Att mötas människa till människa : En kvalitativ studie om hur medarbetare i ideella organisationer uppfattar mötet med nyanlända

Sammanfattning: In the light of the increasing globalization and immigration to Sweden, this thesis examines how the employees at Swedish NGO’s perceive the intercultural dialog with immigrants. The NGO’s are recognized as an important part in the ongoing work of integration. At the same time the employees often have a very limited formal education within the communication field and the NGO’s often lack a communications officer and a communications section. These employees are the ones that in their daily work meet the immigrants and are expected to help the immigrants integrate, meet swedes and learn the language. Using theories within the field of intercultural communication and intercultural communication competence, this thesis has examined how three employees at three NGO’s in Lund perceive the intercultural dialog with immigrants. The conclusions drawn are that the dialog is not perceived as intercultural at all, but as interpersonal, with more emphasis placed on the personality and no importance at all on cultural differences. Knowledge of Swedish and to have enough time to communicate are perceived as of great importance for the dialog. The context in which the dialogs take place seems to be crucial for how the dialog is perceived.