University of Southern Denmark – Esbjerg Delivery Date: 01/09/2020

Faculty of Social Sciences

STRUGGLE FOR EDUCATION:

The challenges that women of non-western background in Danish ghettos face

on their journey to higher education.

Master’s thesis

Author of Thesis: Supervisor:

Sofia Plakandara Annette Michelsen la Cour
Department of Sociology, Environmental- and
Business Economics

Keystrokes: 176.258 Standard Pages: 73.5

Abstract
This thesis is studying the challenges that minority women of non-western background in ghettos in
Denmark might face in their attempt to continue in higher education. Moreover, it focuses on how
social control, exercised from the family, community and wider Danish society can either hamper or
promote their continuation. The empirical data used for this study was collected through eight
interviews with women of non-western background that participated in higher education institutions
and professionals or volunteers in the field, like teachers and project workers in ghettos.

The analysis is based on the theory of recognition by Honneth, the notions of capital, field, habitus,
doxa and symbolic violence by Bourdieu and the configuration of the established and the outsiders by
Elias and Scotson. These theories are used respectively to explain the challenges of women of non-
Western background in different fields.

This study gives insights on the ingroup and outgroup pressure that these women experience in their
effort for personal development and social mobility.

It is suggested that social control is manifested through families and the community regarding gender
roles ascribed to these women. Social control can prevent women’s continuation in higher education,
since they are arguably subjugated to fulfill certain expectations in the field of private life; thus these
women are often stigmatized for not complying with the norms and the patriarchal structure of the
collective.

Contrastingly, cultural values of certain ethnic backgrounds can promote education. Belonging in a
minority culture pushes the need of acquisition of formal educational diplomas in order to possess
personal and political freedom and pursue social mobility and status.

Furthermore, belonging to a ghetto can provoke distancing with the wider society outside of it. Due
to power imbalances between the two collectives, stigmatization and discrimination patterns may
discourage active pursual of academic development. Also, restriction from resources due to stigma
can further deepen this problem.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction........................................................................................................... 4
1.1 Background ......................................................................................................... 4
1.2 Problem Statement ............................................................................................. 5
1.3 Thesis’ Structure .................................................................................................. 5
1.4 Definitions for the reader ..................................................................................... 6
2. Theory of Science ............................................................................................... 6
3. Methodology ........................................................................................................ 7
3.1 Informants .......................................................................................................... 7
3.2 Data Collection .................................................................................................... 8
3.3 Researcher’s Position ........................................................................................... 9
3.4 Ethical Considerations........................................................................................ 10
3.5 Data Analysis Strategy ....................................................................................... 10
3.6 Validity of the Study .......................................................................................... 11
4.Theory .................................................................................................................... 12
4.1 Theory of Recognition ........................................................................................... 13
4.1.1 The Concept of Freedom ................................................................................. 13
4.1.2 Recognition .................................................................................................... 14
4.1.3 The three dimensions of recognition ................................................................ 15
4.1.4 The Struggle for Recognition ............................................................................ 15
4.1.5 Extensions in Education................................................................................... 16
4.1.6 Critique .......................................................................................................... 16
4.2 The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu ........................................................................... 17
4.2.1 Capital ........................................................................................................... 17
4.2.1.1 Cultural Capital ............................................................................................ 17
4.2.1.2 Social capital................................................................................................ 18
4.2.2 Symbolic Violence ........................................................................................... 18
4.2.3 Field............................................................................................................... 19
4.3. The sociology of Norbert Elias ............................................................................... 20
4.3.1 The Established and the Outsiders Configuration .............................................. 20
4.3.2 Extensions of the model in Immigrant-Native Relations..................................... 21
5. Literature Review .............................................................................................. 22

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 5.1 What is a Ghetto? .............................................................................................. 23
5.2 Ghettos in the Danish Context ............................................................................ 24
5.2.1 Immigration and the Creation of Ghettos in Denmark ....................................... 24
5.2.2 Reasons for the Formation of Ghettos .............................................................. 25
5.2.3 The Ghetto List ............................................................................................... 26
5.2.4 The Ghetto Plan .............................................................................................. 29
5.2.4.1 The Ghetto Plan on Education ....................................................................... 29
5.3 Women’s Position in non-western Backgroung Minority Communities .................. 31
5.3.1 Social Control ............................................................................................ 32
5.4 The Education Prophecy ..................................................................................... 33
6. Analysis ............................................................................................................. 35
6.1 Cultural and Gendered Expectations about Women in Ghettos ............................. 35
6.1.1 Women’s Gendered Roles ............................................................................... 35
6.1.2 Norms in Educational and Occupational Choice ................................................ 38
6.1.3 Gender Roles in a Patriarchal Society ............................................................... 39
6.1.4 Gender Distancing .......................................................................................... 42
6.1.6 Social Control in Ghettos ................................................................................. 43
6.1.7 Between two worlds ....................................................................................... 45
6.1.8 Summary........................................................................................................ 46
6.2 The value of education .......................................................................................... 47
6.2.1 Education as a cultural value ........................................................................... 48
6.2.2 Education for Freedom .................................................................................... 50
6.2.3 Education for Social Mobility ........................................................................... 51
6.2.4 Education as Status ......................................................................................... 53
6.2.5 Towards Change ............................................................................................. 54
6.2.5.1 The Danish Educational System ..................................................................... 56
6.2.6 Summary........................................................................................................ 56
6.3 Us and Them ........................................................................................................ 58
6.3.1 The two collectives ......................................................................................... 58
6.3.2 Avoidance and Segregation ............................................................................. 60
6.3.3 Stigma ........................................................................................................... 61
6.3.4 Discrimination ................................................................................................ 63

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 6.3.5 The established as the Oppressor..................................................................... 65
6.3.6 Summary........................................................................................................ 67
7. Thesis Conclusion ............................................................................................. 68
7.1 Future research ................................................................................................. 71
7.2 Perspective ....................................................................................................... 72
Literature .................................................................................................................. 73
Literature ................................................................................................................... 73
Appendices .............................................................................................................. 79

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 1. Introduction

1.1 Background

Denmark has experienced a flow of immigrants and refugees mostly during the decades of 70’s and
80’s. A significant percentage of the immigrants and their descendants originate from countries of
non-western background. The segregation of these population in certain areas in Denmark was
visible since their early arrival due to economic, social reasons and motives of ethic affiliation.
Although these areas were called ghettos in everyday discourse, the term was officially introduced in
political discourse in Denmark in 2010 by the former prime minister. Since then, official
governmental documents have focused on the criteria of identification and categorization of ghettos
in Denmark, as the ghetto list, along with certain measures to dissolve them or improve the
conditions of living, like the ghetto plan.

In general, ghettos carry elements like stigma, economic and social constrain, and various social
problems such as higher rates of criminality and lower levels of education. The ghetto, as a place of
residential segregation can lead to limited contact between the wider society and the people living
inside of it. The residential segregation fatally leads to school segregation. In turn, school
segregation has various complications for students such as socio-emotional and behavioral problems
(Palardy et al., 2015), but also lower academic achievement levels and lower opportunity to learn for
the students (Ong & Rickles, 2004).

In Denmark, ghettos are believed to be ‘parallel societies’ that maintain their own cultural and
religious values (Regeringen, 2018, p. 4). Social control is used within ghetto societies to preserve
and protect the existing norms. Social control can take place within the family, community and on an
institutional level. On family level it can be used as a way to protect the child from bad influences
and reputation (Udlændinge-, Integrations- og Boligministeriet, 2018). On the community level it is
believed to constrict a person’s freedom of expression and choice (Rengerigen, 2018). On
institutional level it can be used as a way to control the conditions of life of a certain group.

Women in Danish ghettos statistically feel more pressured by social control than their peers
(Regeringen, 2018). Research has shown that women of non-western background are the group that
face the most pressure when they pursue social development both from their collective of ghettos
and from the wider society (Van Laar, Decks & Ellemers, 2013). Even though women of non-western
background in Denmark have high levels of academic achievement until their early adulthood, later

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they disappear from education and labor force and even later they do not reach the levels of
participation of their peer groups (Appendix: 47). This begs the quest for the explanation this may
occur.

1.2 Problem Statement

In general, the literature on the population of ghettos in Europe is still limited compared to the
bibliography about ‘black’ ghettos, as they were defined in the USA. Only recent literature is
appearing on ‘cultural’ ghettos in Europe. Feminist studies have shed light in the role of women in
these populations. However, existing research has taken into account some of these matters
separately. There is a literature gap in the way that the inward and outward collective’s social
control might influence the women in their choices to continue in the upper education. In this study
there is an attempt of a holistic view on the exclusion patterns for women of non-Western
background with focus on gender issues, cultural and social values, and separation between ghettos
and Danish society. As such, the research question is formed:

“What are the challenges of non-Western background women who reside in ghettos in Denmark in
their transition to upper education?”

1.3 Thesis’ Structure

In search of the answer for the research question I base my study on qualitative research by
conducting interviews with minority women that live in ghettos and people that are occupied
professionally in the field of education of these populations and project workers in ghettos in
Denmark. Chapter two explains the social theories that will be used in the analysis of the findings
and the connection to the matter. Chapter three describes and explains the choice of participants
and the conditions of the interviews, along with the methodology and analytical strategy. Chapter
three reviews the existing literature about ghetto formation and consequences in the education for
its residents, in conjunction with social control issues forced to the women of the studied population
from family, community and state. Chapter four presents the analysis of the findings in three themes
about the cultural and gender expectation on women in ghettos, the educational value for non-
Western background populations and finally the division in two collectives inside and outside the
ghettos, along with the consequences this division might have on the education of the women from
minorities. Last, a general thesis conclusion takes place in chapter five.

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1.4 Definitions for the reader

The term ghetto is a highly controversial term, which is used to describe areas with a majority of
people from non-Western background along with certain social problems that exist in those areas.
Even though the term is used with consciousness and it is not accepted by most of the participants,
its use is practical because the term is used in official Danish political discourse and documents to
define the areas that this research took place.

The non-western background population is used as a generalized grouping to describe ethnicities

that do not belong to European and other Anglo-Saxon countries. The populations may vary
significantly with each other. Although, the national statistics of Denmark is using this division
between Western and non-Western background, thus for practical reasons this separation will be
followed as well.

2. Theory of Science
The theoretical approach of social constructivism is used as an epistemological basis of this thesis.
Knowledge is not an objective reality in the context of social constructivism, but it is a product of our
own experience and understanding of the world. The focus of the approach is on how knowledge is
constructed at the social, historical, cultural and discoursive level (Gergen, 1999). The reason for
choosing social constructivism is due to its transcendence of focus from the individual to the relation
between subjects (Gergen, 1997). Thus, it is possible to touch matters like identity and relationships
of power, as these are constructed relationally in every cultural and social context.

Through social constructivism we are able to deconstruct the current notions of difference between
classes, genders or ethnicities are commonly explored cases in this context. This approach enables
the construction of new knowledge about different concepts in the world. In one of the most
emblematic book in the history of social constructionism The Social Con-struction of Reality (1966)
by Berger and Luckman, it is supported that on one of the basic assumptions of the theoretical
movement is that people create the social phenomena through social practices. This process is
described through the three stages of externalization, objectivation and internalization.
Externalization is the way that people act within society creating a social product or practice.
Objectivation is when this product or practice is established in peoples’ mind and is accepted as an
objective reality or as a natural order of reality. Internalization comes when an idea is completely
objectified, and future generations are taking it for granted in their social interaction.

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With this epistemological context we can research in this thesis about the cultural values that
prevent the transition to upper education in the ghetto communities in Denmark or promote it in
certain cases. Also, other issues that may arise from the relations that are built between the broader
Danish society and the segregated areas like stigma and discrimination. Gender issues that are
constructed culturally in the communities can also be investigated, since the focus of this study in
upon women from ethnic minorities. These concepts may be constructed socially and culturally but
they are objectified and internalized in a way that they create a societal process. This study may
challenge some of the established knowledge about education and ethnic minority women who live
in Danish ghettos. Social constructivism enables us to investigate new realities and deconstruct
dogmas that are established until now.

3. Methodology

3.1 Informants

The participants were selected for this research by purposive non-probability sampling. This means
that the participants were chosen according to certain criteria with relevance to the research
question, in order to provide comprehensive and rich information. The criteria of the initial sample
were location, gender, non-western ethnic background and educational level. The research was
about women of non-ethnic background that live in Vollsmose and are or have completed upper
education. In the second phase, the research was expanded including people related to the issue
professionally, like teachers and community project workers in the ghettos and women from other
ghettos in Denmark.

Snowball sampling frame was used. The initial contacts identified other contacts that matched the
selection criteria. However, this way of generating new participants can compromise the diversity of
the sample (Babbie, 2010). Indeed, three of the participants ended up as alumnae from the same
master’s course. Although, it is considered that the validity was not compromised because the
alumnae occupied very different positions and answered different interview guides.

From the initial nineteen contacts, the selected group of informants were narrowed down to eight
participants, either because they did not match to the criteria or due to unresponsiveness. The

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sample is heterogenic, in the way that the relation to the subject is either personal or professional,
the age varies among the participants and the ethnical background is different for everyone except
for the professionals in the field, who happen to be all ethnically Danish. The diversity in age and
ethnicity among the participants ensures that the impact of the characteristics can be explored
(Richie & Lewis, 2003).

The sample was constituted by seven women and one man. The age range was between 27 years old
to 52. The participants’ ethnicities were Pakistani, Palestinian, Iranian, Somali and Danish. The
informants were three women from non-western background that have completed or participated in
higher education institutions, one woman from non-western background in the workforce, two
community project workers, one teacher and one volunteer in a counseling center in a ghetto.

The ghettos that were investigated in Denmark were four. The process of interviewing continued
until data saturation was reached. The ghettos that this research took place are believed to be
representative of the ghettos in Denmark in general, since the biggest ghetto in Denmark and the
ghetto with the lowest educational level were included.

3.2 Data Collection

The data collection was in the form of individual interviews. Individual interviews are the most
common form of qualitative research, since they provide a way to investigate on the participant’s
personal perspective (Richie & Lewis, 2003). The interviews were semi-structured, so the interviewer
was able to ask the same questions depending on the participant’s relevance to the subject, but also
have some flexibility to investigate further, important matters to each participant that emerged
during the interview (Richie & Lewis, 2003). The interviews were in depth, in order to collect data
which show the perspective of each person connected to his/her individual circumstances (Richie &
Lewis, 2003). Some data from follow up questions were collected later with emails or sms texts to
four participants, although two of the participants did not reply to them.

For this research, three interview guides were constructed. The interview guides had the same
themes, but different angle on the matter according to the relation of the participant with the
subject. The first theme was about personal information of the interviewee, the second about life in
the ghetto, and the third about education. The interview guides were informed by social theory and

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recent literature. Nevertheless, there was an attempt not to be biased by the literature and guide
the participants in certain conclusions.

