Civic orientation for adult migrants in Sweden : A multimodal critical discourse analysis of Swedish values and norms

Abstract

Drawing upon the analytical techniques of multimodal critical discourse analysis, this article investigates the book About Sweden, an educational materia lemployed in courses on civic orientation for newly arrived migrants. The analysisis informed by the following research questions: (1) What are represented as typically Swedish values and norms in the textbook? (2) How are such norms and values portrayed through written language and visual images? Visually the book relies on specific representations of Swedish nature without people. We argue that such pictures of the Swedish landscape are not ideologically neutral but carry connotations that are historically linked to forms of Swedish nationalism. Moreover, we interpret the lack of people in line with Berggren and Trägårdh (2006) notion of statist individualism (statsindividualism), an ideology according to which a strong interventionist welfare-state is not necessarily incompatible with the maximisation of individual freedom. Our textual analysis illustrates the textual tensions between, on the one hand, the choice of specific norms and values as Swedish, and, on the other hand, aversion towards overt national identity labels. Finally, we illustrate how Swedish values and norms in the textbook are just one link in a longer intertextual chain that connects the book to other policy documents as well as Swedish politicians’ public statements in the context of current debates about migration in Sweden.