The experience of integration : a qualitative study of Swedish-language integration in Helsinki

Migration to Finland has increased considerably in the last decade. As Finnish society becomes increasingly multicultural and multilingual, new measures and services are needed to promote integration. For integration to be successful, it needs ongoing processes and interaction that require both immigrants themselves and the host society to be active, and to provide the tools that are needed for integration. This master’s thesis investigates the Swedish-language integration path in the capital region of Finland. As Finland’s bilingualism enables integration to happen in both the Finnish and Swedish languages, the purpose of this thesis is to enable immigrants who have chosen to integrate with the Swedish language the chance to be heard and to listen to their personal integration experiences. As the research focuses on immigrants learning Swedish, five interviews with Swedish-speaking immigrants have been conducted as part of this thesis. The qualitative method used in this research has the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of what is considered to be successful integration by the immigrants themselves. The reference framework for this thesis is based on Friedrich Heckmann’s definition of social integration, alongside the Finnish Act on the Promotion of Integration (1386/2010) and the Language Act (423/2003). In addition, a range of previous research is used in order to compare the results that were found in this study. The results demonstrate that although Finnish legislation does make it possible to choose between the Finnish and Swedish languages when intergrating, it is hard to execute this duality in practice. From authorities’ reluctance to it being difficult to find Swedish-speaking connections outside the classroom, the results show that it is difficult for immigrants to practice Swedish in everyday life and they suffer from a lack of interaction with Finnish society. Integration processes are challenging for these immigrants for various reasons, which also illustrates how different the stories and experiences of immigrants are.