The interview is an intense experience for both parties involved and thus it should be contacted face
to face (Richie & Lewis, 2003). Although, two of the interviews were contacted through video calls
due to great distance. For the interviews that were contacted face to face, the participants were able
to choose the location of the interview. The interviews were contacted either in the homes of the
participant, in their workplace or in the researcher’s house. The private setting of the interview was
ensured since the participants would be required to enclose some more personal and sensitive
information. To establish a relaxing atmosphere and thank the participant, cake was offered before
the start of the interview.

The interviews were contacted in two periods, the first three interviews from the 18th to 29th May
2020 and the rest from the 16th of June to 13th of July 2020. The majority of the participants were
contacted through mail or facebook. The initial message included the reference name, the purpose
of the research and the relevance of the participant to the subject. Some participants answered
within a few days, while others after weeks of the initial message. The duration of the interviews
differed from 27 to 43 minutes.

The interviews were recorded after the permission of the participants with the researcher’s phone
and later transcribed.

3.3 Researcher’s Position

Earlier research has led to the argument that same socio-demographic criteria between the
interviewer and the interviews are helpful to the dynamic of data collection (Richie & Lewis, 2003).
Especially in feminist research the matching gender is considered to help the participants elaborate
better and built up a closer relationship. According to these criteria I should consider my position as
a researcher as an outsider, since religious and ethnic criteria are not common with the participants.
Although, the likeliness in gender and the fact that I have an immigrant status in Denmark may led to
some affinities in the way we experience the established Danish society. In general, since power
imbalances were discussed in the interview, being a person that may be a part of the oppressive
groups would set an unlike stage for open discussion (Richie & Lewis, 2003). In that case, the

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position of the outsider researcher can contribute to a better understanding by having more
objective stance (Bridges, 2002).

However, when the research has to do with minority communities and sensitive matters, building a
closer relationship with the participants benefits an open discussion. In the case of this research, this
was obvious. The researcher had friendly relationships with two of the participants before. During
the interviews, these two women enclosed much more information about sensitive issues such as
the relations inside the ghetto community and discrimination experiences from the Danish society
compared to the rest of the interviewees.

Another issue was the language. Even though most of the participants were fluent in English, in one
case a translator was needed. Also, it was obvious that the more uncomfortable the participant was
with their English skills the less in depth and shorter in time was the interview.

3.4 Ethical Considerations

Ethical considerations about this research involved conditions of anonymity and confidentiality, also,
respect for the matters that the participant did not want to elaborate further. The participants were
informed in detail about the purpose of the research, sometimes they asked more specific
information about the issues that will be discussed during the interview. The researcher made clear
to the participants that their anonymity will be preserved. Additionally, they were asked if they want
this thesis to be unavailable to access in the university’s library. None of the participants had this
request.

3.5 Data Analysis Strategy

In this study a content analysis will be used. In this type of analysis the content and the context of
the data is taken into account (Richie & Lewis, 2003). The researcher is focusing on the themes, the
patterns of meaning that are identified, the frequency of their occurrence and the context of the
theme according to the position of each participant (Richie & Lewis, 2003). Specifically, a branch of
content analysis called Thematic Analysis (TA), that was developed later by Gerald Horton will be
employed, because it offers a richer approach on the notion of themes. TA attempts to organize and
discover the hidden meanings in the data, and identify the ideas, conceptualizations, and ideologies
that exist in the material (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Additionally, emotional and cognitive information
can be analyzed as well.

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Braun and Clark (2006) developed a six-step analytical method for TA, which was used as the
analytical strategy of this study. The first step acquires from the researcher to familiarize with the
whole body of text, by reading and rereading. Additionally, memos were kept in this phase.
Secondly, the manual production of initial codes took place. The coding followed an inductive
approach. Although, as Richie and Lewis (2003) support, the induction and deduction are both
involved in different stages of the analysis, as it is impossible for the researcher to process data in an
‘epistemological vacuum’ (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 86). The coding had a bottom-up approach, when
codes, categories and themes were generated from the data in order to articulate better the
experience of the interviewees.

A codebook containing all the initial codes was created. In order to create categories, some of the
codes were combined because of the similarity among them. Each interview’s content varied, but
the categorization combines the different perspectives of the participants. From the categories three
different themes derived. The themes were in regard of the problems that women faced in
transition to higher education because of their gender, different explanations that the participants
consider higher education important and finally, the problems that women face during their
education by the broader Danish society and educational system because they reside in ghettos. The
themes were interpreted through social theory and they were named accordingly as, ‘cultural and
gendered expectation about women in ghettos’, ‘the value of education’ and ‘us and them’
respectively.

TA was chosen in this study as an analytical strategy tool because it is considered to be a flexible tool
for analysis. TA does not carry any theoretical or epistemological preconceptions, but rather the
researcher is able to approach the analyzed data from the socio-theoretical approach that is more
suitable later (Braun, Clarke &Terry, 2014). In this study, the complex issues that women face during
the transition to upper education demanded different approaches of social theory to explain the
phenomena.

3.6 Validity of the Study

A good scientific research should strive for internal and external validity. Validity is concerning the
extent to which the research is accurately describing, explaining and theorizing the phenomena
under investigation (Hammersley, 1992 in Richie & Lewis, 2003).

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The internal validity is based on five elements (Richie & Lewis, 2003). First, the sample coverage
should be inclusive according to the criteria of the selection. The variety of ethnicities, ghetto
residencies and age range in this study are believed to add in the validity. Second choosing a safe
and relaxing environment for the interview and the careful construction of the interview guides, was
supposed to allow the participants to fully express themselves. Third, the identification of the
phenomena in a way that reflects the perspective of the participants was accomplished through
inductive process of coding. Fourth, the interpretation should be based on sufficient evidence from
the data, thus categories and themes are formatting when there are adequate codes by multiple
participants. Last, the display of the findings should reflect the original data, this was achieved with
the reference to actual segments retrieved from the initial interviews.

Following, external validity has to do with the extent that the findings of the research can be applied
on other groups within the wider population and settings. The generalization can thus be
representational and inferential, respectively (Richie & Lewis, 2003). I believe that this research
could efficiently include other population that face similar problems, like males in ghettos, but also
can be generalized to other settings such as social services, health facilities etc.

4.Theory
In order to analyze such a complex matter in this thesis elements from three different theories were
employed. The theory of recognition and mainly struggle for recognition as it was conceptualized by
Axel Honneth, the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu, mostly through the concepts of habitus,
field, doxa, symbolic violence and capital. Additionally, the model of the established and the
outsiders from Norbert Elias and Scotson will be used. All these theories have a common ground in
explaining the inequality in society between social classes and individuals through different lenses.
The plurality of the theoretical concepts will assist to highlight different aspects of the matter for a
holistic analysis, rather than result in mere political or cultural explanations.

The theory of recognition is employed here for a closer look to patterns of the misrecognition
individuals or social groups might face from the dominant groups in Danish society and the ways that
these individuals or groups are struggling to get different forms of recognition and freedom.
Bourdieu is employed to explain how the social class might restrict the freedom of movement of
agents between social classes and fields, and result in a reproduction of social classes. Also, through

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the concept of symbolic violence, it is possible to investigate how institutions, like the educational
system, might create obstacles or assist in the continuation in education. Finally, Elias is employed
for research in exclusion and inclusion patterns about ghetto communities in Denmark, and the
stigmatization processes people there might experience from the established Danish society.

There are similarities in the theoretical concepts between Elias and Bourdieu, but in this analysis the
concepts of Bourdieu will be applied in order to give a more profound political character. As Elias
himself has claimed, the stocks of sociological knowledge are still primitive to move forward to
political matters, contrastingly to Bourdieu that he employs his sociological theory for political
matters (Paulle et al., 2012).

4.1 Theory of Recognition

The theory of recognition is a branch of critical theory which focuses on the centrality of interaction
with the other, and the way that this interaction is constitutive for the identity and the self-
realization (Wernet, Melo & Ayres, 2017). One of the emblematic writers of the theory of
recognition is the German philosopher and social scientist, Axel Honneth. Honneth claims that the
theory of recognition should be a unifying conceptual framework that can be used to describe,
explain, and evaluate objective injustices and experiences of social injustice (Van den Brink & Owen,
2007).

4.1.1 The Concept of Freedom

The Honnethian theory of recognition takes into account a Hegelian reconstruction of freedom,
which interprets society by a developing form of social justice -(Laitinen, 2015). Social justice aims at
a society outlined by social roles and moral relations, which helps individuals to reach a level of
freedom and self-realization (Laitinen, 2015). For Honneth, what ensures the ongoing process of
reaching freedom in society is the notion of shared acceptance of the value of reasoning and the
social reproduction that is guided by reason (Laitinen, 2015-).

Freedom in this theory is viewed as a threefold. Freedom can be negative, reflective, and social.
Negative freedom has to do with freedom from external obstacles. Reflexive freedom is dealing with
the notions of self-determination, self-realization, and authenticity. Last, social freedom is about the
interpersonal and institutional relations, which should allow people to acquire certain available
roles and practices within the society without the risk of alienation or heteronomy (Laitinen, 2015).

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Freedom is not entirely a process of self-determination, but the sum of it along with the harmonious
coexistence with the others and institutions, when the subject can feel free to express oneself in
these relations, freedom can be achieved (Laitinen, 2015).

In Honneth’s theory the aims of the subject are interdependent in freedom-constitutive

relationships (Laitinen, 2015-). In the light of that, people must be able to construct and reserve a
moral freedom regarding the social roles they occupy and be able to distance themselves from them
so they can be critical about them (Laitinen, 2015). Another mechanism for this, is legal freedom
through appropriate institutions. Nevertheless, these two forms of freedom can provide a
temporally protected and approved distance, but the central result of freedom should be to
participate in the social world (Laitinen, 2015).

Social freedom focuses on three different dimensions: personal, economic and political freedom.

Democratic public life is a central aspect of social freedom (Laitinen, 2015-). Public sphere for
Honneth is an arena of reconstructing and interpreting the social standards for recognition ((Van den
Brink & Owen, 2007).

4.1.2 Recognition
Recognition in Honneth’s theory is a historical, dialogical, and intersubjective construct (Wernet et
al., 2017). Honneth takes a critical stance over the atomistic model of human agency. In his theory,
ethical agency is created in and through the relationship with others depending on their
responsiveness. Agents are assuring themselves and others of their similarities regarding their needs
and abilities as people, but the same time their individuality through their responsiveness about
their emotions, unique traits, and specific needs. The interdepended responsiveness facilitates one’s
self and a capacity for other-regarding (Van den Brink & Owen, 2007).

Recognition does not simply mean the ascription of a positive status to an individual or a group. The
structure of recognition must meet three conditions. First, it must have a ‘positive expression to the
value of a subject or group of subjects’ (Honneth 2007, p. 337). Second, the recognition structure
must have some credibility. Third, the structures of recognition must have an ideological function,
which means that they perceive something unique and distinctive in the select group or individual
(Honneth, 2007).

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4.1.3 The three dimensions of recognition

Recognition is constructed in a three-dimensional axis considering the self-formation of a person,

which is love, respect and esteem. Love through care and friendship facilitates self-confidence.
Honneth referring to Winnicot’s theory of object-relations, he claimed that the relationship between
a child and a mother can be grasped in terms of recognition through negotiations, exchange, ego-
relatedness and boundary dissolution (Van den Brink & Owen, 2007).It is basically grounding the
relationships to other and the self and it also serves as basis of independence (Honneth, 1995).

Respect involves the sphere of rights under law, where people can develop their self-respect and
autonomy, as they recognized with the same prerogatives as the others (Wernet, et al., 2017). Since
a person is possessing rights is able to raise socially accepted claims (Honneth, 1995). Respect is a
basic prerequisite of agency in the public sphere (Honneth, 1995).

Last, self-esteem is arising from social esteem people acquire from their contributions in society,
through their special skills. Social esteem is a determining factor of accepting or reconstructing the
moral and social normativeness (Wernet, et al., 2017). Social relations of symmetrical esteem
between subjects are required for the building of solidarity (Honneth, 1995).

4.1.4 The Struggle for Recognition

Misrecognition or non-recognition in these axes of any sphere of personal or social life might be
perceived as harm or injustice, and under certain social conditions it may initiate a struggle for
recognition (Van den Brink & Owen, 2007). In Honneth’s theory, a struggle for recognition is a social
process that begins with a group in society that disputes the predominant and demeaning social
standards of expectation and evaluation that ascribe certain characteristics, roles and statuses to
members of a group (Van den Brink & Owen, 2007). The standards that are formed by formal and
informal forms of misrecognition are hidden in power relations between groups and institutions.
Honneth referred to this as “moral grammar” of social conflicts. What makes these claims moral is
the fact that they concern the social conditions of agency and subjectivity, but also the fact that the
actions of the agents exceed their personal interests including being responsive to other people’s
needs as well (Van den Brink & Owen, 2007).

15
In the context of Danish society, it is a phenomenon of the dominant culture to attribute certain
characteristics to people that are living in ghettoized areas. The stigmatization can lead to
degradation of cultural minorities by the dominant society and par excellence a loss of available
resources for achieving recognition. Education is an important resource of recognition. Although,
educational systems may disadvantage students from ghettos due to the ascribed expectations for
the minorities.

Often enough, groups that do not have the power to co-determine their social status and image are
internalizing the social standards and feel helpless, inferior and that they deserve to be at the
margins of society (Van den Brink & Owen, 2007). Forms of misrecognition can be formal or
informal, like the treatment of minorities by the state or the cultural predominant group. The
struggle emerges when a group has already achieved a “basic respect”, in forms of legality, but not
fully equal respect socially (Van den Brink & Owen, 2007).

4.1.5 Extensions in Education

Borrowing from Parsons’ theory of recognition, Honneth (2012) supports that the performance
practices for all involved participants require that the educational prospects to be equal, so
everybody can deliberately develop their faculties or talents. Although, it is believed that such an
equalization is highly improbable, as long as there are different educational styles deriving from
strata-specific differences, which reflect in people from lower strata being disadvantaged (Honneth,
2012). Modern family can act as a cushion against these violations of respect. Family is considered
the last resort of solidarity, as it can compensate for the lack of recognition in economic and social
spheres of life through reciprocal recognition for all the members (Honneth, 2012).

4.1.6 Critique

­Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition might provide an integrating framework for analysis, but it is
considered that the socio-theoretic analysis of the causal relations is reduced to a culturalist analysis
of class to status (Zurn, 2003).

