International Journal of Inclusive Education

ISSN: 1360-3116 (Print) 1464-5173 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tied20

At the bridging point: tutoring newly arrived

students in Sweden

Helen Avery

To cite this article: Helen Avery (2017) At the bridging point: tutoring newly arrived
students in Sweden, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 21:4, 404-415, DOI:
10.1080/13603116.2016.1197325

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1197325

Published online: 28 Jun 2016.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION, 2017
VOL. 21, NO. 4, 404–415
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1197325

At the bridging point: tutoring newly arrived students in Sweden

Helen Avery
School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University, Jönköping, Sweden

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In Sweden, tutoring in the mother tongue is a special support measure Received 2 November 2015
primarily intended for newly arrived students to facilitate their transition Accepted 15 May 2016
into the Swedish school system. Tutoring is premised on the
KEYWORDS
collaboration between the class teacher, responsible for subject-related Tutoring; reception; refugees;
expertise, and the tutor, who contributes with knowledge of the newly arrived students;
student’s mother tongue and previous context of studies. In this case teacher collaboration;
study of class teachers’ and mother tongue tutors’ conditions for inclusive support measures
collaboration at a multi-ethnic primary school, six mother tongue tutors
and six class teachers were asked about the purpose of their work, how
it was organised, and what could be done to improve working
conditions. Interviews with head teachers, and data on work
organisation from observations, document study, and participation in
meetings for a period of one and a half years supplemented the teacher
interviews. The analysis focuses on whether tutors and teachers belong
to the same or different Communities of Practice, based on shared
concerns and opportunities for collaboration, as well as looking at the
relative positioning of languages and teaching roles. Findings suggest
that the degree of collaboration between tutors and teachers was not
sufficient to allow tutoring to function in the way it is envisaged by
national steering documents. Tutoring was instead based on the tutors’
own knowledge of the subjects they taught. Recruitment of suitable
tutors was difficult. However, conditions for collaboration and more
effective tutoring in the schools could be improved with relatively
simple support structures at the level of the municipality.

Introduction
Tutoring in the mother tongue in Sweden is a special support measure, intended above all to help
newly arrived students transition into the Swedish school system. This form of tutoring is meant
to involve collaboration between the tutor and the class teachers (Swedish National Agency for Edu-
cation 2013), where the class teacher is responsible for subject content, while the mother tongue tutor
contributes with knowledge of the student’s mother tongue and familiarity with the region where the
mother tongue is spoken.
An influx of refugees from war zones, combined with a rise in activism of extreme right nation-
alist movements, has led the questions of integration of newcomers to the forefront of the edu-
cational debate in many European countries today, including Sweden. More generally, in many
parts of the world, there is no doubt that migrant and transnational students need adequate measures
to transition into the education systems of the host countries (Qureshi and Janmaat 2014; Nilsson
and Bunar 2016), and a clearer picture of different induction measures employed for newly arrived
students is called for. Tutoring is one such measure, but research on this form of support is scarce.

CONTACT Helen Avery helen.avery@ju.se

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 405

For the Swedish context, only two peer-reviewed contributions were found (Avery 2014; Pauls-
rud, Warren, and Toth 2015). A search in the Education Resources Information Center using the
search terms ‘refugee’, ‘education’, and ‘tutoring’ produced ten peer-reviewed articles altogether.
Although tutoring for newly arrived students could no doubt be referred to with other terms or trea-
ted in a more general context, this is nevertheless an indication of the need for additional research in
the field. The present study on tutoring in the mother tongue as a special support measure was part of
a larger case study examining inter-teacher collaboration and positioning as conditions for intercul-
tural school development at an ethnically highly diverse primary school, while this sub-study focused
on the collaboration and models of interaction between the tutor and the class teacher.

