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Ali OsmanSenior lecturer

Research projects

From work force immigration to inclusion

This research project aims to examine how Vocational and Educational Training responded to the structural changes in the labour market and the role it played in the inclusion of immigrants in Sweden from the 1950:s to 2020.

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Places and Boundaries: Migrant Children’s Educational Transitions in Sweden

Research shows that an increasing segregation has created a tangible inequality between different municipalities and individual schools. Where children and young people live and which school they attend has become of decisive importance for the possibility of reaching the knowledge requirements and continuing their studies.

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Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • The Challenge of Recruiting Underrepresented Groups – Exploring Organizational Recruitment Practices in Sweden

    2019. Ali Osman, Camilla Thunborg. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 9 (1), 3-18

    Article

    The aim of this article is to explore organisational recruitment practices from human resources (HR) experts’ narratives and discuss the challenges of recruiting underrepresented groups in relation to these practices. From the HR experts’ narratives, we identify four organisational recruitment practices: the informal, the pragmatic, the standardised and the strategic. These practices consist of, for example, ‘subjective’ judgements versus ‘objective’ criteria and are construed in relation to different rationalities, which also give rise to various dilemmas in relation to underrepresented groups. From our analysis, there seems to be a paradox between enhancing diversity and counteracting discrimination. Organisational recruitment practices that are counteracting discrimination do not necessarily enhance diversity and recruitment practices that radically work with enhancing diversity can be seen as discriminatory. We thereby draw the conclusion that there is no effective practice for the recruitment of underrepresented groups in the labour market. This is a dilemma for HR experts and a challenge for the Swedish labour market in general.

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  • Recognition of Prior Learning as a Practice for Differential Inclusion and Exclusion of Immigrants in Sweden.

    2008. Per Andersson, Ali Osman. Adult Education Quarterly 59, 42-60

    Article

    The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze how recognition of prior learning acts as a dividing practice and a technique for inclusion/exclusion of immigrants in their vocations in Swedish working life. It is a qualitative study of three pilot programs in Swedish urban centers, and the data consist of interviews and documents pertaining to these programs. The theoretical starting point of the analysis is three Foucauldian concepts: order of discourse, dividing practice, and technology of power. The results show how recognition of prior learning acts as a dividing practice; in the process of recognition, the targeting of certain vocations for assessment, the degrading of competence in the process, and the differing opportunities vis-à-vis further training and the labor market are part of the process of inclusion/exclusion in/from the orders of the labor market. Technologies of power—surveillance, observation, and examination— are part of this process.

    Read more about Recognition of Prior Learning as a Practice for Differential Inclusion and Exclusion of Immigrants in Sweden.

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