Also, some researchers are ambivalent about the very definitions of recognition. Honneth (2007, p.
325) claimed that ‘recognition itself could never come under suspicion of functioning as a means of
domination’. According to Butler (1997 in Allen, 2010), recognition and subordination to power are
two interwoven concepts. Social orders are structured in a way that exploit the fundamental desire

16
for recognition. Therefore they offer to the subordinate person or group the chance of recognition
only in the case that they accept and become attached to their own subordination in the process
(Allen, 2010).

4.2 The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu

The sociological work of Pierre Bourdieu about social class is an attempt to exempt group
classification from strictly economic and materialistic conditions by integrating the notion of
symbolic struggle for cultural distinction and the highlight of cultural specific perception patterns
and practices in the formation of classes and class struggle (Joppke, 1986). Class relations are a vital
part of class constitution. Class relations take the form of unconscious class activities that maintain
or resolve the distance between other classes. Therefore, class relations function as an affirmation
of group identities (Bourdieu, 1979).

4.2.1 Capital

Bourdieu is exploring the conditions of social class through the notion of capital. He distinguishes
capital in three forms: economic, cultural, and social. Another form of capital that is used by the
theorist is symbolic capital. Symbolic capital always fulfills an ideological function. It can be
perceived as the acknowledged and legitimate form of all the above-mentioned definitions of capital
(Joppke, 1986), as the prestige a person experiences.

4.2.1.1 Cultural Capital

Cultural capital refers to knowledge used by individuals and social groups as a resource of power to
improve their position in the social class (Joppke, 1986). Cultural capital is acquired
intergenerationally through socialization and it includes symbolic features like skills, credentials,
mannerism, competencies, etc. In their book Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture,
Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) argue that the educational system favors higher class students, but
economic factors are not the only criteria.The cultural capital that a person inherits from the family
is also essential to academic success. Cultural capital can take the form of ‘embodied cultural
capital’, which is the competencies or skills a person can acquire passively, through socialization with
tradition and culture. ‘Objectified cultural capital’ is related to object possessions functioning as
symbolic cultural capital of status for the owner and also it includes the embodied cultural capital a

17
person has in order to consume these objects. Finally, ‘institutionalized cultural capital’ is the form in
which the person acquires officially recognized competencies through academic institutions or titles
from other institutions (Bourdieu, 1986). Institutionalized cultural capital transforms to economic
capital in the labor market.

Institutionalized cultural capital can be used as a ladder for social mobility. Nevertheless, Bourdieu
and Passeron (1990) argue that the classes, especially the higher and intellectual classes have a way
to reproduce themselves through the educational system. In modernity, education can be a source
of success (Bourdieu, 1991). Although, the whole set of cultural behavior that is required for
academic success is not favoring working class or minority students. The school system is outlined to
‘reward’ the higher classes’ cultural capital and contributes in its social reproduction (Bourdieu &
Passeron, 1990).

The theory of Pierre Bourdieu can be applied in the context of immigration and ethnic minorities in
Denmark. Immigrants in Denmark often experience a vast difference between their own cultural
capital and the dominant cultural capital in Denmark. They often experience loss of their acquired
status, due to the loss of their economic and objectified capital, but also their institutionalized
cultural capital, since many times their degrees from other countries are not recognized in Denmark.

4.2.1.2 Social capital

By social capital Bourdieu defined the network an agent has and can utilize to mobilize resources
(Paulle, et al., 2012). Social capital can be applied for institutionalized or informal relationships in the
interest of mutual recognition and acquaintance (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). The accumulation of
social capital can function as cultural currency and enhance a person’s symbolic capital, but it also
can reproduce inequalities in the social world.

People that are living in ghettoized areas in Denmark sometimes built a very strong informal social
capital within the borders of the ghetto. Nevertheless, this social capital might not be applicable for
what the dominant Danish culture defines as success. In the educational system the accumulation of
social capital, along with economic and cultural capital can possibly result in social advancement for
the upper social class rather than the working class (Bourdieu, 1993).

4.2.2 Symbolic Violence

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Symbolic violence is manifested through different domains of nationality, gender, ethnic identity,
etc. The concept is applicable in the circumstances that a hierarchically superior social group impose
norms and dispositions in a subordinated group or minority.

Bourdieu possibly was inspired for this term in his theory from his childhood experience when his
way of thinking was characterized by a duality between domestic, traditional culture of Béarnese
and public and educational culture of French (Robbins, 2005). Subsequently, Bourdieu and Passeron
(1990) researched the French educational system and how it reinforces the reproduction of social
classes. The pedagogic action in a given educational system subjects working class or minority pupils
to a form of symbolic violence through the imposition of norms of the dominant social group or by
forcing them to a competitive mechanism of reward for assimilating the dominant cultural capital
(Tzanakis, 2011).

4.2.3 Field

The term field is used by Bourdieu to describe the various arenas that constitute society (Bourdieu,
1993). Social formation is organized in a hierarchical way in different and diverse fields, like the
economic field, the educational field, the cultural field etc..Each of them describe a structured space
with each own laws and dispositions, which is called doxa. Doxa is the established, unquestioned
truths in that field. The notion of doxa sets social limits in a person’s agency. It is crystalizing the
social position of agents in a field, regulates their behavior in what is considered to be appropriate or
not. Consequently, certain forms of doxa might prevent social mobility by internalization of the
mental structures of doxa in each field (Bourdieu, 1979). For example, children who do not perform
well in school and have low grades might incorporate the doxa that are not as smart as the others
and school is not for them.

Symbolic and cultural capital are essential to the field of cultural production (Bourdieu, 1993).
Therefore, a person might occupy different positions in different fields. For instance, a person from a
cultural minority that has high symbolic and cultural capital may be hierarchically high in an area
where people from the same minority are gathered but might experience a lower position in the
educational field.

4.2.4 Habitus

Habitus refers to a system of schemes of perception, thought and action that link the objective
conditions with the individual and collective practices in everyday life (Paulle, et al., 2012). Bourdieu

19
(1990, p. 56) characterizes habitus as “the embodied history”. Habitus is generating class-specific
tastes and lifestyles (Joppke, 1986), thus, it also contributes to the reproduction of social order.

In Denmark, areas with high concentration of immigrants may help in the reproduction of a cultural
and class specific habitus, since same esthetical codes, language, practices, and dispositions can be
applied.

Early experiences have a special weight in constituting habitus for a person (Bourdieu, 1990).
Nevertheless, habitus is subjected to change, when adapting to a new environment. Especially,
people that have grown up in a country’s minority community, might assimilate features from both
cultures. This notion is called ‘split habitus’, often people who develop a split habitus have to
combine very contradicting experiences and expectations in the community, the family, the
educational system and broader society they live in (Bourdieu, 2009).

4.3. The sociology of Norbert Elias

Research is beginning to note that the theorization of society between Elias and Bourdieu’s work
shows great similarities and compatibility, despite their differences in empirical research (Paulle, et
al., 2012). Their affinities go beyond their common theoretical background to personal life
experiences that formed their theories. Both of them felt the exclusion and inclusion patterns that
can restrict a person from moving in social fields. These two theorists seemed to work in parallel
lines regarding the configuration of society. Indeed, a lot of their concepts display great similarity.
Both seemed to work with a similar triad of concepts, the concept of habitus is common for both
writers, the concept of power in Elias’ literature illustrates close affinities to Bourdieu’s capital, last
the concept of field for Bourdieu or figuration for Elias (Paulle, et al., 2012). In this thesis there will
be focus in another concept in the sociology of Nobert Elias, the configuration of the established
and the outsider.

4.3.1 The Established and the Outsiders Configuration

The model of the established and the outsider was constructed by Elias and Scotson (1994) during
their research in the town of Winston Parva, a growing industrial site by that time in Leicester,
England. In this town, the old population displayed strong divisional patterns against the new
population, despite their common nationality, religion, class, and ethnic background. In this research

20
Elias and Scotson found that a strong pattern of unequal relations was created between the two
populations, resulting in the stigmatization of the new group as people of lesser worth and
perceived as a threat to the old established group. Later research expanded the model to more
complex settings, like international migration studies.

The two researchers found out that the unbalanced relations of power between the two groups
partly derives from the fact that the established group has great homogeneity, since they have
common symbols, norms, they have common likes and dislikes and they created strong ties through
the years (Pratsinakis, 2018). Contradictorily, the new group, the group of the outsiders, have high
heterogeneity among them, so it is much easier to be stigmatized as a threat. The entrenched set of
norms and behavioral patterns are disturbed by the newcomers ,who most of the times carry
different sets of norms and lifestyle and usually they do not acknowledge the norms of the
established community. Therefore, the established community feels insecure about the fact that
their way of life is threatened and it might even lead to a social decline (Elias & Scotson, 1994).

There is a reward for the outsiders when they adopt norms and lifestyle of the established group.
Then, they can rise socially. The behavior of both groups is interdependent. On the one hand, the
outsiders feel the stigmatization and either feel the established group as an oppressor, or they
sometimes comply with the image they are assigned with. In case the stigmatization is internalized,
it can lead to deficits in the intellectual, emotional, and occupational level. On the other hand, the
established rise their self-image against the newcomers and their social cohesion is increasing as
well (Elias & Scotson, 1994).

4.3.2 Extensions of the model in Immigrant-Native Relations

The international immigrants are per se challenging the ideologies when they are established in a
new country, causing fluctuation in the way we think about territorial and ethnic boundaries
(Pratsinakis, 2018). As research shows with focus on the western European countries, the prolonged
stays of immigrants and especially those with lower socio-economic class are perceived as a threat
to national homogeneity.Theireir acceptance is based on compliance with norms and behaviors of
the country they enter (Pratsinakis, 2017), expressed in demands of loyalty and belonging, as these
are declared in citizen permit requirements (Pratsinakis, 2018).

Elias (1998) supported that many of the problems between nationals and immigrants in a given
country that are classified as issues of ethnicity, class and race are actually phenomena that derive
from the power imbalance between the two groups and the fact that their relations have become

21
interdependent. The ethnic nationals establish themselves in a dominant position employing
hierarchical societal and ethnic order authorizing themselves as the “standard” by which others have
to be judged (Pratsinakis, 2018). This belief is legitimized by appealing in the widely shared
nationalist viewpoint, which is also shared by some categories of immigrants. In that way the
established gain authority to intervene in the lives and conditions of existence of the outsiders
(Pratsinakis, 2018). Involvement might concern the cultural practices, that the established perceive
as disrespectful, and the lack of compliance with the norms by the outsiders is perceived as
unwillingness to integrate (Pratsinakis, 2018). Consequently, the rejection by the established and the
taboos against newcomers leads to indisposition to make contact, which in turn contribute to
feelings of powerlessness and inferiority for the outsiders.

In the context of Danish ghettos, we may be able to note certain connections to the model of the
established and outsiders. First, the ghetto by itself can be considered as spatial exclusion. The
contact between the ethnic Danish people and the immigrants that live in ghettos is limited. Also,
ghettos in Denmark hold bad reputation. There are many prejudices of the way the people live, their
cultural values and the different lifestyle between the two groups. For example, the taboo that
immigrant women in ghettos are restricted from an academic and a cosmic life in order to have large
families, in contrast with the liberated Danish ethnic women.

5. Literature Review
In this section a critical review on existing literature will be applied on the subject of the challenges
that women of non-Western background that live in ghettos in Denmark may deal with in their
journey to upper education. To address this complex matter information from different kind of
research areas should be reviewed. For this reason, the current review is separated into three units.
First, a general overview on the history of ghettos and social processes in the segregated areas
which will assist in the understanding of the societal interpretations of the group within and out of
the ghetto. Second, an overview in the ghettos in Denmark and the state’s policies will give a clear
sight in the regulations of everyday life and education of the residents there, but also a general view
on the society’s perspective. Last, focus is given in the challenges that Muslim women face in ghettos
in Scandinavia with a closer view of Denmark’s case and the existing problems that segregation in
education is causing.

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 5.1 What is a Ghetto?

Historically, the word ghetto was first used in the 16th century in Venice. The reason was that the
venetian society linked the outbreak of syphilis with the new coming Jews from Spain. Thus, the
Venetian senate ordered the enclosure of Jewish community in an island called Ghetto Nuovo
(Haynes & Huchison, 2008). The settlement was guarded and had gates that were being locked in
the sunset. Apparently, the Jewish community in Italy did not hold negative feelings about their
ghettoization. Rather they saw it as a holy place that can help keeping up the pureness of the race
(Haynes & Huchison, 2008). In the late 19th century and start of the 20th century urban sociology
scholars produced a significant amount of literature referring to the segregated neighborhoods of
whites and blacks in the United States of America. Although, the word ghetto was not widely used to
describe the segregated African American neighborhoods until the 60’s with the symbolic book of
Osofsky (1966) Harlem: the making a ghetto, which signified the entrance of the term in mainstream
academic research (in Haynes & Huchison, 2008). Subsequently, the term returned back to popular
culture, reproducing images of poverty and despair, in the music and film industry, but also in styles
that were incorporated by the people living in ghettos too, like the boombox and specific clothing
styles (Haynes & Huchison, 2008).

In the European context, the ghetto represents a different reality than in the ones in pre-existing
literature. The European ghettos are not categorized as such by homogenous race, since usually they
contain people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Blockland (2008) suggests that in
Europe the ghettos are not defined as segregated areas where people are involuntarily enclosed by
processes beyond their own agency. Ghettos are defined merely through behavioral patterns and
deviance. They are mostly categorized as such due to the sense of a “bad neighborhood” because of
higher rates of crime, social welfare dependence and existence of ethnic minorities, social housing
and less aesthetic appearance of the area (Blockland, 2008).

However, one cannot so easily separate between voluntary and involuntary. People that lack certain
resources, like economical ones, are more likely to look for social housing. In addition,people who
lack network or linguistic skills in the host country will need to be closer to family or people with the
same cultural background (Gans, 2008). Additionally, people are not willing to live where they are
not wanted (Gans, 2008). As such, a family will not be eager to live in a neighborhood where they
believe they might feel excluded. Nevertheless, both types of segregation usually have similar
results. On one hand, the bonding and support in the community, and on the other hand, the
alienation from the bigger society (Gans, 2008).

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Early sociological research suggested that a ghetto is an area that its natural history led to the
accumulation of immigrants there. More recent studies though, argue that a ghetto is a sociological
construct that employs space for ethno-racial closure and control (Wacquant, 2004). A ghetto carries
certain elements, such as the stigma, the constraint, spatial confinement and institutional
encasement (Wacquant, 2004). Through these elements it serves as a tool of constructing two
different collectives that are in an asymmetric but dependent relationship; on one hand, the
dominant group can restrict and control the dominated, on the other hand, it functions protectively
for the dominated as it is limiting the contact with the dominant group and enforces community
building and collective consciousness (Wacquant, 2004).

