Linguistic Autonomy in a Monolingual Social Imaginary
Social Work Practitioners’ Sense-making of the Role of Language in Migrant ‘Integration
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6452202 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hanna Kara (0000-0003-4038-657X, University of Helsinki), Camilla Nordberg (0000-0001-6448-8891, Åbo Akademi University), Maija Jäppinen (0000-0002-2332-998X, University of Helsinki), Anna-Leena Riitaoja (0000-0003-2825-8380, University of Helsinki) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 100-111 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Policy and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1474-7464 • E-ISSN: 1475-3073 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s1474746424000605 |
| OpenAlex | W4407099733 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 40 |
The article studies how public policies of migrant ‘integration’ are enacted and made sense of in the street-level welfare state from the perspective of social work practitioners performing integration work and with a focus on language and language skills acquisition. It draws from twenty-seven semi-structured individual interviews and reflective discussions after service user meetings with eleven social workers and social advisors in migrant integration services conducted between 2018 and 2019 in the Helsinki capital region of Finland. Results infer ambiguous, yet persistent, ideals of monolingualism in which Finnish language skills acquisition plays a central role and linguistic diversity turns into individual lack of skills and capacities through service user responsibilisation. Yet practitioners refer to the unfeasible situations this creates for service users as well as to their own struggles as practitioners within the monolingual service system
Autonomy · Linguistics · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · The Imaginary · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Social Psychology
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| Citations per year | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |