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Swedish primary school pupils’ inter‐ethnic relationships
Author(s) -
Vedder Paul,
O’Dowd Mina
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9450.00120
Subject(s) - psychology , ethnic group , competence (human resources) , immigration , developmental psychology , social competence , academic achievement , ethnically diverse , social psychology , social change , archaeology , sociology , anthropology , economics , history , economic growth
The aim of the Swedish educational policy is educional participation and academic achievement for all children, irrespective of ethnic backgroud. Majority lauguage instruction is an imortant tool used to achieve this goal. We argue that taking lessons in Swedish‐as‐a‐second‐lanuage (S2) sets children apart in their class and limits their possibilities to interact with Swedish children and the immigrant children, who do not receive S2‐lessons. In accordance with the contact hypothesis, we assumed that this limitation would have a negative impact on peer evaluation of these pupils’ social competence. 394 children in ethnically mixed classes (grades 4–6) participated in the study reported in this article. As hypothesized, S2‐children’s sociability was evaluated significantly lower than that of Swedish children. Immigrant children, who do not have S‐2 lessons, do not have significantly lower scores. These findings were confirmed, using teachers’ evaluations of children’s social competence. It is suggested that more research is needed to investigate whether communicative skills, academic competence, or, perhaps, the organizational consequences of extra language lessons play a role in children’s assessments of peer social competence.