Dilemmas in Reception of Newly Arrived Migrant Students: A Local Third Way?

Abstract

Receiving newly arrived migrant pupils poses a dilemma in terms of what special provisions they should have in schools. In Denmark, the dilemma is deferred to municipalities. In Aalborg Municipality, the two dominating approaches, direct enrollment and reception classes, were recontextualized into a third way mixed reception approach in 2022. Through classroom observations and interviews, this article asks: How does school staff handle reception when the two dominating reception approaches are politically transformed into a new mixed approach? The article shows that the dominating approaches affect the division between specialized teachers’ and mainstream teachers’ handling and understanding of reception.

Keywords

• migrant education
• reception approach
• newly arrived migrant pupils
• Danish welfare state
• decentralization