The contested concept of ‘integration’ and the role of language

Much like the Finnish Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration 1386/2010 described above, research generally considers language skills as a key factor for integration, in particular because dominant language skills are considered important for labour market participation and employment opportunities (see, for example Alisaari et al., Reference Alisaari, Kaukko and Heikkola2022; Kosyakova et al., Reference Kosyakova, Kristen and Spörlein2022; Kanas and Kosyakova, Reference Kanas and Kosyakova2023). Equally, language skills enhancement constitutes an important area of work for different actors supporting integration (Walkey et al., Reference Walkey, Brown and Martin2024). Refugees are often seen to be more likely to arrive with fewer relevant language skills (Kosyakova et al., Reference Kosyakova, Kristen and Spörlein2022), thus creating hierarchisation.

Yet, as Piller and Takahashi (Reference Piller and Takahashi2011) write, policies, practices, or research rarely consider the ways in which language or ideas of language skills and language proficiency mediate the understanding of migrant integration, social inclusion, and citizenship. In this way, other language speakers are not recognised as having legitimate linguistic needs and rights, but language skills become conflated with integration and inequalities explained by referring to lacking individual capacities or motivation to ‘learn the language’ (Piller, Reference Piller and Stanlaw2020: 5; see also Piller, Reference Piller2016a: 62, 162; see also State of the Art in this themed section). This reflects a more general tendency of treating ‘problems in integration’ as failures of individual migrants, instead of focusing on structural issues and institutional rationales (Walkey et al., 2022). It also connects with a hierarchical view in which the mastery of locally dominant or globally high-ranking languages is prioritised above skills in other languages (Piller, Reference Piller and Stanlaw2020; Scheibelhofer et al., Reference Scheibelhofer, Holzinger and Draxl2021; Alisaari et al., Reference Alisaari, Kaukko and Heikkola2022; see also State of the Art in this themed section).

Taylor (Reference Taylor2004: 23–24) has described ‘social imaginary’ as a shared sense of ‘a common understanding that enables us to carry out the collective practices that make up our social life’. Vertovec (Reference Vertovec2020: 11) has pointed out that this often takes place within the framework of methodological nationalism, in both public policy and research. Taylor (Reference Taylor2004: 23–24) further suggests that a shared social imaginary produces a shared sense of legitimate, normative expectations presenting a moral order: a sense of how things should be (see also Vertovec, Reference Vertovec2020). This refers to specific understandings and formulations of social problems and their solutions within an asymmetrical relationship between majorities and minorities (Rytter, Reference Rytter2019: 679). Importantly, while the concept deals with constructions and imaginary, its consequences are ‘real’.

Many European governments have established a range of policy tools, such as mandatory language courses, with the aim of promoting migrants’ integration and more specifically their entry to the labour market. Goodman and Wright (Reference Goodman and Wright2015) suggest that the positive influence of these types of policies is overstated, and posit them as part of a political strategy aiming to control migration movements and access to residence (see also Vertovec, Reference Vertovec2020). Furthermore, Scheibelhofer et al. (Reference Scheibelhofer, Holzinger and Draxl2021) write of the difficulties and contradictions experienced by street-level bureaucrats in trying to fit their organisations’ monolingual orientation with their linguistically diverse clientele. In their study on employment services in Vienna, Austria, they observed how language-related issues and misunderstandings were commonplace for the employees working at the street level, while at the organisational level linguistic diversity was largely surpassed and neglected. This conflict was further exacerbated by scarce resources and management reforms based on neoliberal policies emphasising effectiveness in service provision and the individual responsibilisation of service users.

Recently, several scholars have debated the lack of critical thinking in research on integration (see for example Schinkel, Reference Schinkel2018; Favell, Reference Favell2019; Hadj Abdou, Reference Hadj Abdou2019; Rytter, Reference Rytter2019; Saharso, Reference Saharso2019) rooted in a naturalised citizen/migrant binary of modern nation states (see also Kofman et al., Reference Kofman, Sawitri and Vacchelli2015; Haapajärvi, Reference Haapajärvi2022). Leila Hadj Abdou (Reference Hadj Abdou2019) has advocated for conceptualising integration as a governance technique to be critically studied. She refers to Schinkel (Reference Schinkel2018; ref. Hadj Abdou, Reference Hadj Abdou2019: 1) while she formulates that ‘any claim and practice that concerns integration should be the object of research, rather than the project of research’ to reveal more about the processes through which integration measures are articulated and implemented. In a similar vein, in this article, we address the shared social imaginary of integration in connection to language and how this unfolds in the street-level welfare state practices from the perspective of social work practitioners performing integration work.

