Diversity at the University:

Are equal opportunities a panacea?

Benny Carlson

A few years ago, I took part in gender equality, equal opportunities and diversity work at Lund University, centrally, at the School of Economics and Management, and at the Department of Economic History, which is my workplace. I was mainly interested in the issue of diversity, as it relates to my research covering refugee immigrants in Swedish society, among other things.

In the following text, I will address the situation of foreign-born people in society at large and at the University in particular. I will argue that equal opportunities and anti-discrimination efforts need to be complemented with other initiatives such as positive discrimination.

Equal opportunities – a panacea?

Internationally, Sweden is considered one of the countries in the world with the most advanced diversity policy, according to publications such as the Immigrant Multiculturalism Policy Index.²⁶⁹ Sweden is a close second to Canada and placed far ahead of the USA. At the same time, visitors from other countries are bemused when Swedish politicians and civil servants break out in a cold sweat at the very mention of ethnicity. A visitor from Leicester City Council observed, after a visit to Malmö:

“Talking about ethnicity is taboo”. I can confirm this impression myself; politicians in Malmö do not want to hear about the needs of individual groups, and top civil servants in a city neighbourhood with a high proportion of immigrants have explained to me

269 www.mipex.eu

that “we are all Swedes” and that discrimination does not occur since “it is prohibited in Sweden”.

The attitude of politicians and civil servants at the local level is a reflection of the approach taken at the national level: The integration policy is to be implemented according to “general initiatives aimed at the population as a whole” and “special measures aimed at people born elsewhere, as a group, are not to be taken after the initial period spent in Sweden”, i.e. after the initiatives aimed at facilitating settlement in the first two years.²⁷⁰

My understanding is that this attitude is an expression of wishful thinking. People from different countries and regions have religions, cultures, languages and shared experiences which unite them. They also have different levels of education – ranging from professors to illiterates – and working life experiences which affect how long it takes for them to establish themselves. They are the bearers of both collective affinities and varying individual circumstances. I find it hard to see how equal opportunities could be a panacea for addressing all these affinities and differences.

In the traditional immigration countries, the immigrants often organise themselves in ethnic communities for considerably longer than their two first years in the country.

Such communities, in which the more experienced and educated help new arrivals and those who are less educated, function as bridgeheads for the preservation of heritage as well as for advancement in the new country. In Sweden, we are proud that, even a century after Swedish emigration to America, there are still people in the US who refer to themselves as Swedish Americans and maintain a shared heritage; I have had the privilege of visiting the powerful American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sweden, however, only prioritises individuals and general systems.

Immigrants are certainly welcome to “cheer up” Swedish everyday life with their dancing and food, but when it comes to economic and social issues, assimilation is the rule. The Swedish language simply lacks an equivalent to one of the most common words in the old immigration countries: ‘community’.

At the local level, the prohibition against discrimination does not function as intended.

Municipalities run projects with ‘targeted initiatives’ for various ethnic groups. As the projects are short-term, usually running for three years, the higher authorities can turn a blind eye to them. Their short-term nature is precisely one of the weaknesses of these projects. As soon as they start to show results, they are closed down and the knowledge generated is lost. Another weakness is that they have seldom developed ‘organically’

from the grass-roots, but are instead conceived and designed by public authority employees.

270 ”Egenmakt mot utanförskap – redovisning av regeringens strategi för integration”, skr.

2009/2010:233, s. 4].

Well, what has this exposition got to do with diversity in the university world? Perhaps not a lot, beyond pointing to an apparently widespread belief that, there too, all problems can be solved by general means, through equal opportunities backed up by protection against discrimination.

Positive discrimination is needed

My understanding is that equal opportunities, in the sense that no one is to be exposed to negative discrimination on the basis of his or her background, constitutes a sort of floor. In addition to this, positive discrimination is needed, as people with different backgrounds have different circumstances. Such discrimination should not, like the use of set quotas, aim to ‘pull people up by their hair’ and place them in situations which they may not be able to handle and which risk generating bad blood. Positive discrimination should aim to equip individuals with the resources they need to ‘pull themselves up’ (empowerment).

The people who have difficulties asserting themselves on the playing field because of their ethnicity (or gender, class, etc.) need measures which can improve their chances.

Providing people with equal opportunities is different from practising equal treatment.

On the contrary, equal opportunities can mean treating people differently, a view which should reasonably be considered relevant in the meritocratic university world.

Society has its rules of admission: As a non-EU citizen, in order to be allowed to immigrate to Sweden one must have grounds for asylum, be related to someone with a Swedish residence permit or have a job offer or study place. Most people who arrive in Sweden do so as refugees or to reunite with family. They arrive intermittently from a number of countries at war and in crisis. Many of them are poorly educated and automatically end up in an underdog position.

Academia has its own rules of admission. Those who arrive at the university from abroad – students and visiting researchers – have different circumstances and resources in their luggage compared to immigrants in general. They usually do not arrive in groups (even though there is surely an element of ‘chain immigration’ from certain countries) but rather one by one. They are – or are becoming – highly educated and meet an environment which in many respects, not least from the point of view of language, is internationalised. The Swedish language is not as essential a ‘key’ as for other immigrants. The difficulties shared by the recently arrived immigrant and the recently arrived researcher or student are to learn Swedish and to understand Swedish institutions and traditions.