Tutoring and inclusive education approaches for newly arrived students

As a research area, tutoring for newly arrived students has been approached from various angles.
Gaining the social and cultural capital needed to succeed in a new country with a new language
and unfamiliar education system is a slow and complex process, with numerous barriers (Naidoo
2009; Dumenden 2011; Gahungu, Gahungu, and Luseno 2011; Pugh, Every, and Hattam 2012).
Students with limited or interrupted formal schooling are particularly disadvantaged. Besides dealing
with possible trauma and anxieties connected to their situation as refugees (Matthews 2008;
Svensson and Eastmond 2013), these groups additionally need to acquire basic study skills, under-
stand what schooling entails more generally, and acquire subject-specific prerequisites for studying
at levels that match their age.
Inclusive support measures are significant with respect to collaboration with parents (Assarson
and Morgan 2008; Georgis et al. 2014), and may involve collaboration with institutions and groups
in the wider community (Taylor and Sidhu 2012; Naidoo 2013; Block et al. 2014; Nel et al. 2014).
Tutoring needs can further be understood from the angle of language policy in education,
considering the ways medium of instruction impacts learning opportunities for newly arrived pupils
(Dumenden 2011; Millar 2013; Svensson and Eastmond 2013). Issues of equity and social justice are
involved, since inadequacies in support measures provided by schools shift responsibility for finding
means of support to parents, volunteers, or charities (Naidoo 2008).
A mismatch has been observed between aspirations or self-perception, and the opportunities that
are actually open to students as immigrants in the host country (Dumenden 2011; McIntyre,
Barowsky, and Tong 2011). Students’ positioning is a significant question for refugee students learn-
ing conditions, and the extent to which they are offered voice and opportunities for participation
(Montero et al. 2012). However, this positioning is not only a matter of local school cultures, but
can also be seen as a consequence of wider national and international power relationships (Matthews
2008).
Another question is the organisation of tutoring as a teaching form: in out-of-school sessions
(Naidoo 2008, 2009), as a school-based provision, or employing different models of interaction in
tutoring (Weekes et al. 2011).
Studies undertaken in the area suggest that tutoring is perceived by teachers and students as an
effective form of support (Assarson and Morgan 2008; Ferfolja and Vickers 2010; Vickers and
McCarthy 2010), but it is difficult to document the precise contributions to school achievement
and contexts where tutoring has been practised vary greatly. Also, tutoring may address long-
term issues of learning and cultural mediation that cannot easily be captured in terms of short-
term or subject-specific achievement measures.
The specific question of collaboration and co-teaching between teachers with complementing
areas of expertise is an area which has been studied over numerous contexts, such as special edu-
cation (Shin, Lee, and McKenna 2015), language induction programmes (Peercy and Martin-Beltran
2012), or bilingual teaching (Avery 2011; Tvingstedt 2011). Collaboration can range from a minimal
communication, allowing informing and co-ordinating, to advanced forms of co-teaching in the
classroom, collective educational development at the level of the school (Dillon, Salazar, and Al
406 H. AVERY

Otaibi 2015), or alliances in the surrounding community. However, while teacher collaboration has
been identified as a powerful basis for educational development, it nevertheless requires a substantial
investment by the collaborating teachers and schools to be successful (Tvingstedt 2011).

Reception of newly arrived students

Much of the debate in Sweden concerns what can be done to reduce the achievement gap since, as a
group, newly arrived students in Sweden do not perform well. In the academic year 2013/2014, only
27% of newly arrived students obtained grades on leaving year 9 compulsory school, allowing them
to continue to an upper-secondary vocational programme. A mere 19% had obtained pass marks in
all subjects. This is problematic, since equity has long been a central aim in the Swedish system, and
according to Swedish legislation, all students are supposed to receive any help they need to pursue
their studies (SFS 2011: 185 Chapter 5, Section 3; Avery 2014). As in other countries (cf. Millar 2013),
learning challenges faced by students with an immigrant background in Sweden are often under-
stood as connected to the students’ language and support measures are consequently geared to
improve language proficiency (Lindberg and Hyltenstam 2013). Besides subject support in the
form of tutoring in the mother tongue, special support measures consist of Swedish as a Second
Language and optional language maintenance classes in the students’ mother tongue.
The rules and regulations concerning education are decided at a national level in Sweden, and this
also applies to questions of newly arrived children of school-going age. However, the municipalities
are responsible for the concrete management and implementation. This means that the organisation
and implementation of national policies can differ widely across the country. The system also
involves a certain disjuncture between the way educational visions are formulated and evaluated
nationally, and the practical conditions of implementation. At a municipal level, emphasis is fre-
quently on balancing budgets, and there is a tendency to see newcomers as an additional cost, rather
than as a resource.
Until recently, it was usual to receive newly arrived students in preparatory classes. Here they
would learn the basics of the Swedish language, as well as getting an introduction to Swedish society
and the school system. The groups have often been extremely heterogeneous, comprising both stu-
dents with strong prior schooling and those who had little or no schooling at all (Bunar 2010). Due to
inadequacies found in the existing system (Swedish Schools Inspectorate 2009, 2015), alongside
development efforts directed at the reception of newly arrived students (Ministry of Education
2015; Swedish National Agency for Education 2015), attempts have been made to reduce the period
spent in introductory classes. According to the new legislation, whenever possible, newly arrived stu-
dents will be directed to regular schools within two months of arrival (Swedish Code of Statutes SFS
2014: 458; SFS 2015: 246; Swedish National Agency for Education 2015).
Opportunities to interact with a wider range of peers at school can be expected to have positive
aspects (Nilsson and Bunar 2016). Nevertheless, the need to also provide ‘safe spaces’ for students
with a refugee background has been stressed (Naidoo 2008; Ferfolja and Vickers 2010). A further
concern is that amendments allowing the replacement of tutoring in person by a distance provision
will reduce the quality of the support measure. Students with emotional trauma (Ferfolja and Vickers
2010) and limited or interrupted prior schooling (Naidoo 2008; Pugh, Every, and Hattam 2012) have
difficulties independently managing communication and expressing their needs through formal
codes. The recent amendments also contain an emphasis on assessment as a tool for allocating
resources individually, which is difficult to manage in practice.

