International Students and the Rule of Law
(2024) SOLM12 20241Department of Sociology of Law
- Abstract
- International students migrate to study in foreign jurisdictions for many reasons. They face a number of challenges upon their arrival. These social, cultural and economic challenges can make it hard to integrate fully into the Swedish system. Students are also caught in the wider tension between universities and government policies. Higher education institutions in Sweden have promoted internationalization policies in order to diversify their learning environments conflicting simultaneously with government imposed barriers to migration to Sweden.
This thesis explores what problems and resources shape the interactions between international students and authorities in Sweden. At Lund University in Sweden, an international education... (More) - International students migrate to study in foreign jurisdictions for many reasons. They face a number of challenges upon their arrival. These social, cultural and economic challenges can make it hard to integrate fully into the Swedish system. Students are also caught in the wider tension between universities and government policies. Higher education institutions in Sweden have promoted internationalization policies in order to diversify their learning environments conflicting simultaneously with government imposed barriers to migration to Sweden.
This thesis explores what problems and resources shape the interactions between international students and authorities in Sweden. At Lund University in Sweden, an international education institute, tracing how students interact with and describe experiences with authorities and problems is explored in this thesis study of legality. Legality, a key concept in the research pioneered by Ewick and Silbey (1998) can be used to explore and explain the power of norms and laws in everyday life from the perspective of individuals.
Using qualitative semi-structured interviews, the study found that international students face discrimination, segregation and procedural issues in everyday life. They rarely solved them using the legal system because of a lack of access to resources. These resources can be legal knowledge, language proficiency, economic capital, social connections or political connections. Whereas students participate in the system at a disadvantage, international students indicate that there are people in Sweden who are better equipped to leverage resources to make law work more efficiently.
Although Sweden promotes itself as a country governed by the rule of law principles, the semi-structured interviews conducted with current, full program students at Lund University indicated, international students commonly feel less secure in Sweden. By using critical legal consciousness approaches by Ewick and Silbey (1998), this research found that international students are unable to frequently participate in the social construction of legality in a way that their counterpart Swedish nationals can, due to their lack of resources. The themes of segregation, discrimination and procedural (in)justice that emerged from the data are embedded in the larger field of legal consciousness of migrants. While certain findings were concluded from the stories of the participants, they are context specific to the participants. More conclusive longitudinal studies of international students are still needed to illuminate the consequences of segregation, discrimination and procedural (in)justice. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9154957
- author
- Gunnell, Freeman LU
- supervisor
- organization
- alternative title
- A socio-legal inquiry of experiences of law and legality in everyday life
- course
- SOLM12 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- international students, critical legal consciousness, law in everyday life, segregation, discrimination, procedural (in)justice, migration, semi-structured interviews
- language
- English
- id
- 9154957
- date added to LUP
- 2024-06-19 13:01:43
- date last changed
- 2024-06-19 13:03:45
@misc{9154957,
abstract = {{International students migrate to study in foreign jurisdictions for many reasons. They face a number of challenges upon their arrival. These social, cultural and economic challenges can make it hard to integrate fully into the Swedish system. Students are also caught in the wider tension between universities and government policies. Higher education institutions in Sweden have promoted internationalization policies in order to diversify their learning environments conflicting simultaneously with government imposed barriers to migration to Sweden.
This thesis explores what problems and resources shape the interactions between international students and authorities in Sweden. At Lund University in Sweden, an international education institute, tracing how students interact with and describe experiences with authorities and problems is explored in this thesis study of legality. Legality, a key concept in the research pioneered by Ewick and Silbey (1998) can be used to explore and explain the power of norms and laws in everyday life from the perspective of individuals.
Using qualitative semi-structured interviews, the study found that international students face discrimination, segregation and procedural issues in everyday life. They rarely solved them using the legal system because of a lack of access to resources. These resources can be legal knowledge, language proficiency, economic capital, social connections or political connections. Whereas students participate in the system at a disadvantage, international students indicate that there are people in Sweden who are better equipped to leverage resources to make law work more efficiently.
Although Sweden promotes itself as a country governed by the rule of law principles, the semi-structured interviews conducted with current, full program students at Lund University indicated, international students commonly feel less secure in Sweden. By using critical legal consciousness approaches by Ewick and Silbey (1998), this research found that international students are unable to frequently participate in the social construction of legality in a way that their counterpart Swedish nationals can, due to their lack of resources. The themes of segregation, discrimination and procedural (in)justice that emerged from the data are embedded in the larger field of legal consciousness of migrants. While certain findings were concluded from the stories of the participants, they are context specific to the participants. More conclusive longitudinal studies of international students are still needed to illuminate the consequences of segregation, discrimination and procedural (in)justice.}},
author = {{Gunnell, Freeman}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{International Students and the Rule of Law}},
year = {{2024}},
}