main themes such as work-life, family life, social identity, and the difficulties Syrian immigrants are facing. The study presents various perspectives of Syrian immigrant’s work life and family life in Sweden and the problem they are facing. The results show different factors of Syrian refugee’s lifestyle and the process they are leading their work life as well as family life. The result of the study can be used in future research projects to understand the life of Syrian immigrants in Sweden.

This study investigates the understanding of the need for care for mental illness among newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers in Sweden during 1990-2021. The study applies a crisis narrative perspective to contextualise why and how changes in legislation occur and the understanding of it. Furthermore, the article investigates how this is described and understood in legal texts, propositions, public investigations, and reports from 1990–2021 with an analytical frame of a crisis narrative. This crisis narrative is constructed through testimonies by social secretaries, migration officers, journalists, and professors linked to migration. This will be understood from the theoretical perspectives of who has the right to have rights (Arendt, 2017) and who is grievable (Butler, 2016), as well as a holistic perspective on health using the concepts of health-lifestyle (Cockerham, 2005), empowerment and SOC- sense of coherence. This study asks: (1) How was the description of the need for care and rights for refugees and asylum seekers described in official documents? (2) How has the displacement shift in rights to health and the view of the need for care among refugees and asylum seekers looked like? and (3) What impact can the right to have rights and to be grievable have on the health issues of refugees and asylum seekers?

A qualitative thematic document analysis was adopted with an exploratory design based on an inductive approach to the empirical material. A hermeneutic interpretation has been applied which means creating a deeper interpretation than the intellectually comprehensible knowledge. The result shows that the legal texts, propositions, public investigations, and reports have shifted towards a more decentralised structure with a more holistic perspective on health. Together with the witness seminars, this testifies that, paradoxically, it has led to a more individualised view of refugees, that they take responsibility for their health to a greater extent, where uncertainty because of temporary residence permits is linked to an insecure and precarious existence.

Den islamism som står för en auktoritär världsbild och livnär sig på hatet mot icke-muslimen är ingenting annat än sverigedemokraternas spegelbild, skriver Pernilla Ouis. Hon konstaterar att det är problematiskt om Rosengårds barn och unga på sin fritid är hänvisade till religiösa aktiviteter, när stadsdelens fritidsgårdar är alldeles för få.

Background: When large numbers of asylum seekers immigrate to a country, civil society is encouraged to contribute to their integration. A subgroup of asylum seekers comprising lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) refugees are specifically deemed vulnerable to developing health and integration problems due to the double stigma of being a sexual/gender minority and a refugee. The Swedish Federation for LGBTQ Rights (RFSL) is a civil societal organization that has established the support group “RFSL Newcomers,” a health-related integration intervention that targets such refugees. The aim of the present study is reconstructing the subjective understanding of health of LGBTQ refugees. Methods: Eleven participants in Newcomers and eight organizers were interviewed about LGBTQ refugees’ experiences of migrating and participating in RFSL Newcomers. Qualitative content analysis was used to reconstruct subjective understandings of health that were constructed in these narratives. As the data did not originally concentrate on exploring understandings of health, a broad theoretical approach was used as a heuristic for the analysis, which focused on the common everyday approach of conceptualizing health as wellbeing. Results: The narratives revealed three interconnected, interdependent categories of understanding health in which tensions occur between wellbeing and ill-being: belonging versus alienation, security and safety versus insecurity, and recognition versus denial. The categories contribute to an overarching theme of health as framed freedom – i.e., freedom framed by conditions of society. Conclusions: For our participants, belonging, recognition, and security/safety are conceptual elements of understanding health, not its social determinants. Thus, these understandings emphasize relational and existential meanings of health (theoretical implication). As for practical implications, the understandings of health were connected to being either inside or outside the Newcomers group and a new society, depending on whether LGBTQ refugees comply with social requirements. As a significant actor that is representative of the cultural majority and a facilitator of LGBTQ refugees’ resettlement process, RFSL provides LGBTQ refugees with crucial orientations for becoming a “good migrant” and a “good LGBTQ person,” yet a “bad bio-citizen.” Generally, organizers of interventions may enhance the effectiveness of their interventions when relational, existential, and biomedical understandings of health are all incorporated. © 2022, The Author(s).

Purpose: Migrants are a vulnerable group concerning health and integration. Civil society organizations are deemed important for the integration and health of migrants and have been encouraged to help. This study explored health and acculturation, as expressed in research into health-related integration interventions for migrant groups provided by civil society organizations.

Methods: Databases, journal websites and reference lists were searched in an integrative review. Thirteen articles were found and analysed using concepts of health strategies/perspectives and of acculturation with regard to general and health culture.

Results: Studies were divided between two primary spectrums: 1) assimilation-integration and 2) integration-separation spectrum. Spectrum 1 interventions tend to promote assimilation into the present host culture and into a Western view of health. They are mostly driven by representatives of the host culture. Spectrum 2 interventions are characterized by a greater openness concerning the home-culture understandings of health, alongside an appreciation of the home culture in general. They are mostly migrant-driven.

