Socialt medborgarskap och social delaktighet : Lokala upplevelser bland unga kvinnor och män med utländsk bakgrund

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to explore how young adults from ethnic minority backgrounds experience social citizenship and social participation. How do they understand their social rights and duties? What are the possibilities and obstacles for their social participation? Based on the background of different studies in Sweden, that usually focus on conditions in bigger cities, this study discusses social citizenship among ethnic minority youth in the context of a middle-sized Swedish town. In contrast to research on ethnicity and youth in Sweden, that discuss social problems and social exclusion in terms of the deficient cultural, linguistic and social competence of the individuals, this study focuses on different kinds of resources and experiences of agency among young people from migrant backgrounds. Their experiences of active social citizenship and social participation fill also a gap in the contemporary research from the perspective of social inclusion. The theoretical framework is based on the concept of social citizenship as discussed by T. H. Marshall (1950), T. Bottomore (1992) and inspired by research on the subjective dimension of social citizenship conducted by R. Lister (1997, 2003, 2007). In order to grasp the subjective dimension of social citizenship, this thesis deals with differentiated expressions of universal social citizenship in terms of agency and participation in different areas of social life. Using a qualitative approach, seventeen people have been interviewed. The interviews have been analysed from an intersectional perspective where gender, age, marital status and longevity in Sweden appear to be concurrent categories. The results point towards tendencies of enclavisation among these young adults usually articulating experience of weak social bonding in relation to the Swedish majority population. Some informants refer to their expectations of living in bigger cities or a third country, and have plans to move as a strategy for better, more integrated and less discriminated conditions of future life. In sum, the central expectations of the interviewees on the improvement of their social citizenship conditions are the following: They want to be active citizens and are willing to contribute to the development of a more inclusive Swedish society. This thesis contributes to our current understanding of how young adults from ethnic minority backgrounds, experience social citizenship and social participation within the areas of: housing, education, labour-market, leisure and policy.