According to Wacquant (2004) the ghettos have the function of deepening the difference between
the people living in and out of it by sharpening the sociocultural difference between them. Also, the
ghetto operates as an engine that softens the differences among the people that are living in and
intensifies its collective pride.

5.2 Ghettos in the Danish Context

The ghetto, as defined in the Danish context, is a vulnerable area consisting of social housing that is
tormented by various social problems and the majority of its population is of non-western
ethnicities, otherwise called vulnerable residential areas (Nielsen, 2019). The term ghetto glided in
the political discourse when in October of 2010 the prime minister of Denmark by the time Lars
Løkke Rasmusen, started the initiative for reformation of the ghettos with the remark “the ghetto
back to society” (Nielsen, 2019). By that moment, the term started being used in political discourse
and debates, but also in media discourse and everyday language as a synonym of vulnerable
residential areas. The term is also used officially on governmental documents.

The recently elected government, through the new minister of Transport, Building and Housing,
expressed its opposition to the term, indicating that the word was derogatory for the description of
the marginalized areas (“Denmark’s housing minister wants to scrap the ‘ghetto’ label, 2019). The
minister declared that the word enhances the stigmatization of these areas and the term of
‘underprivileged residential areas’ (in Danish: udsatte boligområder) should be used (ibid).

5.2.1 Immigration and the Creation of Ghettos in Denmark

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The total immigration population and their descendants in Denmark is at 12.5 percent as counted by
European migration data portal in 2019. Around 8.5 percent of the total population in Denmark have
origins of non-Western countries, accounting for around 500.000 people (Regeringen, 2018). The
most popular non-western countries of origin for immigrants and their descendants in Denmark
come from Syria, followed by Turkey, Iraq and Iran by order (Lundetræ-Jürgensen, 2020).

The statistics show that Denmark has one of the lowest immigrant populations in western Europe
(Liebig, 2007). That is due to various changes in immigration policies through the years. In general,
Denmark posed stricter immigration policies than other European countries, concerning the
possibilities for family reunification, granting of the residence permit and obtaining Danish citizeship,
with requirements of language skills, social and cultural understanding (Ministry of refugee,
immigration and integration affairs, 2004). Despite the conjunction with Geneva convention,
Denmark has adopted a series of more restricted policies about immigration and refugees during the
years. The new Danish government of 2019 has, exceptionally, slightly softened the national stance
towards immigration (Wallis, 2019).

Denmark experienced an increase in immigration during the 60’s and 70’s. Immigrants mostly from
non-western countries came as guest workers in the country because of the expansion of the
manufacturing industry. Since the 80’s the spatial segregation of immigrants was visible in Denmark.
Also, the flow of refugees and the family reunification that they applied for made the ethnic enclaves
an apparent phenomenon in the country. The first act to curb the accumulation of immigrants and
refugees with no western cultural background was voted in Denmark already in 1986 (Liebig, 2007).
The act was supposed to disperse the new coming refugees in 13 different Danish counties. Several
legislations until today are focusing on the effort of the government to discourage relocation and
diversify the residents’ population in ghettoized areas.

5.2.2 Reasons for the Formation of Ghettos

In Denmark the creation of ghettos followed a social and economic process. Mikkelsen (2008)
supports that there are various reasons for the formation of a ghetto. First, people are accumulated
in an area in search of likeness. People tend to seek safety in relations and networks of similar social
and cultural elements. Second, a structural barrier for newcomers is the lack of network, that results
in lower employability and lower social and economic status. In the longitudinal study of Damm and
Schultz-Nielsen (2008),they studied the settlement patterns of Danish residents from 1985 to 2006,

25
it was reported that people are clustering in areas according to economic criteria. Accordingly,
people with low income live in social housing or rent from private owners. Immigrants due to the
lack of network have lower chances of finding alternative accommodation options, so they rely on
the municipality and public housing. Last, the stigma and racialization that sometimes is projected to
the newcomers by the host society may lead to further ghettoization.

Consequently, the formation of ghettos in Denmark was a process that was carried through
institutional factors, like public housing settlement options, social factors, like the stigma and
racialization from the host society and cultural factors, like the need of immigrants to be with people
of a similar class and ethnic background.

5.2.3 The Ghetto List

Since 2010, Danish ministry of Transportation, Building and Housing releases every year a list with
the vulnerable residential areas that are considered to be ghettos. According to the last ghetto list
that was published on 1st of December of 2019 there are 28 areas in Denmark that are listed as
ghettos and 15 that are listed as hard ghettos. On that list, the criteria for categorizing a housing
area as a ghetto are presented as well. Basic conditions for the area to be listed as ghetto is that it is
inhabited by more than 1000 people and fulfil at least two of the following:

● Over 40 percent of adults aged 18-64 not engaged in employment or education (average
over two-year period)
● Over 50 percent of residents have non-Western nationality or heritage
● Over 2.70 percent of residents aged 18 or over convicted for weaponry and drug-related
crimes (average over two-year period)
● More than 50 percent of residents with basic school education or lower (includes undeclared
education)
● Average pre-tax income for adults aged 18-64, not including unemployed, less than 55
percent of pre-tax income for each administrative region (Transport- og boligministeriet,
2019).

People of non-Western heritage are categorized into two groupings. First, the actual first-generation
immigrants and then their descendants that are born in Denmark, but none of the parents are born
in Denmark or have Danish heritage.

26
The criteria for the listing of hard ghettos are the same. The only difference between a ghetto and a
hard ghetto is that the latter appeared on the list for four consecutive years. The hard ghetto list was
composed for the first time in 2018. For that reason, ghettos that are currently on this list must have
appeared five consecutive years in the ghetto list. Another difference is that when a vulnerable
residential area is characterized as a hard ghetto, there are harsher measures adopted by the
government through the ghetto-plan for dissolving them (Transport- og boligministeriet, 2019).

The interviews taken for this research were contacted in association with four ghettos in Denmark.
Every ghetto complies with different criteria. However, it is worth noting that the criterion of the
educational level is not reached by any of the ghettos in Denmark.

Vollsmosse

Vollsmose is located in the suburbs of Odense. The area is characterized by modern architectural
buildings. The area is divided into six habited parks and three gardens. Initially, the site started as a
prestige project for the public sector, which is obvious in the modernity and high quality of the
buildings (Odense Commune, 2019).

Soon, the area was inhabited by the large flow of immigrants that flew during the 60’s and 70’s as
political and war refugees, or as labor force. Nowadays, the area is habited by more than seven
thousand people, the majority of around 70 percent are immigrants or second-generation immigrants,
making Vollsmose the biggest ghetto area in Denmark. The population is very diverse, there are more
than 80 different nationalities in Vollsmose, with the largest groups of ethnicities being Somali,
Turkish, Libanese and Iraqi (Odense Kommune, 2018). Consequently, a big portion of the population
is practicing Islamic religion, although there is no mosque in the area.

For several years, Vollsmose’s parks are classified as a hard ghetto by the Danish government
completing all the criteria of the ghetto list (Transport og- boligdom secretariet, 2019). The area faces
many problems that are commonly found in ghettos. In general, Vollsmose has a lower age rate
compared to the rest of the city, indicating a large portion of the population being 25 and under
(Odense commune, n.d).

Vollsmose is challenged by a lot of stigma regarding criminality and religiously organized crime
(Nielsen, 2012). The population’s unemployment rate is much higher than the city’s average, with
around 52.2 percent of people from 18 to 64 being unemployed or not in any kind of education (job
& integration, n.d).

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Korskærparken

Korskærparken is located in Fredericia. The area is inhabited by approximately two thousand people
the majority of whom are immigrants and their descendants. Korskærparken has been added again
in the ghetto list of 2019, as it completes three out of five criteria of non-Western habitants and
people that did not participate in the job market or education for the last two years only by 0,1
percent.However, the educational criteria of having only primary education for less than 60 percent
of the habitants is being surpassed by 8,8 percent.

Korskærparken is projecting a well adjusted image and showcased its willingness to be out of the
ghetto list again next year. An effort has been focused on the architectural structure of the area. As
the chairman of the master plan committee in Fredericia Municipality argues “Korskærparken is
Denmark's most beautiful ghetto and in 2020 we expect that we are no longer on the list”
(Jeppensen & Munk, 2019). Along with a series of initiatives the committee has been focused in the
aesthetical change of the area, renovating the exterior and interior design, constructing new types of
housing as lofts, villas and maisonettes to attract a new group of residents (Korskærparken &
Sønderparken, n.d.)

Stengårdsvej

Stengårdsvej is the ghetto area in Esbjerg. The area has been listed as a hard ghetto for several
years. The region is inhabited by approximately 1.300 people. It completes all the criteria of the
ghetto list except for the average gross income that surpasses for some almost one percent. The
educational level of the habitants is the lowest one in the ghetto and hard ghetto list with 84,4
percent of the population never had or has only primary education.

Resedavej/Nørrevang II

Resedavej/Nørrevang II is the ghetto area placed in Silkeborg. The area has approximately 1900
residents. The area first appeared on the list in 2018. Resedavej/Nørrevang II appears in the ghetto
list because it fulfils three of the five criteria. Those are the high unemployment level of the
residents, more than 50 percent of the habitants are of non-Western background and there is low
educational level, with more than 67 percent have attended only primary school or lower
educational levels, while the criminality rates are lower than average and the gross income of the
residents is much higher than requested in the ghetto list.

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5.2.4 The Ghetto Plan

The ghetto-plan was formed along with the ghetto-list in 2010. The prime minister Rasmusen
declared ‘We will tear the walls down. We will open the ghettos up to society’. (Rasmussen,
2010: 9). Consequently, an initiative to dissolve ghettoization and face the problems of these areas
started under the name Ghettoplanen.

The plan was revised and officially published in 2018 under the title ’ghetto plan - One Denmark
without Parallel Societies: No Ghettos in 2030’. In the 40-page governmental document there are
lines of reconstructing the ghettos and their populations in spatial, social, cultural and economic and
political manners. An analysis from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Interior shows that
28,000 families with non-Western backgrounds are currently living in parallel societies. A parallel
society is indicated in the context of ethnic composition in residential areas, schools and day care
institutions, where the habitants and children are not coming in contact with ethnic Danes to a
significant proportion. The result is that the participation in education or employment, crime and
economy rates are differing significantly to ethnic Danes (Regeringen, 2018). Also, these societies
are developing a set of norms different from Danish standards. Another survey about citizenship
from the integration ministry confirms that almost 40 per cent of the decadents’ value base does not
fit in the Danish norms and culture either (Regeringen, 2018).

Special measures are adopted for confronting the problems of hard ghettos (Regeringen, 2018). The
measures focus mostly in spatial and residential reorganization. One of the major demands of the
ghetto plan is the actual demolition or redevelopment of 40 percent of the building in the hard
ghetto areas. Also, there is a strict policy for people who are living or who will be able to live in the
so-called hard ghetto areas. People with certain status on social benefits, like unemployment
benefits, student benefits, early retirement etc will not be able to move in hard ghettos. Last, there
are variant measures regulating the everyday life there. For example, police presence will be more
apparent, criminal acts will be punished much harsher for those who live in hard ghetto areas,
children must attend certain classes in Danish values and culture from the age of one, and several
educational transformations (Regeringen, 2018).

5.2.4.1 The Ghetto Plan on Education

In general, previous efforts of Danish government to halt further ghettoization and promote
integration were focused significantly on education. For example, from 1994 to 1998 Byundvalg,

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was a selected group that created a set of initiatives with focus on education, preschool and parental
involvement in school in order to accost integration, social and economic problems in ghettoized
areas (UFe, 2004). Later the Programbestyrelsen of 2004 made a more inclusive attempt by focusing
on improving education , employment and safety in ghetto areas (Programbestyrelsen, 2008). The
research of this program was followed up by the government and concluded in 2010 with the first
ghetto plan.

Under the new Ghetto Plan there is an expanded line of reformation of academic performance
criteria, school space and student composition for ghetto areas. The purpose of these reformations
is to promote immigrant descendants to acquire a proper foothold in the education system and later
in the labor market. As it is noted by the plan “a good start in life for all children and young people”
(Regeringen, 2018, p. 24). As it is recorded in the Ghetto Plan, far too few immigrants and
descendants have education. A lot of them do not have basic schooling. Descendants have poorer
conditions to complete secondary education in Denmark or their scores are lower than children and
young people that live outside vulnerable housing areas. As a consequence, they might be less
“ready for an adult life with further education, self-sufficiency and active participation in society”
(Regeringen, 2018, p. 25).

Great stress has been given first, in the proper learning of the Danish language and secondary, in the
assimilation of Danish norms and values. The most important initiative is the redistribution of the
children with no western background in daycare, preschool and schools. As it is obligatory that the
maximum percentage of children and young people with non-western background in academic
institutions to be 30 per cent. It is believed that a high concentration of children with non-western
background in vulnerable housing areas leads to a lower possibility of them to get acquainted with
Danish norms and values and the institution itself might constitute a “mini parallel society”
(Regeringen, 2018, p. 25). Children also must attend day care from the age of one to get accustomed
to the Danish culture from a critical age. Institutions that will not comply with these standards will
experience sanctions.

To ensure the Danish language skills, language assessment and language stimulation services will be
available by the age of two. Targeted language tests will be also performed in zero grade.
Furthermore, the ghetto plan tries to increase the parents’ responsibility regarding attendance in
school, language and academic performance. Parents that will not register their children in services
will suffer sanctions, like temporary suspension of child benefits. Primary schools also are under
supervision if poor performance or extended cheating has been detected for three consecutive
years. The sanction may vary from guidance courses to closing of the school. Additionally, cash

30
rewards will be given to the municipalities for each non-Western immigrant or descendant for
completing specific levels of education and higher amounts will be received for better academic
performance.

5.3 Women’s Position in non-western Backgroung

Minority Communities

Concerning the women´s position minority communities with non-western background, it is argued
that Muslim women interpret and practice gender relation in a more complex way within the
framework of Islam. Predelli (2004) suggests that they use “Islam as a flexible resource for interpreting
gender relations” (p. 473).

Minganti (2007) in her study focused on youth Muslim women activists, she supports that Muslim
women in Sweden struggle to be recognized as subjects with agency. Therefore, it is pointed out that
components such as education, upbringing style, class, cultural identity, esteem for religious leaders
interpreting Islam and the way women and men interact in everyday life influence women´s actual
practices, making up the distinctions that women apply between private and public life complicated
and not clear (Predelli, 2004). Predelli’s research in Muslim women in Norway argues that: “The lines
are challenged and contested most importantly by women who participate in the labour market but
also by men who take on duties in the home.” (p.490, 2004). Predelli (2004) also supports that the
relationship between the two genders are influenced by the setting of the gender relation in the host
country. However, the actual practice in labor and education in Muslim minorities shows that
traditional forms of labor division in household is changing in a slow pace. The gender roles about
women having duties on housekeeping and child rearing, whereas men in securing the family income,
still holds ground in Scandinavia (Pedelli, 2004).