Tutoring in the mother tongue

Tutoring in the mother tongue has existed in Sweden since 1980, where it was expressed as a measure
aiming at supporting teaching of different subjects and to further stimulate the development of the
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 407

mother tongue (Assarson and Morgan 2008). Tutoring is intended to help students draw on previous
knowledge and competences, and transfer to the new context.
The teacher is responsible for teaching an item of subject content, while the tutor can clarify, explain and dis-
cuss the content in the mother tongue. The tutor can further explain new phenomena and concepts based on
the pupil’s earlier experiences in the regions where the mother tongue is spoken, and thereby put the expla-
nations in a meaningful context ( … ). (Swedish National Agency for Education 2013, 8–9)

Official recommendations for tutoring in Sweden state that students who have good prior school
knowledge can maintain this knowledge in the mother tongue and develop it further in Swedish. Stu-
dents who do not have knowledge in a subject get help to understand the content of teaching, at the
same time that tutoring supports the development of their Swedish language (Swedish National
Agency for Education 2013). Tutoring in the mother tongue is thus expected to address a wide
array of purposes.
In theory, this special support measure should compensate for students’ lack of proficiency in
Swedish, so that they can study at a level that is appropriate with respect to their age and knowledge
levels (cf. Gahungu, Gahungu, and Luseno 2011, for a discussion of the problem of suitable place-
ment level in a US context). Any student who runs a risk of failing the minimum knowledge require-
ments in one or several school subjects is entitled to tutoring in the mother tongue (Education Act,
Chapter 3, Sections 6–12). Budget restraints or lack of suitable tutors is not accepted as a valid reason
to withhold tutoring in the mother tongue, but recent amendments to the Education Act allow dis-
tance provision if suitable tutors are not found. There is thus a tension between the legal stipulation
that students who would otherwise fail should receive the support they need to succeed, and the
observation that a large proportion of newly arrived students do not in fact get grades that will
allow them to continue to upper-secondary school.
In Sweden, the responsibility for how national regulations are implemented in practice lies on the
municipalities, and to some extent on individual schools. According to an unpublished study of
tutoring at upper-secondary levels (Assarson and Morgan 2008), the support measure has been
organised in a wide variety of manners. Assarson and Morgan’s study analysed a survey answered
by 900 schools and involved extended interviews at seven schools. At the schools with the highest
percentage of students speaking another language than Swedish or alongside Swedish as their mother
tongue, a higher proportion also were given access to tutoring or bilingual teaching. At these schools,
almost 60% of tutoring was integrated into regular teaching, rather than provided in separate groups.
Drawing on this study, Morgan (2014) distinguishes between six ways that have been proved useful
in supporting newly arrived students’ subject learning: working with students’ framing and prior
knowledge of a topic; working with support in the classroom; working in parallel with subject teach-
ing; processing the content alongside classroom teaching; repetition of content; and establishing a
resource centre at the schools that students can turn to. Finally, Assarson and Morgan’s study
(2008) suggests that this form of tutoring works better when it is not organised in a way that stig-
matises the students who are taught. Co-teaching with full collaboration between the class teacher
and the tutor is presented as a promising way to organise the tutoring.