Conclusions: The different acculturating approaches in migrant and native-driven civil society organizations call for an awareness of their guiding health and acculturation assumptions and their applied perspectives and strategies. This awareness is considered crucial in order to achieve desired health and acculturation outcomes. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Bakgrund: Tidigare var det förbjudet i Sverige att utföra homosexuella handlingar. Homosexualiteten är nu mer synlig och accepterad i samhället på grund av lagar och författningar. Inom Hälso- och sjukvården har alla rätt till likvärdig vård, oavsett sexuell identitet. Trots detta har en del vårdpersonal fortfarande en negativ syn på patienter utanför heteronormen. Därför är det av vikt att sjuksköterskan får en ökad medvetenhet om patienternas upplevelser. Syftet var att beskriva patienter med homosexuell identitets upplevelser av och önskemål kring vårdpersonalens bemötande. Metod: En litteraturstudie som byggdes på sex kvalitativa och en kvantitativ artikel som speglade studiens syfte. Resultat och konklusion: Patienterna upplevde att vårdpersonalen arbetade utifrån ett heteronormativt synsätt. Det framkom upplevelser av att vårdpersonalen hade en diskriminerande, kränkande och nedvärderade attityd. Dessutom framkom upplevelser av att kommunikationen hämmades i relationen mellan vårdpersonal och patient. Det framkom även önskemål från patienter med homosexuell identitet om hur ett bra bemötande och hur en god kommunikation skulle kunna skapas. Implikation: Det finns behov av ökad kunskap om olika sexuella identiteter hos vårdpersonal, för att undvika att patienter upplever diskriminering och utanförskap. Därmed kan det vara betydelsefullt att lyfta problemet tydligare i grundutbildningen. Det finns även behov av vidare forskning för att få ökad kunskap om hur dessa negativa upplevelser skall undvikas.

The Swedish prostitution law from 1999, now followed by Norway and Iceland, criminalized the purchaser and decriminalized the prostituted person. This is analyzed as a cogent state response under international trafficking law, particularly to the obligations set forth in the United Nation’s Trafficking Protocol from 2000. The Protocol states that a person is regarded a trafficking victim when, e.g., someone abuses her “position of vulnerability” in order to exploit her. International jurisprudence and social evidence strongly suggest that prostitution, as practiced in the world, usually satisfies this definition. Further, the Protocol urges states to reduce the demand for prostitution and to protect and assist victims, for instance by adopting laws deterring purchasers of sex, and by supporting those exploited in prostitution. Policy makers, such as the U.S. Department of State, are criticized for taking an inadequate position in face of the growing evidence from the Swedish law's impact.The article shows that Sweden has significantly reduced the occurrence of trafficking in Sweden compared to neighboring countries. It also scrutinizes some misinformation of the law's impact, showing for instance that claims alleging a more dangerous situation for those still in prostitution after 1999 were unfounded. In addition, the article addresses remaining obstacles to the law's effective implementation, arguing that in order to realize the law's full potential to support escape from trafficking, the civil rights of prostituted persons under current law should be strengthened to enable them to claim damages directly from the purchasers for the harm to which they have contributed, and for the violation of the prostituted persons' equality and dignity - a position now recognized by the government to some extent by clarifying amendments made in 2011.

Refugee entrepreneurs can make a significant contribution to sustainable growth and development in host countries. However, comprehensive comparative studies of refugee entrepreneurial motivations are scarce, particularly in the absence of a theoretical framework on entrepreneurship motivation that is suitable for such contexts. This is a research topic that is increasingly of interest to scholars and policymakers working with refugee workforce integration, particularly in light of forecasted increases in global forced displacement over the next years. This paper tests and extends newly constructed entrepreneurship motivation measures, comparing person-related factors and the perceptions of environmental-related factors for Syrian refugee entrepreneurs in Sweden and Germany. The results indicate that their motivations differ between the two countries with respect to market conditions, the educational environment, dissatisfaction, and know-how. However, refugee entrepreneurs in both countries have similar levels of entrepreneurial ambition and attitude and are motivated by similar perceptions of social environments and cultural norms. This paper identifies how entrepreneurship motivation differences could be considered by governments to better shape and inform host countries' programs and policies to improve refugee entrepreneurship and subsequent integration. Syrian refugees in Germany and Sweden differ in their motivation to pursue entrepreneurship, as evidenced by our comparative study, emphasizing the role of country context in shaping refugees' perception of environmental factors that influence their entrepreneurial motivation. We find that Germany-based refugee entrepreneurs are more motivated by market structures and educational offerings, have more know-how, and were less prone to negative motivation resulting from experiencing dissatisfaction (e.g. due to discrimination or lack of opportunities) compared with Sweden-based refugee entrepreneurs. The results emphasize the importance of policy reforms and initiatives that provide financial, administrative, and legal assistance to refugee entrepreneurs as they start and establish their businesses, as well as specialized entrepreneurship training and education programs. We call for future research on inter-country evaluations of institutional differences and migrant integration programs as well as trans-border exchange of lessons learned and success stories, particularly in-light of prognosed increases in global forced displacement over the next years. © The Author(s) 2023