Waltorp in her ethnographic research (2015) addresses the difficulties Muslim women face in their
everyday life in context of social media as a mirror of their real relationships. She concludes that young
Muslim women living in the ghettos and vulnerable housing areas of Copenhagen are negotiating
morality between themselves and their girlfriends, they experiment and push the boundaries of the
societal norms in their community. Moreover, she highlights the complex situation of trying to fulfill
individual wishes and desires without disappointing their family and their expectations. This problem
is also pointed out by Schmidt (2004) about the Islamic identity formation in Scandinavia, where it is
argued that since the aspect of choice is affected by a contemporary Western discourse, the personal
autonomy seems to generate contradictions in the circle of family.

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In the domain of education for instance, in European countries with strict policies against religious
clothing as Burgas, the dress code still plays a critical role for a woman to go to the university. For
example, in cases like France and Germany, Turkish women wear wigs in public life, in order to comply
with the norms of their culture and host country’s legislation at the same time, even though they
describe this experience as uncomfortable (Moors & Salih, 2009). Muslim women’s bodily
performances serve as markers of belonging and division between the communities, western
countries perceive it as unwillingness to assimilate in western culture (Moors & Salih, 2009).

However, Islamic feminism is currently a work in progress. On the one hand, Islamist women call for
gender equality in the secular part public sphere, but on the other hand they seem not seeking equality
in the religious domain, upholding the notion of the patriarchal family and the differential gender
roles, namely not challenging the idea of patriarchal family as religiously ordained (Badran, 2008).
Especially young Muslim women are perceived to be at risk of freedom, which is interpreted as choice
and freedom being offered by modern democracies threaten the cultural and religious traditions and
rules of their group (Van Laar et al., 2013). In modern Islam, especially the one that is expressed in
European countries, the freedom for women to participate in education and labor is profoundly
denoted. Nevertheless, gender norms for Muslim immigrant women apply in the schedule of work, as
part-time working is highly preferred, as well as the type of labor. Jobs that involve education and
caregiving are heavily selected, like pedagogues, nurses and teachers. This selection might be due to
discriminatory practices in the job market about women in general, but they are also publicly
suggested by Imams (Predelli, 2004).

Concluding, it seems that domains, such as education and work play a crucial role in improving the
actual status of minority groups. Islamic feminism contributes strongly to questioning the patriarchal
constructions in religion that reflect on everyday life of women in ethnic minority communities.

5.3.1 Social Control

The concept of social control appeared in sociology in the work of Emile Durkheim. Durkheim
defined social control with a positive tendency, as a collective creation of norms that are applied in
each society as societal laws (in Dalton, 2017). The notion of social control is used by societies to
endure the social cohesion. The Danish government published in 2016 a plan for the prevention of
honor-related conflict and negative social control. The definition of social control there has also the

32
positive significance of protecting societal norms. As it notes that “the social control will often be
justified by the family from a

desire to care for their child, so that the child or young person does not get a bad reputation, is not
exposed to bad influences and does not have a behaviour that is contrary to the family’s code of
honour.” (Udlændinge-, Integrations- og Boligministeriet, 2016, p.9).

In the recent Ghetto Plan in 2018 social control is defined negatively, with a tension of victimization
of non-western immigrant women, compared to men of the same background and ethnic Danish
women. “Social control is more prevalent among persons with non-Western background than among
persons with Danish background. More than nine out of ten women with Danish background have
the feeling of the same freedom as their male peers. That only applies to a little over half of women
with non-Western background.”[1] (Regeringen, 2018, p. 5). In that sense, social control restricts the
personal expression of the individual and can have an impact in the educational development of
young women in the educational choice or continuing of their education.

Social control does not come only from within communities, it is also exercised institutionally. Social
control is used in all levels of society in everyday life by juridical and educational institutions, but
also by social services, daycare centers etc. The Ghetto Plan itself is a form of social control exercised
by the state to regulate the lives of minority communities in Danish ghettos. The regulations apply to
multiple levels from children’s age of one concerning language skills, cultural values, deviant
behavior, residence and more.

5.4 The Education Prophecy

Many researchers use the concept of ghetto to analyze the minority’s disadvantage in society
regarding education (Lewis 2003; Tatum 1997 in Bonilla-Silva & Embrick, 2007) and other various
economic and social fields. As argued, residential segregation goes hand by hand with school
segregation, which in turn has many negative effects. Previous studies have shown that school
segregation has certain socio-emotional and behavioral consequences for the people attending the
segregated school (Palardy, et al., 2015), but also lower levels of academic achievement and
opportunity to learn and students find it harder to work in diverse settings later in life (Ong &
Rickles, 2004).

Segregated schools are also affected by the bad reputation of ghettos (Lindström, 2006). Lindström’s
research (2006) in segregated areas in Sweden, showed the underrepresentation of these areas in

33
higher education is due to differences in social class and ethnic background with the universities’
culture. Also, pupils and parents are misinformed about the financial support system during studies
and consider university as a path only for the upper socioeconomic class. Although the majority of
students consider higher education as a way to a successful working life, the label of the ghetto and
the immigrant often hinders stigmatisation and racism from the wider society that will not allow
their social mobility (Lindström, 2006). Simultaneously, the students of these schools feel self-
worthless regarding academic achievements and have the sense that they are not intelligent enough
to study at university.

In a parallel research in the USA’s black and Latino ghettos, people had adopted for similar reasons
an anti-intellectual attitude to protect their self-esteem (Ogbu, 1978 in Bonilla-Silva & Embrick,
2007).

The difficulty for upward mobility is even harder for women, especially for women that practice
Islamic religion (Van Laar, et al., 2013). Muslim women in Europe have reported the highest
percentage of perceived religious discrimination towards their person (Pascoet, 2015). Nevertheless,
Muslim woman are a group that is encountering pressure both from the ingroup and the outgroup
when pursuing their social mobility through education (Van Laar et al., 2013).

Although, the assimilationist policy of Denmark, according to which minority cultural groups are
expected to adapt to the majority culture, the school system seems to be highly related to
discrimination of people with immigrant backgrounds, especially for women (Olssonn & Sorgenfrei,
2019). It is suggested that the high rates of dropouts among immigrant children compared to their
peers is connected to the school system’s structure inability to overcome cultural barriers, xenophobia
and discriminatory practices (OECD, 2010 in Olssonn & Sorgenfrei, 2019). Consequently, inequalities
in labor markets and education contribute to socio-economic inequalities and segregation.

Statistical analysis shows that the grades of immigrant descendants compared to ethnic Danish
children are significantly lower in primary school. Also, children of non-western background are more
likely to miss the final examination in secondary school. The analysis shows that the obtained grading
score is gradually developing in a positive direction throughout the generations of immigrants and
their descendants in Denmark, but the development is subtle (Elmeskov, 2018).

Furthermore, the statistics in Denmark in 2017 confirms that the descendants of immigrants at the
age of 25 are more often possible not to participate in any education or in the job market than the
analogous group of ethnic Danish. Non-western background descendant rates show that around 24.2

34
percent of men and 23.1 percent of women are not in education or work force, while this case for
ethnic Danish youth is at 13.9 and 13.6 percent, respectively. Still, it can be noted that the non-
Western background women are participating more in education and workforce than their peer non-
Western background men. What is also pointed out is that the rates of women of non-western
background are not participating in education or workforce is very close to the Danish rates at the age
of 22. After that though, their absence from the market is sharply increasing, reaching the highest
rates of all groups at around the age of 28 of more than 25 percent and then starts dropping gradually
again (Appx: 47).

There is a speculation that this may happen because the cultural values in the minority communities
expect women to have families and take care of the household and child rearing. Possibly, around the
age of 22 non-Western background women might start dropping off from education to undertake
these responsibilities.

6. Analysis

6.1 Cultural and Gendered Expectations about Women in

Ghettos

6.1.1 Women’s Gendered Roles

As it was indicated by previous research, the women of non-western background are

underrepresented in the educational and working force field after a certain age (Appx: 47). It is
indicated that the difference in cultural values, but also on various social issues may prevent the
women who live in ghettos to accomplish academic continuity or career based on formal education.
Additionally, certain gender norms that apply to the roles of the two genders in the domestic and
social life may be part of the explanation.

Thomas, who has been working as teacher in schools with immigrant population, including years of
experience with immigrant children in ghettos supports the following regarding the prioritization of
cultural values in segregated communities of non-Western background:

35
 “Religion is number one and school comes after that. School is probably not even number two.
Number two is doing you chores for the family. Living up to the expectations of chores for the
family. If we are talking about girls especially.” (Thomas, Appx: 3)

The field is described as a structured space that is ruled by each own laws, Bourdieu (1993) named
this condition doxa of the field. In this example, three different fields are emerging: the religious
field, the educational field, and the field of domestic life. While these fields are relatively
autonomous, here are hierarchically prioritized. Each field has its own practices, that sometimes are
incompatible with each other as the next segment indicates:
“So, that’s the main thing, is that you are supposed to learn these chores. You, as a woman their
working area is in the home. And that is the main thing, a lot of families don’t see the point of
women taking education actually.” (Thomas, Appx: 3)

Each field also carries power relations within. The power relations are securing the position of agents
in a field. Usually, the dominant groups in terms of gender, ethnicity, class or other culturally
hierarchical positions are able to impose norms and dispositions in the behavior of the subordinated
groups (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). In this case, the elders in the family are able to decide about
the life of the young women in the house. Muslim women have been perceived as being at risk of
having the benefit of freedom of choice that European democratic states have to offer, because of
the religious, cultural and family values in their communities (Van Laar et al., 2013). Nevertheless, as
Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) argued, the accomplishment of academic success depends on factors
like economic and social class, cultural practices and dispositions from a person’s family.
Consequently, it is assumed that cultures that hold these gender-based preconceptions about the
roles of women in social and private life are not enhancing the participation and the skills of young
women in order to continue or succeed in academia.

The doxa that are embedded in the different fields about the roles of women prevents them from
social mobility. The women are not able or willing to take part in other social positions in other
fields, as education.

Another example that shows the symbolic violence and the doxa that is embedded in the field of
domestic life about women in these cultures is the example that Maria brings up about her friend:

“So, I work for an NGO, and once, I have a friend her husband called me once, he called me once
saying that ‘you stay away from my wife!’ and I am like ‘why?’, ‘oh, you guys are the people who
make divorces, because you are the ones that lift up women, you tell them, you, you educate them

36
 in wrong rights and then they don’t want to take care of their homes anymore, or cook food, or
anything anymore, so you are bad influence on my wife, so you stay away from her’.” (Maria,
Appx: 11).

Here, the husband not only has the power over the choices of his wife’s life, but it seems that he
feels entitled to intervene in another woman’s choices, which shows the position of power of the
two genders. In this passage the fields of education and domestic life are incompatible as well. The
husband supports the existent habitus of women’s everyday lifestyle and practices in their culture.
We can observe a deep-seated fear that empowering and educating women can result in a
disturbance of the gendered-based order in the house. There is a danger not only that the wife will
stop doing her duties, but she will also divorce him. Divorces, and especially the ones that are
initiated by the wife are highly unacceptable in Islamic religion and harm the honor of the individual
or family (Marriage and Divorce, n.d.).

In contradiction with this notion, as previous research shows in Denmark, women of non-Western
background are participating in education and working force until the age of 22 even more than the
ethnic Danish women. One reason for this is described by the personal experience of Thomas as a
teacher:

“[…] in terms of pushing their girls to reach, what can you say, academic goals, I think they are
very active actually. I think they would like to see them. They would like to tell story to their
friends that their girls are doing well in the school system, even though, when it all comes down to
it, to them is not a support, but they, you know, it is still like showing… well, it can be used also to
show that their girls are… what can you say… obedient” (Thomas, Appx: 4).

Accordingly, parents of non-Western background may not actively participate in the education
system in Denmark but they are promoting their daughters’ academic achievements while they are
still at school, even though they are not supporting their transition to higher education or continuity
in the working field. The daughter’s academic achievements can be used as a form of symbolic
capital for the family. Families can gain a form of recognition inside the community of the ghetto. On
one hand, they can gain recognition in a form of institutionalized capital and on the other hand, a
form of recognition in the way that young women act in accordance with the cultural values and the
doxa that are embedded in the field of religious and domestic life about their gender.

Even though this doxa regulates the appropriate behaviors and roles of women in education, work
force and domestic life, one cannot generalize that this notion is always perceived as oppressive.

37
Most of the time, women internalize the social and gender values of the cultures they grew up in.
Thus, they can apply this cultural and religious values as a flexible resource to interpret gender
relations in the new societal setting (Predelli, 2004):
“To them a woman’s right is that we don’t have to work! I can stay home all day! And yeah, so
that was a really funny conversation to have with them about women’s rights. ‘You guys are
stupid. You fight to work!’.” (Annette, Appx: 37).

This notion is embedded in the non-western culture and objectified in both genders relations,
perceived as the natural order in family life. Annette provides a different perspective of women that
recently arrived in Denmark from a non-western background country and find it hard to assimilate in
the new reality:
“They came from this place that this was not how the family works, the man works 16 hours a day
and the woman does everything at home and, ok, what you have to do has been shared between
the two, they divided it, but then they come here and they.. all of the sudden the man is forced to
work only eight hours a day, but she is also forced to work eight hours a day, but she is still
expected to do everything at home and so it is a lot more work for the woman to be here.”
(Annette, Appx: 37).

6.1.2 Norms in Educational and Occupational Choice

The gender-based norms that exist in non-western background societies are apparent in the fields of
education and working which women are choosing for themselves. In general, women from these
communities are choosing mostly education and jobs in the teaching, educational and caregiving
industry.

Thomas is noticing this notion on his students:

“[…] it goes back to the family again, because they feel like there are specific jobs that they can’t
take, they have to be like, what can you say, acceptable women jobs. […] but they usually going
into typical women’s job, it is like taking care of children, it could be like being a schoolteacher
[…].” (Thomas, Appx: 4).

Indeed, not only the immediate participants but every case that was mentioned by the participants
fell close to this paradigm. From the participants, only Sena did not have a job or education in
“typical women’s job”, since she studied business, and later hospitality management and now she is

38
working in a call center in London. Sena’s mother was a pedagogue in a nursery (Sena, Appx: 23),
Kashia studied intercultural pedagogy first (Kashia, Appx: 15), Maria is studying occupational therapy
(Maria, Appx: 7), cases that are mentioned by Annette are regarding women that took education as
pedagogues (Annette, Appx: 40).

