Knowing in Practice: The use of dialogue as a pedagogical method in integration work

This study analyses dialogue as an aspect of professional knowledge when integration workers are orienting newly arrived immigrants about Swedish society and everyday life in an integration activity called civic orientation. The data consists of interviews with integration workers and observations of classes in Sweden. The results show that using dialogue involves knowing how to mobilise a contextual foundation for mediating between different experience-based meanings and how to re-contextualise information, which requires skilful handling of various knowledge sources. To bridge between standardised information and contextually relevant meanings is central in integration processes and here, dialogue could support future integration work.