Description of method
The material presented here is drawn from a case study looking at the collaboration between teachers
who taught at a primary school in an ethnically diverse neighbourhood. The class teachers working
with the children were employed by the school, while the tutors were employed by the Mother Ton-
gue Unit and worked in different schools across the municipality. Since work organisation varies
widely across locations, a study was also made of the overall structures within which teacher collab-
oration operated in this municipality.
In this sub-study, six mother tongue teachers with experience of tutoring in the mother tongue
(MTA–MTF) and six class teachers (CTA–CTF) teaching years 4–6 at the same primary school
408 H. AVERY

were interviewed. Interviews were also conducted with head teachers and assistant head teachers of
the primary school and head teachers of the Mother Tongue Unit to which the mother tongue tea-
chers belonged. Questions concerned the organisation of tutoring, the teachers’ experiences, what
they considered to be the aims and priorities of this form of teaching, what obstacles they could
identify, and how they thought teaching and organisation could be improved. Additionally, the
study drew on materials from participation in meetings, observation, and document studies over
a period of one and a half years.
The interview material was first examined to identify convergences and divergences in the represen-
tation of the work and its aims to determine to what extent the different types of teachers had a ‘shared
enterprise’, and to gain a picture of whether their work belonged to separate or shared Communities of
Practice (Wenger 1998; Gallucci 2003). Interview analysis further looked at perceived relations between
school and home, the time perspective adopted for learning aims, as well as the relative positioning of
languages and teaching staff. The fieldwork and follow-up questions concerning work organisation
served to obtain details concerning the different Communities of Practice at the school and their inter-
relationships. Short excerpts from the interviews illustrate the findings.

Results of study
Organisation of tutoring in the municipality
In the municipality where the present case study was conducted, tutoring in the mother tongue was
provided for individual students during a period of three years, not more than one hour weekly. This
hour was not supplied routinely, but bought by the individual schools in cases where the head tea-
cher esteemed it to be necessary. Tutoring thus appeared to be perceived by school administrators as
a measure to be used in extreme cases, rather than as a regular support measure provided as a matter
of course. Since the money was taken from the schools’ individual budgets, schools were reluctant to
spend more money than absolutely necessary.
A recruitment problem was observed in finding suitable tutors, due among other factors to poor
working conditions (cf. Valenta 2009) and a lack of adequate teacher training structures. For mother
tongue tutors, these recruitment difficulties were compounded by the need to combine qualifications
not only in specific languages, but also for the entire range of school subjects and levels. Another factor
contributing to recruitment difficulties was that mother tongue tutoring was requested by schools only
when they identified the need for tutoring for a particular student. In many cases, schools did not know
in advance which students they would be receiving, or in which subjects the student might need sup-
port. In the municipality where the present study was carried out, the Mother Tongue Unit was respon-
sible for recruiting the mother tongue tutors. Due to the system, the Unit had to be able to produce
tutors with the specific profile required at very short notice. At the same time, they could not guarantee
long-term employment or a viable career, since tutors were employed on a year-to-year basis.
The tutoring positions for a particular linguistic combination and level may in many cases not
amount to more than a few hours weekly. In practice, most tutors therefore combined hours of tutor-
ing with hours of teaching the mother tongue. They were rarely employed by schools as subject tea-
chers. Despite efforts to support continuous professional development among teachers of the Mother
Tongue Unit, the overall system therefore offered poor conditions for building tutoring competence
and collaboration over time.
Tutors were mostly recruited among the mother tongue teachers. Some had prior qualifications as
subject teachers from Sweden or from their countries of origin, but had not been able to find employ-
ment in the municipality in this capacity. Others had subject-related expertise based on other aca-
demic or professional qualifications, as engineers, economists, or scientists. Finally, a number of
tutors had developed the capacity to prepare lessons in subjects in which they in fact had no
prior formal qualifications, simply based on long general teaching experience and pedagogical exper-
tise in some other subject. The fact that tutors did not always have qualifications in the subjects they
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 409

were expected to teach meant that they had more difficulties improvising, and were dependent on
having additional time in advance to prepare lessons. Also, tutors without subject competence relied
more heavily on having access to suitable teaching materials.