Although this hypothesis aligns with the existing literature on the field, none of the participants
explained their choice of education or job as gender or cultural biased. Rather, they explained it as
inspiration from her family, like Maria from her son (Maria, Appx: 9) or in association with their
cultural capital, like Kashia with the intercultural pedagogy between Arabic and Danish (Kashia,
Appx: 14-15). However, one could argue that this paradigm does apply in certain extent also to the
women of western background.

Pernille also adds the element of cultural values, like the age hierarchy structure in these cultures, in
the choices of education and occupation of women in Vollsmose:
“a lot of them are choosing to become, like, caregivers in hospice or retirement centers. […] Also, I
believe it is because of the culture. I think people here have a lot of respect for the elders.”
(Pernille, Appx: 45-46)

Last, some of the cases of the study managed to find an occupation through their embodied cultural
capital. Growing up and socializing between two cultures gave them the skills, like language, to work
as translators. For example, Runa’s daughter is working as a translator between Somali and Danish
(Runa, Appx: 29) and Kashia as a translator for Arabic and Danish (Kashia, Appx: 21).

6.1.3 Gender Roles in a Patriarchal Society

As previous research has indicated there is a patriarchal structure of power in non-western

background communities that is based in gender and age hierarchy (Beck-Gernsheim, 2007). In this
structure, the father or the next most prestigious male figure must protect the women and family
but has to take the decisions about their actions as well.

Nevertheless, this structure is getting more complicated for women that are more integrated in the
Danish culture. Maria, who is a third-generation Pakistani immigrant, was first married to a Pakistani
man who grew up in Pakistan when she was 19 years old.

39
 “From my earlier marriage, this was the main reason why I was not allowed to have an education
[…] My husband. My ex-husband. And a lot of women are facing this here.” (Maria, Appx: 10)

What Maria describes is a case that shows the exertion of symbolic violence because of the gender.
Even though her experience took place 20 years ago, she supports that even today a lot of women
are still dealing with severe prohibitions in their potential agency of continuing education in
Vollsmose. In general, even though Maria had a very supportive family, her husband could still
decide for her academic choice. This shows that the power position of a husband in this cultural
setting is so strong, that the male figure can apply rules and prohibitions in a woman’s life and
academic wants. This could be described as deprivation of social freedom, where interpersonal
relations are an obstacle to participation in certain practices and certain roles in society (Honneth in
Laitinen, 2015). In case Maria continued her education despite her husband’s disagreement, she was
risking being alienated from him.

These patriarchal gender norms have created the doxa that the male figure in the household must
be the provider of the family. Maria provides the example of her friend to depict how this doxa
interferes with the education of women in Vollsmose:

“Education, or just a job. He did not want to give her the privilege. Yes! Because if the husband
earns let’s say, 14.000, 15.000 and if a woman educated herself […] they end up earning 10.000
more averagely than their husband. And then their husband has an ego issue! Yeah!! It is all about
the ego issues. Why we need to support our wives to earn more than us, then she will think higher
of herself, then he will lose control, and I don’t have control over her. This is the, this is the basic
problem with women and education in this society.” (Maria, Appx: 12).

The fear of women taking an education and becoming the basic provider of the family threatens the
existing gender hierarchy. The deprivation of social freedom in taking roles in education and the job
market for women is used as means of control over the person’s life. In the next passage Maria is
describing how this control is resulting in symbolic violence and the preservation of gender hierarchy
in the ghetto communities:

“What is that that is scaring you so much? That your wife needs to take her education, or a job,
earn some money independently, because domestic violence comes, it is not only about hitting!
There is economic violence, there is psychological violence, there is so many abuses! But he
doesn’t want to take the power away from, from himself by making her independent.” (Maria,
Appx: 12).

40
However, the priorities in the cultural values differ significantly according to the class, the cultural
background, the educational background of the family and the level of integration of each family in
the host society (Rytter, 2010). Annette also supports that the problems of women and the gender
hierarchy in the community must be treated as an individual example in every family for several
reasons emphasizing on the length of staying in Denmark and the level of integration in the society:
“So I think for the… issues of women that live here are very different. Compared to how long have
you been here, what family did you grew up in, what culture does your family come from, what
religion does your family come from. I think it is a lot more culture than religion actually. How
long have you been here.” (Annette, Appx: 37).

According to these criteria, in this research it was observed that for some families, education of
women may play a significant role. Nevertheless, we see that the father of the family was the one
promoting the education.

In the case of Maria we can see that her first husband did not allow her to study, but her father, who
was a second generation Pakistani man in Denmark, and he was also educated and participating in
labor force actually promoted her and her sister’s educational goals:
“My father he… he passed away ten years ago but he was accountant in time, so he was very
career oriented. He really, really wanted us girls, and especially [...] I have a little sister, and my
little sister, [...] She is a real estate agent and she did her bachelors from London school of
economics, so, we never had this problem” (Maria, Appx: 10).

In the case of Kashia the doxa in the field of domestic life, that demands for a woman to take care of
the household and children was followed as well. The only difference is that only the mother of the
family had to undertake this role. The father, as a dominant figure in the house, was able to choose
or push for the social roles in education that Kashia would take over:

“And my father was very good at that, like treating. I didn’t help much at home. I was like.. my
mother, she took care of everything. Not like I had to help with the small children, or maybe clean
and stuff. I didn’t have to do any of that! Or I have to learn how to cook. My father said like no!
Kashia has to concentrate on studying. So, she doesn’t have to do anything at home. And my
mother actually, she was, she was doing everything.” (Kashia, Appx: 16).

Even though the father in Kashia’s family was a first-generation refugee in Denmark, certain cultural
values and his participation in the working force made it important for his children to educate
themselves.

41
According to Parsons (1964) the father figure is generally seen as the bearer of the symbolic tasks of
social integration (in Honneth, 2012). The father, as an authority figure, arises all the recognition
patterns in the family for integration to society. The children are gradually internalizing the
standards of the father according to his action, values and social performance in order to socialize
and take certain roles in the society. In Kashia and Maria’s case, the father pressured on the
importance of institutionalized recognition patterns.

6.1.4 Gender Distancing

As it was described before by Maria, the main reason why her husband did not allow her to study
was the potential contact with male classmates. She also explains about this incident:

“Because there is a lot of insecurity which lies in this culture’s men. And the eh… insecurity is the
biggest barrier for all these women to pursue their educations. […] Because of their luck of trust,
or because they are horny for power. That I have the power on my woman… I think there is also
that. That is the issue. I think.” (Maria, Appx: 10).

Maria supports that the insecurities in the men of her culture is being placed on women’s fault. The
doxa in the field of public life, demands the women virtuous and humble. She also supports that this
argumentation is mainly used as a form of symbolic violence to keep the power structure between
the two genders. This doxa is internalized as well by the women in her community. The
argumentation now is being taken for granted and its use is resulting in stigmatizing women that do
not comply with the norms and the practices of the community within the ghetto. Maria is saying
about her neighbors:

“And then, they, for example, see that ‘oh, so you, you work with men? So you ah.. so you sit
along with men? And, you know, you do homework with them? Oh, you are oh.. you know’
because the go through this, that if one woman is standing and talking to her classmates, male
classmates, and some man from their society sees them, it is just gonna revolve around that, that
woman, she is, she gets known to be a slut maybe. Because she mingles around, that she mingles
around with other men. And this is the reason that she goes to college or university. That is the
perception here.” (Maria, Appx: 10).

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The social pressure that is put on women by the community is a form of social control that we will
take a closer look in the next section.

Indeed, it seems that women in ghetto communities are adopting either by force, through symbolic
violence and negative social control or by internalizing the gender norms and enacting them in their
own socialization, a certain habitus that revolves around their appearance and everyday practices
concerning contact with the other gender. Annette describes her socialization with the women in
Stengårdsvej:

“[…] working here feels like being let into a secret community, it is not secret but […] these
women, what you see in public, it is maybe the headscarf, but then you see them when there are
only women around and they dance like crazy, and they have fun and they throw their
headscarves. Well, there are some gender things still going on and it depends on the family how
much gender thing there is. There is still a lot of fun and freedom when there are only women
around. But it is just a shame that they cannot do it all the time, to me that’s a shame.” (Annette,
Appx: 38-39).

Annette here illustrates a doxa that builts around the prudence of women in public. Women have to
regulate their behavior in front of the eyes of the other gender, either through clothing, such as
headscarves, or immodest behaviors, such as dancing. The informant urges to add that
unfortunately gender issues still exist in the community in different levels according to the
background of each person. Although, she is aware that this applies only to her interpretation as a
western background woman. Women who have been socialized in the non-western cultures may
have internalized this habitus without understanding it as gender restriction. Furthermore, this
distance results in enhancing the bonding between women and allows them to find ways of
entertainment and socialization through gender appropriate activities privately as Annette
described or through household chores like Anja describes:

“But the women are super close. They place that you are doing laundry, like every Sunday, the
women were there, and they brought coffee and cake, and they, like, spent the whole day down
there, talking and hanging out in the laundry” (Anja, Appx: 41).

6.1.6 Social Control in Ghettos

Social control regulates or even restricts the action of the individual in the family level as we saw.
Social control might also arrive from the community in general. Most of the respondents describe it

43
as the involvement and gossiping of the whole community in private matters, because of the very
close ties of the people in ghettos. Maria and Runa, even though they have a different background
and live in different ghettos, have a similar opinion respectively:

“Negative society control is there too. Because primarily, everybody knows everyone. Because
they are from the same country, same culture, same religion. So, everybody knows everyone. So,
my business might be everybody’s business.” (Maria, Appx: 11).

“[…] when there is a little bit of conflict and everybody is in each other business all the time and
what she is saying is you don’t have to meddle in that conflict, you could also just stay out of it.”
(Runa, Appx: 32).

The difference between the two definitions is that Maria is emphasizing the fact that social control
depends mostly on the alikeness of religion, country of origin and culture, while Runa is adding the
potential of agency by choosing not to participate in this practice.

Social control is exercised by regulating the social order and the acceptable behaviors in a society.
Anja describes how social control is employed in the ghettos for regulating the good behavior of
children from early age:
“So, the children are told to behave at outside, in public, because otherwise people will talk about
them.” (Anja, Appx: 41).

As it was previously explained by Maria, social control is used sometimes to maintain the social
order and the doxa in the ghetto community. The governance over other people’s behavior
sometimes results in stigmatization, especially when their behavior does not agree with the existing
values and norms, like Maria described about her contact with her male classmates. Maria also felt
the negative effects of social control about her choice to work and educate herself by stigmatizing
her about the acceptable roles a woman must occupy in the family and household:
“Because in the community I live in, there is a lot of negative society control. And I often get these
questions. How do you manage? Don’t think that you children get neglected? Don’t you think that
your husband gets neglected?” (Maria, Appx: 9).

She adds that women in her community are mainly afraid to pursue a social position through
education or working due to being stigmatized. Though family’s and society’s social control about
being neglectful mothers,is perceived as a way to betray their most important gendered expectation
in their culture:

44
 “Because these are the basic things that keeps them out of getting their educations done. Because
they need, they think that they can’t move forward because eh… the think that children or family
are their barriers! For an education. And they can’t get out of their barriers. And that, and that
keeps them away from, from pursuing a character… a carrier, sorry, or an education because of
the negative society control here in Vollsmose.” (Maria, Appx: 9).

Social control has effects on other genders as well. Men are also required to adapt their gender
roles in the house by taking into consideration their habitus from their culture and the habitus in
Denmark. Annette says:

“[…] a lot of the men did not mind helping out at home, but the problem was that other men see
them helping out. […] And I hear that in other places as well, when I talk to women, is not that
they don’t want to do it, it is not that they are not allowed to by the closest family members, it is
that other people will see it. (Annette, Appx: 37).

Society’s social control prevents men from changing their gender roles in the household, resulting in
maintaining a social order and gender norms in the culture. Even though there is a willingness to
change them by both genders.

However, social control is not seen as oppressive by all the participants. Runa, who is very active in
her ghetto, has an interpretation closer to the concept of Durkheim. She sees social control as a
form of caring and solidarity in the community opposing the restrictive feeling that the other
informants supported:

“Some people think is nosy. Some people might think of it as nosy that you are like “Who’s your
neighbor? What’s going on with them?” but she also sees it as caring.” (Runa, Appx: 32).

6.1.7 Between two worlds

Maria is a third-generation immigrant, growing up in ghettos kept her in touch with her Pakistani
heritage, but she also incorporated many features of the Danish society. She feels like her family is
not accepted by the rest of the community in the ghetto, as they combine features from both
cultures:

“With me and my husband it is that we are too, we are too haram for the halal people […] and we
are too halal for the haram people […] we don’t know where we fit in.” (Maria, Appx: 12).

45
The non-ethnic-Danish women that grew up in Denmark often have to combine different
mechanisms in order to deal with the contradictory expectations of their family and community
versus the demands of the broader society about education and labor. Thomas describes about his
students:

“Especially the girls have an idea there are two worlds. There is the one that the Danes live in and
there is their world, they can’t really mix. I think that is, that is very difficult (pause) to live in, to
be sort of torn between two worlds. And the younger the more difficult that is. […] especially the
ones that are born here and grew up in minority community, they have a difficulty, difficulty to be
sort of two persons. One at school and then one at home.” (Thomas, Appx: 6).

The changes that the habitus of the girls is subjected to, demands from them to combine strategies
and experiences from both cultures that may be contradicting with each other. Bourdieu (2009)
defined this notion as split habitus. Thomas is describing it as someone being two different people in
school and in home (Thomas, Appx: 6). Anja is also providing an example that shows how non-ethnic
Danish women in Vollsmose try to incorporate both cultural habitus secretly from their families and
communities:

“[…] when she [her friend’s friend] had like a skirt on, she always had pants in her bag, so every
time that she went home, she had to change. [...] Like she is trying to live in both worlds, like the
family world with like the… other kind of standards, but also in the Danish society. She tries to
like.. fit in.” (Anja, Appx: 41).

6.1.8 Summary
Concluding, in this theme the gender-based preconceptions that might prevent the continuation in
education or workforce for women of non-Western background who grow up in ghettos in Denmark
were identified, as they were described by the informants.

The problems might have to do with the doxa in the field of social and domestic life. First, the
expectations for women that are raised in these communities are concentrated in the domestic life
field, in which they have to be good mothers, wives and do the chores of the house. These activities
might not leave space for their participation in other fields of social life. Family and their husbands,
most of the time, find these fields incompatible. The fear that the women will be empowered by
participating in the field of education and work, might disturb the gender-based order in the house.

46
Although, this habitus is also internalized by women and their absence from the working force and
education is perceived as privilege.

Nevertheless, when some of these women participate in the educational and working field, they
often are influenced by the doxa in their culture about genders. So, often they choose gender-
appropriate jobs in education of small children and caregiving. Also, they prefer jobs that their
embodied cultural capital has equipped them with, like translators.

