Dr. Kristina Gustafsson, Associate professor and senior lecturer in Social Work, Linnaeus University, Sweden
A social worker and a recently arrived young mother from Syria meet at a social services office in Sweden. An interpreter is there to facilitate communication. The school principal had reported concerns about the
wellbeing of the mother’s daughter to the social services. This situation had become rather frequent in Sweden when, in February 2022, social events evidenced a collapse in confidence between social child
care and protection services and families with migration experiences. Parents shared their desperation in public demonstrations about their children being targets for forced legal restraints, international organizations directed threats towards Swedish social services, spreading disinformation about how these
authorities kidnapped migrant children and sold them as slaves to pedophiles. How do we look at these events? My presentation will use a linguistic justice framework to discuss the intersections among (1) social work as multilingual work; (2) the monolingual national framework and legacy of the Nordic
countries, and (3) the increase of multilingual clients in social work due to global migration. Power asymmetries within social work will be revealed and exclusion and oppression as well as inclusion and emancipatory practices will be highlighted. An emphasis will be placed on the need for linguistic
awareness and for developing multilingual competences at all levels of social work, including education, policies, practices, and research.