Collaboration between class teachers and tutors

The different tutors’ description of their work conditions was substantially the same, and converged
with the description provided by the class teachers. Divergences appeared between the accounts of the
tutors and the class teachers with respect to the specific aims of this form of teaching, as well as with
respect to their perception of the conditions required to achieve these aims. A consensus nevertheless
appeared in the interview material concerning the need to communicate and coordinate efforts more.
There is no natural forum. It should be a routine. We are asked to strive for cooperation, but when are we sup-
posed to do that? Our hours are placed when the teachers feel that they are through with their working day.
Cooperation should work, and it sometimes does, but it is not organised in a natural manner. It happens in
our personal time, and on our personal initiative. MTC

Concerning models of interaction, when tutoring was not offered during lessons, either the student
was taken out of the class, or tutoring took place on non-scheduled time.
They (the tutors) worked in two different ways at that time. They either sat with the pupil in the classroom, but
mostly the children didn’t want that but said ‘If you have to be here, you could at least go out?’ (laughs). They
were funny that way. Or else, they took them out from the beginning. Sort of first checked ‘What will you be
doing in social science?’, ‘What will you be doing in maths?’, and then they took a group of children out and
worked with them. But not all the children appreciated this. They thought that they were missing out on some-
thing – when they weren’t part of what was happening in the classroom (…) many children felt it was embar-
rassing that someone came who spoke their mother tongue. Because … they wanted to speak Swedish. CTD

According to the tutors, the advantage with tutoring in the classroom was that it gave them an insight
concerning interaction and how the pupil functioned in class. They also got an idea of what the class
teacher was doing, and got direct access to intended lesson content. The disadvantage was that there
was very little they could do in the classroom when the teacher was speaking, except attempting sim-
ultaneous whispered interpreting. Class teachers were aware of this problem:
Then they may have come on lessons where you sometimes feel that, now it was a bit, well you didn’t benefit
that much from us, and you just sat there listening while I went through the content here. CTB

During pair work in the classroom, tutors were limited to the particular task that had been given to
all by the teacher, and they were also asked to help others in the class. None of the interviewed tutors
had had opportunities to try co-teaching or joint classroom management on equal terms. One tutor
expressed the subordinate position when using the mother tongue in the classroom in terms of
attempting not to ‘disturb’ the lesson:
Well some don’t want me to come in and disturb (the lesson), we have to talk, you see? … You are going to give
tutoring, but not in Swedish, in the mother tongue, and that is a ‘disturbance’, and they don’t want that, you see? MTA

In cases where they could tutor the pupil on a one-on-one basis outside the classroom, tutors were
able to work more strategically and concentrate on tasks that seemed most relevant with respect to
the pupil they were entrusted with. However, tutors experienced difficulties arranging suitable times,
so that tutoring sessions might have to be organised during lunch breaks, and finding rooms to work
in was a major concern.
Well, if … they (the tutors) maybe were part of our institution so that they could get decent rooms to be in,
instead of running around like scalded rats everywhere and looking for places (…) their own places to be,
so to speak, in classrooms and things like that. CTD

Several class teachers expressed that they would like to use the tutors as a floating resource, to help
out with anything that was needed in a more spontaneous fashion. This contrasted with interviews
410 H. AVERY

with the tutors, who instead stressed that they did not feel able to provide help in all subjects spon-
taneously, without adequate time to prepare themselves. Tutors also expressed that helping with a
little bit of everything would not lead to visible results strengthening the individual student’s self-
confidence and ability to organise his or her studies.
Besides providing support through direct interaction with the pupils, the tutors had a mediating
role, and could help teachers understand the pupils’ needs better:
(…) both for the pupil’s understanding, but also so that she, that is, the concerned mother tongue teacher, can
also explain to us what it is that he doesn’t understand, what he thinks is difficult (…) because he (the pupil)
maybe can’t always explain or put his finger on what it is that makes it difficult. CTB

All the class teachers mentioned the aspect of language and translation as an important part of the
tutor’s work. That the pupil should know the appropriate words was expressed as a fundamental
aspect of learning. Some class teachers also expressed an expectation that the tutor should improve
the pupil’s Swedish language skills more generally:
Well, then she has been working with … words and expressions that this boy has, in Arabic, to make it easier for
him to follow it, from the point of view of knowledge … She hasn’t cared about learning Swedish, but instead …
to make it easier for him …. CTD
To go deeper, well, to learn the language, I am thinking of Swedish, and to sort of get an opportunity to tie the
languages together, so you get a … you get word knowledge in both languages, for instance, and thereby you
increase your understanding. CTB

