During the two academic years 2014 and 2015 a great number of newly arrived pupils entered Swedish schools as a result of fleeing war and conflict in different parts of east Africa and the Middle East. Many of these pupils had no former or an interrupted schooling at the time of their arrival in Sweden. The aim of this study is to investigate and gain knowledge about a group of teachers’ understanding and teaching of newly arrived pupils with no former or an interrupted schooling at the language introduction (språkintroduktionen) in upper secondary school. 

This study has been influenced by an ethnographic approach, and draws data mainly from semi-structured interviews, but also from participant observations and informal interviewing. 

The study shows that the group of teachers investigated are prone to focusing on the shortcomings of newly arrived pupils with no former or an interrupted schooling in their comparison with the typical “Swedish” upper secondary pupil. Furthermore, the study also shows that these teachers are left to their own devices when it comes to organizing their teaching and finding suitable teaching methods and materials for this group of pupils. In addition to this, the study finds that because of the way the municipality and the school itself organize the teaching of newly arrived pupils, the pupils with no former or an interrupted schooling are left with what the teachers perceive as feelings of isolation and segregation from both their peers with non-interrupted schooling, and the Swedish upper secondary pupils in the same municipality. This results in what the teachers understand as a loss of motivation to study and a sense of being inadequate as a pupil. Lastly, the study finds that there is a real risk for these teachers of reproducing the new underclass since pupils with no former or an interrupted schooling cannot escape the confines that the teachers and the school system subject them to.