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Carlos Rojas

About me

Carlos’ research focuses on equity, equality and educational support in disadvantaged settings within the Swedish school system.

He is a sociologist and previous to his PhD studies he worked developing strategies and interventions to strengthen social sustainability on the local level in structurally disadvantaged areas in different parts of Sweden. Migration and other structural processes of modern societies and how these impact on life opportunities for children and youth have been of special interest, and he has published several books on these issues.

Teaching

Lecturer and teacher at Stockholm University's teacher education, in courses held at the institution of Special Education.

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Racialization of Educational Support: Preliminary findings from ongoing research in lower secondary schools

    2024. Carlos Rojas.

    Conference

    By studying activities of educational support, the research to be presented has revealed power relations at play in these. During three semesters, policy and practice regarding educational support on micro and macro levels have been analyzed, with specific interest in the role of discourses and subjective positionings (Foucault 1972/2002). One of the findings is a racialization of the provision of educational support. 

    A certain degree of racialization (Miles 1989) of educational support is inevitable. Understanding educational support as pedagogical or didactical efforts supplementing mainstream teaching, there is for instance a group of students in need of such based on them having migrated, until they learn the Swedish language. Nevertheless, this research reveals differences in provision of educational support in the form of e.g. special education or assessments that are difficult to explain pedagogically.

    We find hints on educational support failing in terms of equity in educational statistics, as well as quantitative and qualitative research that for decades have revealed how children of migrated families in Sweden are worse off in school on accumulated group level (Behtoui et al 2019). One example is in the passing rates from lower to upper secondary. While being a crucial step in regards to future life opportunities (The Public Health Agency 2022), no one has yet hit the spot on how to improve the situation.

    The presentation at the Nordic Conference on Racism and Education will discuss preliminary results regarding the racializing power dynamics revealed when researching provision of educational support in two lower secondary schools where ~30-40% of the students have migrant background. Adopting an ethnographic approach, daily life with class sessions and staff meetings have been observed and over 80 interviews been made with students, teachers and parents.

     

    References

    Behtoui, A., Hertzberg, F., Jonsson, R., Rosales, R. L., & Neergaard, A. (2019). Sweden: The otherization” of the Descendants of Immigrants (Vol. 2, pp. 999–1034). Palgrave Macmillan. 

    Foucault, M. (2002). The archaeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. Routledge.

    Miles, R. (1989). Racism. Routledge.

    The Public Health Agency. (2022). Folkhälsans utveckling – årsrapport 2022. The Public Health Agency.

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  • Educational support in disadvantaged neighborhoods

    2023. Carlos Rojas. Everyday consequences of urban segregation in disadvantaged Nordic schools

    Conference

    The research contributes to the field of school development and specifically inclusion and equity in the field of education, intending to reveal structural and social processes that condition the provision of educational support in schools located in disadvantaged neighborhoods. 

    Increasing rates of school failure that moreover are concentrated among already disadvantaged groups, is distancing the Swedish school system from its utopian ambitions on universality and equity. When introduced in policies through both text and discourse half a century ago, the school for all was supposed to compensate for pupils varying starting positions and provide equal opportunities regardless of social backgrounds, families or life circumstances. It seems to have fallen short. Researchers from different disciplines have shed light on how political restructuration of the school system in the spirit of neo-liberalism and marketization since then have increased segregation and polarization in the field of education socially, economically and in the end academically. As of today, schools with long lasting failure rates are often located in structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods that house more families with lower socioeconomic status and more migrants relatively to the city or municipality as a whole. Moreover, there is a tendency in public and political debate as well as within the schools, to place the responsibility for school failures on individual, social or structural circumstances attributed to the neighborhoods, rather than attributing the responsibility to the school and its organization. 

    This research project widens the scope and intends to provide new knowledge on how a greater array of structural and social processes impact and condition policies and practices of educational support on macro, meso and micro levels. Focus is on policies and practices of educational support, understood as a key to improved school success. The study adopts the approach of critical policy sociology (Ozga 2021) and starts digging in national and local policy texts, through the discourses of heads of schools and principals in nine municipalities to end up in the power dynamics and positionings in two classrooms in lower secondary schools. 

    The symposium at NERA will discuss results from the first and second study of the research project, in which nine municipalities with schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods are subject to research. First through a content analysis of plans and policies for educational support and second in an interview study with principals and heads of school. Special attention is given to the use of a unique Swedish governmental subsidy in the order of 600 million euro that every municipality receive automatically based on their children’s registered SES, with a minimum of direction and control mechanisms, more than the request of improving their capacity to provide “equity in school” (likvärdig skola).

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  • Migration som orsak till samhällets problem: - hur påverkar narrativet kommunal verksamhet?

    2023. Carlos Rojas. Socialvetenskaplig tidskrift 30 (2), 563-581

    Article

    Even though Sweden has well over half a century’s experience with migration, recently strengthened master narratives of migration and migrants as social problems are generating an impact on policies and practices at the local level. Previous research has identified how narratives of migration and migrants impact policy making and interventions related to migration, integration and accommodation of migrants. This study widens the scope as it identifies how narratives of migration and migrants impact policies and practices in general.

    Adopting a theoretical framework based on racialisation, decision making and narrative theory, 17 interviews with local government administrators and police officers from a district in Stockholm are analysed. The results show how narratives of migration and migrants are embedded in the causal argumentation of present problems in the district. When practically every problem is argued to have migration as a root cause, policy and practices for solving them tend to target migrants. The article describes how this takes place and the final discussion addresses several risks that follow.

    First, the quality and efficiency of policy and interventions is at risk when the causality behind a problem is simplified and inaccurate. Second, targeting migrants when addressing the districts’ problems also risk omitting those natives impacted by a problem from benefiting from the solution or relief provided by the local government. Third, there is a risk that the local government strengthens the master narrative of migration and migrants as causing society’s problems.

    Given the results, an ending theoretical contribution is provided, arguing that a local government is a racialising bureaucracy. Not only is it racialised in its structure, as previous theory has stated, it also actively contributes to the reproduction and development of racialised structures in society at large.

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  • Barn och ungdomar i stadens olikheter: Om segregation, gränser och möjliggörande interventioner i det uppdelade urbana rummet

    2021. Nihad Bunar.

    Book

    Barn och ungdomar i stadens olikheter handlar om barn och unga från ett antal bostadsområden i Stockholmsregionen och villkoren för deras uppväxt, utbildning, fritid och hälsa. En viktig bok för blivande och verksamma lärare, rektorer och politiker i strukurellt missgynnade områden som arbetar för att barn och ungdomar ska få samma möjligheter och livschanser. 

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