The patriarchal power structure in the family, often restricts women from their basic freedoms, as
education. The education of women is seen by some men like a threat to the patriarchal structure,
by being possibly the main provider of the house income. Symbolic violence is exerted on women in
order to keep the social order as it is. Even in families that are very supportive of educating their
daughters, we see that the patriarchal structure remains since the father is still the one who
promotes it and takes the decisions in the house.

The separation and distance between the two genders is another reason for keeping women away
from education. Women might be stigmatized by meddling with other men in the educational field
by their families and communities in general. The doxa that women must be kept virtuous and
prudent applies in this field. The distance between genders, though, is enhancing the bonding
among women.

Social control is a major obstacle for women to continue their education. Social control regulates the
behavior of people in the community in order to act according to the social and cultural norms.
Women that participate in the fields of education might be stigmatized as violating the norms of
domestic life, as neglectful mothers and wives. Social control prevents the change of participation in
the chores of the house for men too, even if they are willing to.

Furthermore, non-ethnic Danish women are trying to incorporate the experiences and expectation
of both worlds, inside and outside their community. This may lead to a split habitus and acting
secretly from their community.

6.2 The value of education

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6.2.1 Education as a cultural value

The ghettos in Denmark consist of many different cultures. As it was discussed previously the stance
of a family about education is depending mostly on their cultural background. The cultural capital
that the children of minority cultures are socialized within, gives them competencies, skills and
behavioral traits to crystallize their role in the educational system. Even though as the statistics
show, the educational level in the ghettos is low, for specific cultures education is very important.

Maria supports that in the Pakistani culture there is a high appreciation for education:

“[…] the culture that we come from, they are very […] hungry for education. They will do. They
would sacrifice, for example the men, the country men, […] as soon as they become parents they
sacrifice their lives to, to sum up for their children’s education and their futures, so that they can
have an education.” (Maria, Appx: 11).

As the respondent describes in her country of origin education is so vital that often is valued above
other needs of the family. Maria is using the verb “sacrifice” to emphasize that education is taking
place in expense of other necessities. In that way, Pakistani parents are trying to lift the external
obstacles that would prevent their children’s continuation in education, giving them in that way
negative freedom, as it is argued by Honneth (in Laitinen, 2015). What is also noticed in this example
is that Maria emphasizes on the role of men in the family, mainly the fathers. Thus, the father, as the
main provider of the family has to ensure the future of the children. Even though the patriarchal
structure is apparent in this example as well, the fathers are striving for success in different domains
than the gendered expectations described previously. Another example of a different culture that
shares the same practice is presented by Sena:

“Since I was like young. I am the youngest of three, and my parents were like ‘you are smart, you
just go and study and we will do everything for you’ and they did, basically did everything for me. I
never had to think about anything in my life.” (Sena, Appx: 22).

Maria is giving an internationally known case from Pakistan to symbolize the importance of
education in her country of origin. Symbols are an essential part of cultural capital and they can be
used strategically to initiate social action (Oxford Reference, n.d.).

“Maybe you know, Malala Yousafzai. She was a girl next door, she came from Taliban, […] The
Taliban had taken over, in that part, particularly small part of Pakistan. They are all gone now, but
in that time, the education was so important for her, that at that time, she went out. She survived

48
 a head wound from a gunshot and she is… she opened up her mouth and stood up for the girls’
education in Pakistan, as an example.” (Maria, Appx: 11).

The figure of Malala Yousafzai, whose story became worldwide known eight years ago, became a
symbol of struggle for the rights of girls in education. For which she got institutional recognition by
winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. As Honneth (in Laitinen, 2015) indicates, self-determination
and authenticity are connected with the notion of reflexive freedom. Malala Yousafzai’s reflexive
freedom for education initiated a struggle for recognition for women’s right in taking places in
educational institutions. Malala Yousafzai acts as a symbol of recognition since her story meets the
conditions that Honneth (2007) defined as the structure of recognition. First, her story had a positive
expression for the value of education in young women, second, the recognition has credibility since
she won the Nobel prize for her action and third, her paradigm fulfills an ideological function
because she changed the beliefs and expectations for education of girls connected the social
structure in Pakistan and to political and educational institution.

Kashia is explaining as well that education is a major part of her culture:

“Especially Palestinians, […] actually, it is a very high percentage, actually I think the highest in the
world that do it. Maybe it doesn’t reflect here in Palestinians, but worldwide, it is a different.”
(Kashia, Appx: 16).

It is true that Palestinians are one of the nationalities with high literacy levels both for men and
women (UNDP, 2015). Regardless of whether the rates reflect the reality of the highest in the world
or not, it is evident that for Kashia, this notion fulfills an ideological function about her heritage. The
symbolic capital of education is valued within her culture as a basis of honor and recognition as
Bourdieu defined it (in Joppke, 1986). The symbolic capital can also be employed for influential
purposes, like prestige, and it requires the fulfillment of the social obligations that are historically
defined by each culture (Joppke, 1986). Indeed, we see that Kashia is continuing the cultural heritage
of Palestinians, the historical connections can be observed by the use of the word ‘destiny’:

“I was always wanted to go to upper education […] So, it was always on my mind. I couldn’t have
peace without having an education. […] So, it was always like a destiny to me, I had to have, I had
to have an education.” (Kashia, Appx: 15).

Even though the established knowledge, as it is presented by the governmental documents and
statistic in Denmark, like the ghetto list and the ghetto plan, support the low literacy level and the

49
cultural parallel worlds that do not promote education. Sena is giving her different perspective about
education for women in ghettos in Denmark:

“[Education is] like a cultural value! Like for me, whoever I know, Iran, Turkish, even one of the
Arabic countries or even from one of the Balkan countries. They are valued to study. I can speak
from my own background, the Iranian one, because that is I grew up. I and all my childhood
friends, we were basically, how do you say, we always knew that education is a must thing.”
(Sena, Appx: 27).

Sena supports that the community in the ghetto is reforming the expectations of the young people
about education. For reasons that will be further analyzed in the next sections of this chapter, the
interpersonal relations that are taking place in the public sphere in ghettos are reconstructing the
social standards for recognition through education.

6.2.2 Education for Freedom

Education is seen as a way for girls to escape the doxa around the woman’s position in the non-
Western cultures as it was described in the previous chapter. As Thomas illustrates:

“I would say that the majority of the girls actually want to continue their education. And when I
asked them about it, they, they feel that this is the way to freedom in a way. That they have this
ah… that if things don’t work out, education will be the way that they can live on their own. I am
not saying that that is everyone, because most of them actually feel like living up to the
expectations of the family. But they do, they do have inspirations of getting education and do
well.” (Thomas, Appx: 3-4).

Some women try to reach their educational prospects in order to reach a level of self-realization and
independence. Even though these women often do comply with the gendered norms and values of
their cultures, they see educational recognition as an alternative way of escaping these standards.
Through educational recognition they can develop other kinds of faculties than the ones internalized
by their cultural background and occupy social space. Institutional recognition is seen as a way to
social freedom (Honneth, 2012). These women can reach levels of personal and economic freedom
in case the intimate relationships do not work out, since usually they are economically dependent on
their husbands too.

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Another example of struggle for personal freedom from the patriarchal structure of the family in
non-Western cultures is the following:

“But the girls are not allowed, are not really allowed to live on their own. No, that is usually not
accepted. They should be living with a male, sort of caretaker. But, the only exception, that is
actually if they have to go somewhere for education.” (Thomas, Appx: 3).

According to Thomas, the only way a woman can gain her personal freedom and live by her own is
through institutionalized education. As we saw earlier, in the patriarchal structure of relationships,
the males in the family are responsible for the protection and life choices of the females. Women
are not allowed to live on their own except for the purposes of education. This example is confirmed
by the case of Kashia, that when she took her education in another city from the one that her family
lived, she was allowed to rent a house for some days a week (Kashia, Appx: 17). The example of Sena
though, shows that she was allowed to move out from her house without a male caretaker before
she started her education in Odense (Sena, Appx: 22). The differences in following practices of the
culture about gendered relations are varying according to each family. In the case of Sena, her family
was well integrated in Danish culture according to her words (Sena, Appx: 26), and she was able to
enjoy these kinds of social freedom.

Kashia describes another kind of freedom that can be achieved through education. The number of
Palistinians who are living in the official refugee camps around Gaza Strip, West Bank, Syria and
Lebanon reached 1,5 million in 2019 (Anera, 2019). The respondent supports that education is a way
to conquer political social freedom:

“Especially Palestinians, because we… we were thrown out of our country and we don’t.. we are
stateless as they say. […] because they see education as the way for a better life. Because many
Palestinians they were in refugee camps and like that. So, education is the way out, to a different
country, to a different… out of refugee camps.” (Kashia, Appx: 16)

6.2.3 Education for Social Mobility

Institutional cultural capital is often used as a stepping stone for upward social mobility (Bourdieu,
1986). Institutionalized cultural capital can be later translated in economic cultural capital. Maria’s
reasoning applies to this explanation about Pakistanis:

51
 “Because they don’t have a welfare state in Pakistan for example. And ehm.. people are very
supporting there [of education]. They want their children to strive. And to have an education.
Because it means a lot as a family, it means a lot that a child gets their education done.” (Maria,
Appx: 10).

Maria argues that the lack of economic state support is forcing the Pakistanis to pursue
institutionally recognized forms of competencies and titles to expand their economic capital when
they enter the labor market. By the phrase “it means a lot as a family”, it is assumed that the
families can also use the institutionalized capital and later on the economic capital of their children
in accumulating symbolic capital and possess a more prestigious role in their community.

As it was illustrated by Maria before, education adds to economic capital. Unskilled labor is being
paid significantly less than labor through an institutionalized credible title (Maria, p. 12). Sena is
presenting a similar opinion of her parents:

“[…] I changed my studies three times so far. And they were like ‘you just choose whatever you
like’. They didn’t expect me to become a doctor or.. as other families do, or engineer. Whatever.
They were like ‘study whatever you want, but study something so you don’t have to work hard
labor’. So, you won’t, how to say, that’s their perspective. Study so you won’t have to tear your
body apart, like while working.” (Sena, Appx: 22).

Physical labor is closely connected to the working class (Addelman & Ruggi, 2015). Sena’s parents do
not have expectations of high-status jobs for their daughter, but their encouragement to her to
escape the boundaries of physical labor may be an exhortation for upward social mobility to a higher
class.

One reason that may explain the urge of the parents to push their children into higher education is
that most of them came here as labor force during the 70’s and 80’s and are in lower social classes.
Also, the people that came here under refugee status have experienced a loss of their fortunes and
objectified cultural capital as well. Thus, both of these categories are starting from the lower social
classes. Despite their status in their country of origin. It is also very usual that their institutionalized
cultural capital is not recognized in Denmark. As Kashia describes about her husband: “He has
actually a master’s degree in religion, but that doesn’t mean anything here.” (Kashia, Appx: 39).
Sena’s mother faced this problem as well: “So, she had to start from the start, and she did actually.”
(Sena, Appx: 23). In accordance, these families having low economic and objectified capital, along

52
with low social capital in the host country can only mobilize their upward mobility through
institutionalized cultural capital.

In cases like these, the pressure to achieve a level of higher education can be overwhelming. The
example of Sena shows how girls are trying to fit in their family’s expectations even when their
aspirations are in different direction. Sena was a “business mind” since her teenage years, as she
was a café owner in Fredericia at the age of 17, despite her parents’ disagreement. However, she
tried to take an education, which she changed multiple times and did not finish after all. As she
describes:

“But that was half because I was putting myself in that situation, where I wanted to figure out: ok,
what kind of study can I find that will help me to get to that point where I […] will finish? but when
you don’t want to, and you are not, how do you say? Not cohe… coherent. You are not
determined. Then, there is no point of pushing yourself.” (Sena, Appx: 27).

6.2.4 Education as Status

Institutionalized cultural capital can be perceived as symbolic capital, enhancing the individual and
the family’s status and reputation (Bourdieu, 1986). In certain cultures, parents have expectations of
high-status educational options for their children and reject vocational education or training for job
searching purposes. Annette describes a problem they sometimes encounter in their district project
in Stengårdsvej:

“[…] some people do think it is not good enough if you do an education, it has to be higher
education. So we are pretty focused, of course if you want to go to university and if you have the
capabilities you should, but it is also important for the parents and for the young people to be
accepting of a baker […]” (Annette, Appx: 38).

Anja has also a similar observation about her contacts in Vollsmose:

“she [her friend] is also a social worker and we took our education together, that is how I know her.
And this education is not really… like (pause) her family don’t believe is the best choice. You don’t
earn that much money and it doesn’t give you so much status. […] if a parent wants you to become a
doctor, you are going to become a doctor, no matter what really want to be. A singer, whatever.
Because it´s the social pressure of the family.” (Anja, Appx: 42).

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Anja’s friend defied her parent’s expectations to study something that would give high status and a
large economic capital. But as she continues explaining, as far as she knows from her contacts,
parents have an active role in the choice of their children’s education. The fact that the family’s
expectations are forced in a child’s educational options might have to do with the fact that the
collective interest and reputation is perceived as more important than the individual’s wants.

In general, in three different interviews specific fields were mentioned as examples of high-status
jobs that people from certain cultures encourage their children to pursue. Annette supports that “in
some families and some cultures it is only good enough if you are a doctor an engineer or a lawyer”
(Annette, Appx: 39). These examples were pointed out by two more participants (Sena, Appx: 22;
Anja, Appx: 42).

Institutionalized capital can transform in economic capital once the person gets in the labor force
(Bourdieu, 1986). Anja supports that the economic capital is the major measure of status in
Vollsmose:

“It´s all about the money. Like when you are having a good education, you get more money and you
will be a higher status person, as I understand.” (Anja, Appx: 42).

6.2.5 Towards Change

As it is supported in the Ghetto Plan, the parallel societies that are being formed in the ghettos do
not promote education and labor (Regeringen, 2018). However, the cases in this study are providing
some evidence for the opposite conclusion. The women in this study are providing solid examples of
a shifting change of attitude towards education and labor. In the Kashia’s words we can detect this
stance:

“So yeah, I saw education myself also as a way to lift my children up actually, for their generation.
So, yeah it is always a bigger thing. It was not just studying. It was studying to lift my children up,
their generation and all that. So yeah, that mentality there.” (Kashia, Appx: 27).