Data production and analysis

The article builds empirically on a larger study on migrant families’ encounters with the local Finnish welfare state (MigraFam, 2018–2023). We draw on a subset of the data consisting of twenty-seven semi-structured individual interviews and reflective discussions after service user meetings with eleven social workers and social advisors working in migrant integration services in the Helsinki capital region, conducted between 2018 and 2019 (for a more detailed account on the data production and processes of access and consent, see Kara et al., Reference Kara, Jäppinen, Nordberg and Riitaoja2023). Integration services provide services over a period of approximately three years mainly for people who have been granted refugee or asylum status and municipal residency on these grounds. Most of the practitioners who participated in the study were of Finnish background and spoke Finnish or Swedish as their first language, and the interviews and reflective discussions were conducted in Finnish.

Analytically, we draw from abductive analysis (e.g., Timmermans and Tavory, Reference Timmermans and Tavory2012; Tavory and Timmermans, Reference Tavory and Timmermans2014: 2, 115) with which we refer to dialogical reading between the empirical material and previous research literature relevant to our research interest. We began by searching for segments in the data where participants referred to language when describing their work with service users in integration services, either more generally in relation to the objectives and aspects they considered important in their work, or more specifically in relation to specific service encounters.

Through close reading of these segments, we identified and separated the following themes: 1) language at the centre of integration, 2) demanding linguistic autonomy from service users, and 3) struggling with the monolingual service system. We organised the empirical data accordingly, after which we continued with reading the segments of the data within each theme against relevant earlier research concerning conceptions of integration and in connection to language, as well as sources describing the context, such as the Finnish Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration 1386/2010 , in an abductive dialogue. This entails a process of inference consisting of redescription and recontextualisation (Danermark et al., Reference Danermark, Ekström, Jakobsen and Karlsson2002: 91–95) in which existing conceptual and theoretical discussion and understanding and the empirical data are positioned to address one another.

In what follows, as we present and discuss our results, we will employ quotes from the data to serve as concrete illustrations and to make our analysis and interpretations visible. The extracts from the data have been translated into English by the authors. In the data extracts, details have been anonymised and some changes have been made to enhance readability.

Language at the centre of the monolingual social imaginary of ‘integration’

In the accounts of the practitioners, studying and learning Finnish stood out as a central goal for the service users’ integration period and the work done in integration services. Service users are provided with an individual integration plan which may be drafted either in the unemployment offices or in the municipal integration services, for example in the case of stay-at-home mothers who were not within the realm of employment policy measures. A key element in these plans was attending Finnish language courses.

Walkey et al. (Reference Walkey, Brown and Martin2024) have similarly described that workers in nongovernmental organisations in migrant integration services in the UK point to the enhancement of language skills as key because this represents a gateway to paid work and social contacts. The Finnish Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration 1386/2010 states that during the integration period, migrants are expected to regularly attend a Finnish or Swedish language course to acquire basic language skills considered as a requirement in daily life, and participate in other measures and services agreed. If they fail to do so, financial benefits paid as integration assistance may be curtailed.

In the data, the translation of documents, for example, was seen to some extent as an obstacle to language learning and, therefore, integration, as can be read in the following extract.

In another example, a practitioner talks about motivating service users as an important part of the work done in integration services and holds service users accountable for committing to the integration plan in general, and the (Finnish) language learning goal in particular:

In the extract, language course attendance is portrayed as an issue of motivation and as representing service users’ commitment to the integration plan as a whole – a subject which, according to the extract, is a recurrent theme in the service unit team meetings. This reflects a more general discussion over ‘problems in integration’ and whether they should be traced back to institutions and the society or to migrants (e.g., Piller, Reference Piller2016a: 62, 162, Reference Piller and Stanlaw2020; Vertovec, Reference Vertovec2020). Attending and passing language training becomes an expression of motivation and willingness to integrate, whereas course interruptions signal lack of willingness or ‘ability to belong’ (Era and Mäkinen, Reference Era and Mäkinen2022; see also Ratzmann and Sahraoui, Reference Ratzmann and Sahraoui2021; Buzungu, Reference Buzungu2023).