Among the tutors, a few also saw translating and teaching the technical terminology for the different
subjects as an important function:
The aim in tutoring is that you function as a connection between the new language and the mother tongue. To
give the pupils understanding in different subjects. Each subject separately has lots of words that are specific for
the subject. When you can, if the pupil has a background of schooling and brings words with him in the mother
tongue, then it’s easy to bring out those words and connect them to Swedish words. If it’s empty concerning the
subjects, then it’s a double job. Then you have to give the pupil the words in the mother tongue to be able to
connect. Or, if he knows Swedish, you have to connect to the mother tongue. MTB

Many of the issues discussed by the tutors were situated at a much more general level, however, such as
learning better study skills, or strengthening the pupil’s self-confidence, improving interaction with the
other pupils, learning that it is culturally appropriate in Sweden to ask questions in class, understanding
how exams were structured and explaining grading criteria, or understanding the different types of
logic underlying the mathematics curriculum in Sweden compared to the country the pupil had
come from. Above all, the tutors stressed the need to have expertise in the subjects they were expected
to teach, as well as the need to plan and prepare their work carefully in advance. The tutors also gen-
erally expressed a need to have access to teaching materials on which they could base their lessons.
A major problem which appeared throughout the study was the lack of opportunities for com-
munication between subject teachers and tutors, and difficulties for tutors to obtain the information
they needed to plan their lessons in advance.
So I have to be there a quarter of an hour ahead of time and ask what they are working with and go through
what the main points are in that subject. When they work with themes it makes things easier for me. For
instance, if they work with religion for four weeks then I can plan the next couple of weeks. On Wednesdays
I know for instance that (name of class teacher) doesn’t have time to go the toilet because he uses his break to
talk with me. And not all teachers want to make that sacrifice. So its little paper notes, messages, texting … MTC
When I arrived on Monday at nine o’clock I got a book, pages 15 to 20, ‘There you are’. What can I do? I sat
there reading fifteen pages, five pages, and time is really limited, you see. MTA

The class teachers were aware of problems concerning planning and coordination, but also felt that
solutions were not evident:
But many of the home language teachers have not been employed long and maybe don’t know that much about
this thing with … Well, what is needed, you see. It can be difficult. Getting through to each other. To show if
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 411

Swedish pedagogical (ideas) get through to the home language teacher, to try to discuss to agree what the kid
needs. CTD
For me as a teacher who teaches it is difficult to always be able to organise in advance like that, because I maybe
don’t always know what we will be doing next Thursday, because it depends a bit on how far we have come and
it must of course be incredibly difficult for a tutor to come in and just stand there like, … oh well, now I am
going to solve this, like immediately. CTB
There are often stressful situations that arise. I mean, you have to solve several issues, talks and discussions
between teachers in the corridors, standing there two minutes before the lesson starts. That the conditions
(don’t exist) to have a joint, joint conference some time each month, maybe, where you would have been able
to sit and talk about the pupils, about the content you are going through and sort of common goals (…). CTB

Even those tutors who were qualified subject teachers from their countries of origin stressed that it
was no easy matter providing support adapted to the Swedish curriculum, due to differences in the
ways subjects were taught. Teachers qualified to teach other age groups and levels than the ones they
were tutoring also expressed similar frustration.
Even if I am good at mathematics, but the way mathematics are taught, it’s not the same, is it? And when they
know the children, get used to the way, because they have been around all along since the first years of primary
(…). I stand outside. MTA

Both types of teachers in the present study expressed deeper collaboration between tutors and class
teachers as an ideal, but even minimal coordination seemed to be lacking in practice. At the same
time, class teachers expressed that it would be desirable to have access to much more mother tongue
tutoring, and most believed that this support would be potentially beneficial to a wider range of stu-
dents, not only those who were newly arrived.
Both class teachers and mother tongue tutors put forward the idea of attaching mother tongue
tutors to the school where he or she taught, in order to improve continuity and collaboration. Tutors
also mentioned that being outside the school meant that they missed out on professional development
processes concerning subject-specific didactics.
Well, as I said, there are many obstacles and it’s not just their fault, since we don’t have any time. We have our
work, and if they (the class teachers) have an afternoon to sit with planning, we have lessons at that time (…).
And we can’t just remove these obstacles, because we don’t work in the same unit, we don’t belong to the same
teacher team, we don’t belong to the same school, we aren’t integrated. (We work at) different schools, and we
drive around all the time. MTA

