Till Örebro universitet

Every year a large number of newly arrived immigrant children and adolescents enter school in Sweden. However, outcome measures indicate that the Swedish school still fall short of meeting the needs of these youth. Also, there has been little research done about immigrant youths’ experiences when adjusting to school in the new country, especially from their own perspective. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore what challenges and resources newly arrived immigrant youth experience when adjusting to school in Sweden. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 newly arrived immigrant youth of Somalian heritage, Arabic speaking Syrian heritage and Kurdish speaking Syrian heritage, aged 13 to 16. Inductive thematic analysis resulted in several challenges and positive experiences. The findings suggest that the challenges are most pronounced initially and that whilst the youth show many resources in overcoming these, social support from teachers and peers as well as academic resources may promote and facilitate the school adjustment.