Yet attending language courses can be challenging for many reasons, and for example in the capital region, places in the courses are limited (Masoud et al., Reference Masoud, Holm and Brunila2021). Many practitioners brought up that it was difficult to find places in the courses. Furthermore, if one’s language training had started in one specific municipality, changing municipalities would mean losing their place and having to start queuing for a new course all over again.

Interrupted, stalled, or curtailed processes of language training were placed against speedy and efficient language learning processes (c.f., Griffiths, Reference Griffiths2014). In the extract below, a practitioner describes a family in which the parents, after some years in the asylum process and a year as service users in integration services, now already had a good level of Finnish.

In the extract, the practitioner describes a situation of a couple who have already acquired a prominent level of Finnish. The extract depicts advancing in language skills acquisition as the highway to citizenship – yet coupled with certain hierarchical positions in a way to merge higher education and social position, language skills and access to citizenship (cf., Favell, Reference Favell2019). In their study on language learning among resettled refugees in the UK, Morrice et al. (Reference Morrice, Tipp, Collyer and Brown2021) also highlight pre-migration education as a key resource. They point out, however, that often refugees and migrants with high level pre-migration education and relevant language skills still do not get the opportunities to make use of their education and qualifications, revealing, for example, labour market barriers other than language skills (Morrice et al., Reference Morrice, Tipp, Collyer and Brown2021; see also Alisaari et al., Reference Alisaari, Kaukko and Heikkola2022). In general, practitioners indicated that ‘other useful language skills’, mainly English, were rare among service users, reflecting regional and global hierarchisations in the valuation of language repertoires and language skills (see also Piller, Reference Piller2016b, Reference Piller and Stanlaw2020).

Governing expectations of linguistic autonomy within a monolingual service system

The practitioners often described ‘integration’ and their work with service users in integration services as a gradual process towards service users’ autonomy and independence with linguistic autonomy as one of its central goals.

In the above extract, the practitioner describes assisting, supporting, or doing things on behalf of service users in the beginning and providing them with models to follow. The aim is that service users would gradually become more independent in the everyday welfare state bureaucratic tasks. Their advancement in this process is assessed in yearly evaluations where their overall situation, and more specifically, their Finnish language skills, is discussed. Finally, the practitioner vividly refers to an experience of fulfilment connected to service-users’ growing autonomy which is exemplified by a service user stating that in the following service meeting they would want to speak Finnish (see also Buzungu, Reference Buzungu2023: 119).

In the above extract, while not questioning the importance of (Finnish) language skills acquisition as such, the practitioner brings up the overall life situations of service users as consisting of many different adversities, including, for example, an ongoing process of family reunification filled with financial demands, pressure, worry and uncertainty (see for example Nordberg et al., Reference Nordberg, Hiitola, Kara, Jäppinen, Clarke, Lee Oliver and Ranta-Tyrkkö2024). The practitioner opposes policies and services that require rapid progress in language skills acquisition because they do not consider the often-complex situations in which service users live.

In the case of the UK, Morrice et al. (Reference Morrice, Tipp, Collyer and Brown2021) have pointed out that policies fail to recognise the specific needs of refugee learners. The Finnish Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration 1386/2010 states that special consideration should be directed to migrants in need of ‘special integration measures on account of reduced functional capacity resulting from illness or disability in particular or other reasons, or on account of their age, family situation, illiteracy or other similar reason’. However, the account above suggests that, in practice, the ‘integration process’ is inflexible, preset, and normative in nature.

In the extract above, the practitioner brings up frustration with the overall monolinguistic nature of services and the welfare system. This affects and shapes the work done in integration services, and the situations of service users, in that practitioners working in integration services need to fill in the gaps created in other service units due to a lack of consideration for linguistic diversity and the linguistic rights of other than dominant language speakers. The next extract picks up on this same issue:

In the extract above, the practitioner explains how authorities quickly withdraw from providing services or information if this should be done, for example, with the help of an interpreter, and often expect migrant integration services to provide all the services and information to service users who do not speak the dominant language(s). Previous research has suggested that, for example, social work practitioners often find the use of interpreters challenging and lack the necessary skills and training for it (e.g., Westlake and Jones, Reference Westlake and Jones2018; Nordberg and Kara, Reference Nordberg and Kara2022; Kara and Nordberg, Reference Kara and Nordberg2023). In the extract, the practitioner describes ‘battles’ between professionals concerning this issue, and notes that in between these discussions, it is the service user who suffers either from not getting the services they need or because of delays in services.

