Språk- och samhällskunskapskrav för svenskt medborgarskap: : En analys av ett policyförslag

Sammanfattning: Integration and immigration policies as a raised as an ‘hot topic’ in many western democracies,mostly due to an increased immigration. This has led to a debate on integration issues and howto integrate new citizens in the western societies.The Swedish government presented an inquiry on the subject of citizenship test in language andcivic skills in 2021 with an uttered aim to ‘increase the status of the citizenship and to promotean inclusive society’. This paper analyses, based on the WPR- approach, this inquiry report inregard to the purpose of the citizenship test and which problem representations that underpinthe inquiry.The inquiry report expresses a problem representation that ‘immigrants have a lack in theSwedish language and in civic skills’ which is seen as a result of ‘lack of effort’ and that it istoo easy to receive a Swedish citizenship. The ‘solution’ to this ‘problem’ is to introduce acitizenship test which tis thought to create incentives to become more ‘included’. The problemrepresentations (re)produce a ‘immigrant’s people category which need to be govern andreenforces a dichotomy of included and excluded in relation to ‘immigrants. At the same timethe scientific support in regard to create motivation for inclusion and integration by a mandatorylanguage and civic tests are contested.