To Örebro University

In recent years, research has documented a growing feminization of migration, with focus on those specific forms of migration, such as the commercialized migration of women as domestic workers and care givers, that often result in the trafficking of women for labour and sexual exploitation. Many women who migrate lack residence permits and, thereby, receive the status of undocumented migrants. Undocumented female migrants are without any substantial legal or social protection in their host societies and, therefore, are highly subject to exploitation, violence, and health and social problems; this is a situation that obviously harms them as individuals attempting to live in a new country, but that extends beyond national boundaries in its effects, to also harm members of their families in their countries of origin. Current nationalized legal and social policy frameworks need to be sensitive to the complex and transnational nature of the living conditions of undocumented migrant women. This chapter draws attention to the precarious living conditions and complex socio-legal challenges that impact the everyday lives of undocumented migrant women in the Nordic countries, with particular emphasis on Sweden. Based on comprehensive research review of undocumented migrant women’s living conditions in Sweden, the study explores the current role of legal and social policy frameworks for providing protection to this vulnerable group. The authors argue that there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary (socio-legal) and intersectional perspectives, for studying and understanding the complexity of the intersection of power relations influencing the living conditions of undocumented women. The findings of this study, and its gender-based intersectional approach, aim to encourage further research, as well as to sensitize legal and social policy professions in their endeavours to reduce and eliminate the racialized and gender-based oppression and discrimination of undocumented female migrants in Sweden.

The problems resulting from mechanisms of institutional racism within Swedish social services have harmed many families of migrant background and created serious problems with the integration of those families into Swedish society. This article investigates the experiences of eight Muslim mothers in Sweden who were accused of Shaken Baby Syndrome and later acquitted. All the women were separated from their children for extended periods and held in pre-trial detention. Employing a qualitative, feminist-informed methodology, this study explores how an intersection of structural discrimination, flawed medical assumptions, and institutional racism served to shape their experiences. It reveals how racialised and gendered identities rendered these mothers inherently suspect, positioning them as unfit caregivers within a child welfare system that privileges (contested) biomedical narratives over contextual understanding. The article highlights the epistemic and emotional consequences of relying on scientifically disputed diagnostic criteria in child protection, and how such reliance perpetuates systemic injustice. The findings underscore the need for critical reform in both social work and legal frameworks, to address systemic injustice and prevent the unwarranted separation of families.

As societies face escalating inequalities, ecological crises, and the erosion of welfare systems, social work and psychology education must evolve to prepare future professionals for complex societal challenges. Despite comprehensive discrimination laws in Sweden, government policy requires only gender mainstreaming to permeate all levels of university work, allowing limited educational focus on broader social justice frameworks. This presentation explores how collaborative and participatory action research (PAR) can foster critical engagement, amplify student voices, and integrate social justice perspectives into social work and psychology education.

Drawing on a scoping review of Nordic social work curricula and focus groups with Swedish social work students, significant gaps are revealed in global, structural, and critical perspectives within professional training. While students recognize the importance of addressing systemic injustices, their education primarily emphasizes technical competencies at the expense of deeper engagement with power structures, marginalization, and intersectional inequalities. Similarly, an internal review of LGBTQI+themes in a Swedish psychology program further highlights the dominance of normative, individual-centered approaches. Importantly, students in both subjects describe feeling anxious about their limited knowledge and (in)capacity for critical reflection on the sociopolitical dimensions of mental health, identity, and well-being.

This study positions PAR as a model for fostering critical consciousness, student agency ,and collaborative, interdisciplinary knowledge production between social work and psychology students. By centering student experiences and voices, PAR bridges theory and practice, enabling students to co-create their education and critically examine their professional roles. This shift could equip future social workers and psychologists with theoretical and practical tools and strengthen their ability to challenge systemic injustices and drive transformative social change.

Guided by Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approaches of symbolic capital and symbolic violence, this article examines the everyday mechanisms of ‘otherising’ language practices in schools that reinforce racism against marginalised youths in Sweden. The empirical material is based on focus group discussions and individual in-depth interviews with youths with migrant backgrounds in Sweden. The stories told by the participants in this study indicate how young people with immigrant backgrounds are discursively racialised and otherised as a group that does not belong to Swedish society, through the articulation of negative opinions, attitudes, and ideologies as part of established colonial discourses. It is argued that the marginalisation of migrants in Sweden, which is a consequence of social policy, has even resulted in utilisation of a marginalised language — one that deviates from the majority language in several different ways.