Insiders and outsiders

The marginalisation of foreign-born individuals which occurs at the university is often more subtly expressed than in the rest of society. Even so, a colleague and I conducted interviews a number of years ago with foreign-born employees, whose collective presence at my own department amounted to 150 years. Just over half of them, mainly those who came from countries beyond Europe and the USA, felt marginalised on the grounds that they were not born in Sweden. They indicated problems such as – and I quote from the report (which is currently only in manuscript form) – “difficulties in being included in research projects and being assigned teaching and supervision, a lack of nominations for elected office, a shortage of information and informal decision-making structures, lack of introduction at the time of appointment, unpaid work, lack of an office, groups of friends who don’t want to ‘let you in’, not being invited to social activities”.

These problems do not seem to be specific to my own department – they are classic insider/outsider problems – and can be explained by people’s tendency to form ethnic

‘communities’. Such communities are created consciously or unconsciously – and believe it or not – even by ethnically Swedish academics.

Already at the time, several years ago, a number of measures were taken to address this marginalisation: more information, information in English via email and at staff meetings, gender equality and diversity issues as a standing item on the agenda of departmental board meetings, ambitions to get as many of the department’s employees as possible into various working groups, and regular staff appraisals between the head of department and employees.

By all means laudable ambitions, but what can really affect the picture is the shift of the balance of power which occurs when the composition of staff and students changes.

Such a shift has taken place in recent years due to a major influx of Master’s degree and doctoral students from abroad. As far as it is possible to interpret, this influx has disturbed the regular Swedish procedures and made it necessary to increase information to everyone (in English) in order to ensure the good functioning of the workplace and maintain one’s place in increased international competition.

A lot remains to be done

The problem with the marginalisation of foreign-born individuals at the University seems to have been solved to some extent. But a lot remains to be done. If quantity (influx) is a determining factor for quality (functioning diversity) attention should be directed towards the base (first and second cycle education) as well as the summit (staff).

In the case of Master’s and doctoral students, as mentioned above, an increased influx of foreign-born individuals has already occurred.

In the first cycle of study, however, a Master’s degree project in economics from 2012 indicates, students with international backgrounds choose Malmö University over Lund University, even once the subject choice, differences in admission credits and the level of education of the applicant’s parents have been taken into account.²⁷¹ There is also – if one considers for a moment the issue of social diversity – reason to believe that young people from homes with a lower socio-economic status are more likely to choose to study at smaller higher education institutions near their home towns rather than apply to Lund. Here, Lund University faces a delicate dilemma. On the one hand, it must emphasise the quality and status of the study programmes (brand, signal value).

On the other hand, it must offer an environment which is open and welcoming to all (if their grades are high enough). This means communicating two messages simultaneously – exclusiveness and accessibility – without getting tongue-tied.

Increased international recruitment of employees also seems to be needed to create a dynamic interaction between lecturers and students, so that the University can assert itself in increased international competition, and because international evaluators of various university environments require it.

Increased recruitment of employees and students from other countries or with international backgrounds, meanwhile, also entail complications which must be managed. These concern primarily the students originating from countries with educational traditions unlike those in the western world. This can apply to issues such as the handling of sources – a problem currently addressed using methodology courses on scholarly procedures. However, these courses are usually offered at the Bachelor’s or Master’s level at the earliest, and more information is needed at the beginner’s level about the rules governing academic studies in Sweden.

Students from abroad are assumed to master the English language. This prerequisite is not always met, however, placing supervisors and examiners in a difficult position.

What to do with a paper which is practically unreadable? When I have found myself in that situation, the laconic comment from colleagues has been that I should “address the content and not the language”. But who will address the language, in that case? If, despite the language test, students prove to have insufficient knowledge of English, the University must give them a chance to improve and get their papers into readable shape, through personal advice and review of their written work. It is clear that much has happened in this area recently. From my limited horizon within the School of Economics and Management, I observe that students at the Master’s level can get personal advice regarding their studies, presentations and paper writing and that

271 Emma Lindqvist (2012), ”Are immigrants choosing other universities than natives? – comparing the composition of students at Lund and Malmö

university”://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/search/publication/2158401

students at the Bachelor’s level are offered the mentorship of a more experienced student.

In all contexts, information is fundamental for people to function optimally, and people who move from one environment to another need extra large doses of information. It is the responsibility of the University, the faculties, the departments and not least the individual lecturers and supervisors to equip foreign-born colleagues and students with such information. Of course a great deal can be delivered in the form of brochures and information meetings. But, ultimately, colleagues and teaching staff are those who possess the specific information that the individual needs in many everyday life situations. It is important to clarify that this responsibility rests on everyone’s shoulders and cannot be delegated to special committees. What the committees can do is to remind each and everyone of this, with stubborn persistence.