Legislation compels professionals working in public services to make use of interpreting and translation services whenever necessary (e.g., Administrative Procedure Act 434/2003 ; Language Act 423/2003 ; Act on the Promotion of Immigrant Integration 1386/2010 ). Yet overall, legislation provides a rather general framework in this respect, whereby professionals have many possibilities to define their own practices concerning when and how to organise interpreting and translation (Koskinen et al., Reference Koskinen, Vuori, Leminen, Koskinen, Vuori and Leminen2018; Karinen et al., Reference Karinen, Luukkonen, Jauhola and Määttä2020; see also Nordberg and Kara, Reference Nordberg and Kara2022).

The practitioner describes how authorities often close their eyes in front of demands and situations of linguistic diversity and inequality, providing information and services only in Finnish and leaving the service users to deal with how to understand and make sense of what is going to happen and what is expected of them. The practitioner describes situations in which service users depend on and must pay for translation support from friends or acquaintances, putting them in a potentially vulnerable position. The practitioner’s own position seems to be that of powerlessness while acknowledging this deficit in support. Amid time and efficiency pressures and limited resources (see for example Hirvonen and Husso, Reference Hirvonen and Husso2012; Kamali and Jönsson, Reference Kamali, Jönsson, Kamali and Jönsson2018; Yuill and Mueller-Hirth, Reference Yuill and Mueller-Hirth2019), there is little room to support service users as they navigate the monolingual welfare service system.

Concluding discussion

By looking at practitioners’ accounts on their work of implementing integration policies in their daily practices, we see how ‘integration’ becomes ‘individualised’ instead of being a ‘property of a social whole’ (Schinkel, Reference Schinkel2018: 3). The focus on the role and expectations concerning language and language skills acquisition makes a concrete case of integration policies not regarding difference as ‘constitutive of the social but solely as jeopardising it’ (Schinkel, Reference Schinkel2018: 8; see also Piller and Takahashi, Reference Piller and Takahashi2011).

The analysis shows how social workers navigate a contradictory social imaginary of integration in their daily work. On the one hand, their encounters with service users are featured by a monolingual order of language inherent to the nation-state, giving rise to disciplinary and oppressive language practices. The overall assumption here is that linguistic autonomy can and should be achieved through improved skills, capacities, and knowledge in the dominant national language(s). Buzungu (Reference Buzungu2023; 133–134) has referred to the practices of encouraging or enforcing people to get by without qualified interpreter-mediation in their dealings with public services as a form of language oppression (e.g., Roche, Reference Roche2019) or linguicist (e.g., Skutnabb-Kangas, Reference Skutnabb-Kangas2015) social policies.

On the other hand, participants draw in their practice from a broader ethos of social work emphasising access, achievability, and flexibility (see also Buzungu, Reference Buzungu2023: 124–125). While social workers in their accounts often reproduce the assumptions of the legislation and policies of linguistic autonomy, and the ‘ideals of monolingualism’, and speak of their own technologies of governing as practitioners within the monolingual service system, they also portray and reflect upon unreasonable and unfeasible situations in which service users find themselves. Their accounts likewise reveal the context of time and effectiveness pressures which leave narrow possibilities to support service users as they navigate the rigidly monolingual welfare system, or, indeed, imagine any alternatives to it.

Scholars have shed light on the nationalist underpinnings of the notion of ‘integration’ in contemporary welfare states, and on how its vague conceptualisation means that authorities can address multiple publics in varying ways (Vertovec, Reference Vertovec2020). In our analysis, this vagueness in the conceptualisation of ‘integration’ is reflected in the professional mandate of social work practitioners implementing integration policies who seem to be left with an ambiguous, inefficient, and disenchanted occupational role. That way, the misrecognition of forced migrant background service users is reflected in a misrecognition of the professionals addressing their needs and rights.