A difference appeared between mother tutors and class teachers concerning how the scarce resources
should be prioritised. Class teachers thought that it was best to place these resources on subjects with
difficult texts and many technical terms, where students tended to fail because of poor knowledge of
Swedish. Mother tongue tutors expressed that they would like to focus first on subjects where the
student had good chances of succeeding, to build the student’s self-confidence and improve status
in the class, thereby leading to more positive interaction with class teachers and classmates.
(…) if you had been able to get help, I am thinking of the Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, for instance, the
subjects which are … where the children often do not get pass grades due to their language, and Swedish as
well, or Swedish as a Second Language too, but above all those two subjects, which I think the children experi-
ence as more and more difficult the older they get, because the texts get heavier and there are more difficult
words, and there are more demands placed on them and on their understanding. CTB
The big challenge is to succeed in getting the pupils to go onwards to … more and more to the subjects at
school, and to get them engaged in different subjects, one after another. To be able to manage themselves,
in the beginning maybe what you could call a bit easier subjects, and then you move on to subjects that are
a bit more advanced, for instance Social Sciences and Natural Sciences, where there are loads of concepts
they have to know. So they can discover themselves that ‘Yes, this is something I want to do and invest in’. MTB

Both tutors and class teachers expressed that they lacked information about the pupil’s home con-
ditions or background that would help them understand the pupil’s needs. In some cases, the tutors
could obtain such information from parents. All deplored that they received little or no information
from the previous steps of the receiving organisations. If initial assessments were made, they were not
412 H. AVERY

communicated, or reception assessments had been made under conditions that rendered the infor-
mation useless. Many of the newly arrived pupils had health issues and were under medical treat-
ment, but important information was not shared between health and social services and the schools.
Overall, it appeared that tutors needed an understanding both of the important features of stu-
dents’ prior schooling and background, and the Swedish school system, to determine which elements
would typically facilitate the process of transition. Tutors would initially place themselves at the ser-
vice of the class teachers, expecting the class teachers to direct them in their work. They also easily fell
into the role of ‘interpreter’. With time and experience, this approach changed. The more experi-
enced tutors collaborated with the individual class teachers who were interested in collaboration,
but took initiatives themselves to organise teaching in ways they felt would be productive.

Discussion
Divergences in the descriptions between class teachers and tutors suggested that they formed distinct
Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998), although they were working at the same schools, with the
same pupils, and teaching the same subject content, sometimes during the same lessons. An impli-
cation of these findings is that some form of organised brokering practices would be needed to
improve the coordination of efforts between the groups. In the case of mother tongue tutoring, it
was also problematic if most communication concerning content and pupil needs had to be
expressed by the pupil him- or herself. For newly arrived pupils, a major learning problem is pre-
cisely that they are not able to grasp what the learning aims in the classroom activities are, and
that they do not understand what the classroom teacher wants them to do or what help they may
need. Child-driven teaching approaches can increase inequalities, and are therefore not unproble-
matic with respect to social justice and equity (Francia 2011).
The present study did not look directly at tutoring effects on learning. That schools operating with
tight budgets were willing to pay for tutoring hours is nevertheless an indication that benefits were
seen. Importantly, this study has not interviewed the pupils about their experience, and this is an
area that merits further research. While stigmatisation may have been an issue in the present study,
there is not sufficient material to draw conclusions. Prior studies including pupils point to the role
of pedagogical strategies in language use and the risks of stigmatisation. In a study of bilingual class-
rooms (cf. Avery 2011; Tvingstedt 2011), pupils expressed that translation had been helpful at the very
start, but that it was meaningless if Arabic-speaking teachers simply repeated and translated what
Swedish-speaking teachers said. Assarson and Morgan’s extensive study (2008) pointed to negative
effects in cases when pupils experienced tutoring as stigmatising.
The different descriptions converged in stressing that insufficient opportunities were offered for
communication between class teachers and tutors. Teachers of both categories deplored the lack of
time and communication. They agreed on the need to manage basic coordination, pass on infor-
mation about the pupils, and, if possible, find strategies for how to work with individual pupils. Con-
cerning concerns and perceptions of aims with tutoring, there was a much wider span of perceptions
and a certain number of divergences between both individuals and between the two kinds of tea-
chers, with less overlap. In class teacher’s discussions, the tutors were represented as being there
both for the pupils and for their own work as teachers. This does not mean, however, that class tea-
chers perceived tutors as colleagues in their teacher team. Rather, the tutors were represented as an
aid or as a resource. Perceptions of support teachers with immigrant background as auxiliaries were
also noticed by Assarson and Morgan (2008), and similar attitudes have been found concerning sub-
ject teachers with immigrant background (Bigestans 2015). In the tutors’ descriptions, although they
were not averse to helping the class teachers, in compliance with legal provisions they saw their main
function as supporting the pupils they were entrusted with individually, rather than supporting the
class teachers as a colleague or contributing to teaching the class as a whole.
The tutors’ perceptions that they needed support with respect to developments in subject-specific
teaching approaches can be compared to findings by Shin, Lee, and McKenna (2015), where the
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION 413

special education teachers expressed that they lacked content knowledge. An additional problem
expressed by mother tongue tutors in the present study was the lack of suitable teaching materials.
Findings of the present study overlap with Weekes et al. (2011) with respect to perceived advantages
and disadvantages of in-class tutoring compared to withdrawal. However, findings with respect to
the model of interaction partly diverge from Assarson and Morgan’s (2008) study, which pointed
to greater advantages with in-class tutoring. A possible explanation is that in Assarson and Morgan’s
study, mother tongue tutoring also took the form of co-teaching with joint classroom management,
which did not occur in the case investigated here.
All participants in this study repeatedly stressed the need for collaboration, communication, and
coordination, but finding practical forms for close collaboration may be difficult. Already in cases of
bilingual instruction where only two languages are involved, substantial planning and preparation
are needed between teams of co-teaching teachers, at school levels, with municipalities, and in
coordination with parents (see Tvingstedt 2011; Dillon, Salazar, and Al Otaibi 2015).

Conclusions
In the studied case, tutors’ work was impeded by a number of very basic limitations. Tutors did not
have access to necessary teaching materials; they did not receive information in advance about the
lessons they were expected to teach; scheduling and finding teaching rooms were a problem; while
coordination with class teachers was mostly insufficient. Although the more experienced tutors took
initiatives in organising suitable forms for the tutoring, it appeared that tutors tended to function as
assistants to class teachers rather than as equal partners with respect to deciding on the suitable con-
tent for the tutoring sessions. Such problems are not only a question of work organisation and sche-
duling, but also stem from attitudes and overarching language policies.
Recommendations of the Swedish National Agency for Education seem to implicitly reduce the
function of the tutor to a translator or an assistant, possibly combined with the function of cultural
mediation (cf. Leanza et al. 2014). However, if the tutor is seen as an interpreter, there is a risk that
efforts are directed towards finding accurate translations of technical terminology, rather than more
productive pedagogical work. A weekly hour of tutoring does not constitute ‘strong’ bilingual edu-
cation, nor does it present the advantages of systematically developed and adequately resourced
teaching for content and language integrated learning.
In the study, it appeared that at least a minimal form of collaboration would have been necessary
for effective tutoring, but this would have involved a modification of the class teachers’ teaching
practices. Importantly, transitional measures for newly arrived students, therefore, raise the question
of the responsibility of mainstream teachers, and preparation during teacher education (Carlson
2009; Bačáková and Closs 2013; Naidoo 2013; Smyth 2013). Tutoring can thus be understood within
the wider context of whole school approaches to inclusion (Vickers and McCarthy 2010; Pugh,
Every, and Hattam 2012).
Despite the lack of structural support for effective tutoring, the measure was nevertheless per-
ceived as important to help newly arrived students succeed. Findings also suggest that improved sup-
port could be achieved with relatively simple changes, such as providing time for joint planning and
creating resource banks of teaching materials suitable for tutoring in the mother tongue.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor
Helen Avery is a teacher educator at the School of Education and Communication, Jönköping Uni-
versity, Sweden. Her research interests include intersections of disability and migration in education,
reception measures for refugees and inclusive education.
414 H. AVERY

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