Education is seen as a way to change the social norms and values. The parents are trying to provide
examples for their children and struggle for recognition in the wider society. The struggle is focusing
on changing the status and ascribed roles and expectations for the people from the ghettos, which
are shaped by the formal and informal forms of misrecognition, which Honneth (1995) described as
moral grammar of social conflicts. The morality of their actions is evident in the way that their

54
agency and subjectivity are shaped by the social conditions and that their actions are guided by
other people’s needs as well. Kashia takes part in the struggle through educational recognition for
changing the mentality in ghettos and creating a space where biases on children from the ghettos
will change in a positive direction. Annette is also giving an example of a family in her project that
managed to shift the paradigm in a smaller scale than society within the family:

“he realized that if his mom could go through education with the three kids and still manage to do
all that, then he could too. Cause I spoke to him, cause I asked him what made you change your
ways. And he said ‘my mom, she was so cool, she managed to do it, so if she can do it I can do it’.”
(Annette, Appx: 36).

Runa provides an example of how the change from being a stay-at-home mother to labor force
shifted her own self-understanding:

“it is a very different life. Before when she was home taking care of the children, she was happy,
but now that she is out and she is working, she is asking but how did I do this before? Because in
this life, she gets to meet so many people and she has a different network now that it is way
bigger” (Runa, Appx: 40).

Runa’s struggle for recognition is focusing on the dimensions of respect and self-esteem. Runa was
able to develop her autonomy and self-realization through joining the labor force. Respect is the
base of establishing agency in the public sphere (Honneth, 1995). Her self-esteem also rose from her
contribution in the labor force. The division of groups of people in unemployed and employed in the
discourse of politicians, helped her to get a credible recognition in the social space:

“[…] in one of these meetings with the politicians here and Runa was there to listen to and they
were talking about the people that are working and the people that are not working and it made
her feel proud that she was in the group that was the working people. […] She feels like she has a
different perspective because she is working […] is just that she can feel that there is a different
respect also, also from politicians […]”. (Runa, Appx: 30).

Honneth (1995) supports that developing these dimensions of recognition can lead to achieving
social freedom and consequently joining the public sphere of democratic life. Only by participation in
the public sphere can the social standards of recognition be reconstructed. This is evident in Runa’s
case in the way that the project in her ghetto is often asking her to be a spokesperson in cases when
politicians and people from the parliament visit the ghetto because they know she will articulate the
people’s requests (Runa, Appx: 33).

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6.2.5.1 The Danish Educational System

In the process towards upper education for the non-ethnic Danish women that live in ghettos, the
educational system in Denmark can prove to be very helpful too. First, the state educational grant
(SU) can give the option of education to women that are struggling with economic problems. Also in
cases of families that follow strict gender roles as we saw before, SU provides a reason to keep girls
in education:

“But in Denmark when you sent your teenagers at school, they get money for going there. So, the
family sees the point that they take some income right there. So, that is one of the reasons that
we have girls at all in school” (Thomas, Appx: 3).

Also, in higher education the flexibility of the programs helps women to adjust their roles as mothers
and wives with their degrees:

“[…] you can work from home, but you just have to be student active by submitting the
assignments sometimes. […] Because you have flexible hours. So, that is very, it is plus point when
you have children to, to cope up with.” (Maria, Appx: 8).

Additionally, Kashia is describing that in upper education, in contradiction to her compulsory

education, she got institutional recognition for the first time, as other qualities, like her social capital
was taken into account:

“[…] I realized, that this was my first time my qualifications, or my background was validated,
because in that study we really needed to have connections and every time we had a test or exam, it
was about interviewing people and me and a couple of other students with foreign backgrounds, we
actually had the largest network. […] all of a sudden it was currency. It was capital”

6.2.6 Summary

In this chapter the value of education was explained through the theories of Bourdieu and Honneth.

Education for most of the respondents in this research is a part of their cultural capital. In certain
cultural contexts, like the Pakistani, Iranian and Palestinian it seems that education is so important

56
that the families would push beyond their limits to give their children negative freedom from
external obstacles to continue their education. Certain symbols in the culture can also initiate action
and reconstruct the structure of recognition for the education of women in non-Western cultures.
Nevertheless, the conception of one’s own culture as highly educated can attribute to their own
symbolic capital and aspirations. Despite current evidence about education level in the ghettos, this
study argues that the collectivity in ghettos is reconstructing the expectations and roles of young
people living in ghettos in a positive way for their participation.

One explanation is that education can be perceived as a medium for freedom. Women in ghettos are
able to escape the doxa about women staying in the private and domestic field. Education can help
women reach a level of personal freedom, by being able to live by themselves, as well as economic
freedom, by helping them acquire their own economic capital and not being dependent on their
caretaker’s capital. It is also supported that education can lead to political freedom for certain
people people.

Institutionalized cultural capital is often promoting upward social mobility. In states that people do
not have social support, education seems like the only way to acquire economic and symbolic
capital. Higher education serves as means to escape physical labor, which is closely connected to
lower working classes. People that came here as immigrants or refugees often experienced loss of
their cultural capital and they do not have other means to acquire positions in higher social classes.
Accordingly, they might pressure their children towards higher education to achieve social mobility.

Higher education can be perceived as status. In certain cultures, specific fields of education and
labor are only acceptable. These fields are considered highly prestigious, like doctor, lawyer or
engineer. They can also contribute later in the accumulation of a large economic capital, which is
described by the respondents as the major source of status. Families often are pressuring children
towards these specific fields because their collective reputation is depending on that.

The respondents of this research are trying to set the example for changes in the structure of
recognition about people living in ghettos. Their struggle is focusing on changing the expectations,
roles and status that are assigned to them by the other social groups through developing their
respect and esteem in the society. This progress is leading in turn in their participation in the public
sphere and reconstruction of the social standards of their collectivity’s recognition.

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Last, the educational system of upper education in Denmark is helping women face problems of
economic restraint, adjusting the roles of mother, wife and student with flexibility in the courses
and schedule, and seems more open to validate their cultural and social capital.

6.3 Us and Them

6.3.1 The two collectives

The existence of ghettos creates two parallel collectives, on the one hand the collective in the ghetto
and on the other hand the collective of ethnic Danish people outside the ghetto. The participants of
this research note many differences in the structure and norms between the two societies. For
example, Annette on the creation of community feeling:

“It is big foreningliv[2] culture in Denmark. And that is not as strong here. […] is only a different
sense of how you volunteer and how you help your community […] You help your neighbor
because you see, and it doesn’t matter if his is a different or same cultural background as you. He
is sick, I know him, I will help him. So, I think there is a pretty cool sense of community right here, I
just think it is a different way that you doing, compared to ethnically Danish people that live in
some small communities somewhere. Organized in a different way.” (Annette, Appx: 35).

Through this example, it can be noted that in both collectives there is a strong sense of community,
that creates solidarity within each of them. Although, the practice of solidarity is different between
them. From one hand, in Danish society solidarity takes the form of formal associations to help the
community, on the other hand, solidarity is based on immediate relationships in ghettos. Kashia
mentions the support of the community in a similar way:

“[…] Actually, they do have good relationships there with each other. Visit the old people for
instance. They don’t feel lonely, because […] not only their children and family, but also the
surrounding community, they visit them. We condole each other. We don’t have to know each
other very well for that.” (Kashia, Appx: 19).

The community building in ghettos is not based on cultural similarities, as the people there come
from very different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. As Elias and Scotson (1994) argued, the

58
outsiders’ group is usually highly heterogenic. Runa is basing her opinion in the historical
development of ghettos agrees with that:

“[…] a ghetto is supposed to be one kind of people, one country or one culture and this is not
that.” (Runa, Appx: 33).

It is indicated that certain ethnicities are developing close affinities only with members of their own
background:

“Some Somalis are staying very close to each other. The Arabs too. They stay close together, but
there are also friends here. […] Some of them do not have the language, but they are still saying
hi. They still greet each other across.” (Runa, Appx: 33).

Still, the ghetto, as spatial formation, mitigates the differences among people inside of it and
enhances a bond between them. The ‘we’ that is formed is based mostly in power imbalances with
the established group and not on similarities in values and practices (Elias & Scotson, 1994). That
applies also for the ethnic Danish people that live in the ghettos. Sena perceives ethnic Danish that
lived in Korskærparken as different from the ethnic Danish in the established society:

“Like, even the Danes that are there, they are different kind of Danes. They are more open minded
Danes.” (Sena, Appx: 26).

Except for the positive outcomes of the community and solidarity building, the contradiction
between the two parallel societies brings out negative outcomes too, such as prejudice from one
group to another. Kashia for example, perceived the ethnic Danes who lived in Vollsmose as
problematic cases. These ethnic Danes were not part of neither group of the established nor the
outsiders:

“Most of their parents were.. had a drinking problem. […] They had also some prejudice, and we
had some prejudice probably about them. But they had a very tough life I think those. They had it
worse than we did I think. Because their parents were drug abusers, and abused alcohol and staff
like that. And I’ve seen them growing up and they have the same problems too, with alcohol and
stuff.” (Kashia, Appx: 17).

According to the established and the outsiders’ configuration (Elias & Scotson, 1994), that may be
explained by the fact that in the ghetto community the powerful and multitudinous group was the
immigrants. Thus, they had the power resources to retaliate the prejudice that they received from
the established group all these years projecting it to the Danish people living in the ghettos.

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6.3.2 Avoidance and Segregation

By definition, the ghetto is considered as a case of spatial exclusion, as it is restraining the contact
between the people living inside and outside of it. But other than that, the exclusion patterns are
expanding in ideologies and prejudices about both groups. The established and the outsiders are
perceiving each other as threats for their own figuration. That in turn, is inciting a pattern of
avoidance between them.

The respondents of this research supported this notion, as they did not have contact during their
childhood and school years with ethnic Danish people even when they were educated in schools
with predominantly ethnic Danish classmates.

[…] first day of school, and I am the only non-ethnical Danish girl in the classroom! And it was like,
you feel like so much out of your own world. It’s completely weird for me […] I have been with my
own. I had like, I didn’t bond with them at all. (Sena, Appx: 24-25).

Kashia also faced the same problem during her primary school (Kashia, Appx: 14). Thomas, from his
experience as a teacher, is supporting that this is not the rule, but it happens sometimes:

“It depends on the different classes. I mean, sometimes, you have a class where they will mix very
well. There’s no problems. But often they are separated. So, you have the Danish students forming
some groups and you have the immigrant students forming their groups.” (Thomas, Appx: 1).

What is interesting in Sena’s case, is that when she changed schools outside the ghetto, she faced
this indisposition for contact only from her ethnic Danish teachers and classmates. She elaborates:

“But I liked my teachers, because they were from the UK and they were very, very nice. But like,
the classroom were… both my classmates and the Danish teachers, were so odd that I decided to
tell my parents that I wanted to move back to my previous school.” (Sena, Appx: 24).

The established group develops certain taboos concerning the outsiders that leads to the rejection
of the latter (Elias and Scotson, 1994). In this case, an explanation can be that teachers for the UK
are not a part of the established group, like the teachers from Denmark and her ethnic Danish
classmates, so they did not carry the same taboos.

60
Kashia is supporting that the pattern of exclusion is obvious in higher levels of education as well.
Although, in this case the exclusion patterns do not apply on people from the ghettos, but on
international students. As she noted about her Master’s degree course:

“[…] It was that the Danes were kept to themselves. They were alright with me because I speak
the Danish language fluently, they were not actually very open to the others. What I saw! To the
other students. So, the international were kept to themselves and I was in that group as well, and
I was also in the Danish group.” (Kashia, Appx: 17).

The exclusion patterns and the spatial segregation of ghettos is resulting in the segregation between
schools too, having socio-emotional and behavioral consequences (Palardy, et al., 2015) and lower
levels of opportunity to learn (Ong & Rickles, 2004). Sena describes her class:

“well, when we started, it is called like zero class […] We had like a more, a more of a blend with
Danish people, like ethnically Danish as well, but that, as we were growing up, like first grade,
second and third grade, it was less and less Danish, they were all moving away.” (Sena, Appx: 23).

Sena is the only one of the participants that she actually completed her compulsory education in a
school within the limits of a ghetto area. Having studied also two years in an international school
outside Korskærparken, she can compare and know the differences and problems that her first
school dealt with. As she describes, children in segregated schools had more often behavioral
problems, like fighting about trivial or not matters (Sena, Appx: 23). Nevertheless, the school itself
did not have any mechanisms to regulate the students’ behavioral issues and participation in the
educational system. As Sena says:

“[…] we didn’t have structure at school. Like at all. We did what we wanted to do. We just had to
do our assignments and we did that in the evening or whenever we wanted to do, that’s what I
meant. No disciplined.” (Sena, Appx: 24).

Before her seventh grade a teacher saw potential in her, so she proposed to move her to an
international school outside the ghetto to develop further her English language skills and to be in a
more structured educational environment (Sena, Appx: 24). Her parents apparently agreed with the
idea that the school within the ghetto could not offer their daughter an adequate educational
background since they reacted to the proposal as such: “oh, thank god! We found something” (Sena,
Appx: 24).

6.3.3 Stigma
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Elias and Scotson (1994), illustrate how power imbalance in the configuration of the established and
the outsiders can be further escalated by stigmatization. Stigma is defined as ‘social prejudice’,
meaning that it does not apply to an individual but to a social group. It is formed only when two
groups are interdependent and their positions of power allow the established group to ‘attach the
stigma of collective disgrace’ to the dominated group, the outsiders (p. xx).

Pernille confirms that people that live in Vollsmose often carry the stigma of the ghetto (Pernille,
Appx: 46). This figuration is visible in the example that Sena gives about her studying in the
international school, because for the ethnic Danish classmates she “was just known as the girl from
Korskærparken” (Sena, Appx: 24). Kashia is also describing about herself and her children:
“I wasn’t ashamed of living in Vollsmose. Maybe I was taught to be whoever you are. So, I told
them the same.” (Kashia, Appx: 19).

Kashia was taught to not let the stigma of living in Vollsmose define her personality, rather to be
appreciated for her individual qualities. But she also continues by saying that the people in her son’s
school who belong predominantly in the established society do not follow this principle:
“[they act with] prejudice. Maybe they don’t say to my son “oh, he comes from there”. In their
mind they know what area he comes from, and in their mind they put this prejudice, who they
expect he is.” (Kashia, Appx: 20).

Kashia is even considering moving out from Vollsmose for this reason:

“I want to also spare them the stigma ‘oh, I come from Vollsmose’ so they don’t say to their
friends that they come from Vollsmose. Even though I said to them that it is fine to live in
Vollsmose, but the pressure has become too much.” (Kashia, Appx: 19).

Media and public discourse are contributing a lot in the formation of the stigma. First, the ghetto list
is setting the criteria by which people in the ghettos are collectively assessed. Certain of those
criteria are mentioned by the participants as stigmatization which they have experienced through
the years. Kashia is saying about her father participating in labor force:

“It was a very big thing, because you get the prejudices that ah.. foreigners don’t work, they get
on the social benefits and stuff, so, when they were bulling me at school and said ‘oh, you are on
social benefits and blab la’, I had this weapon saying ‘no, my father works’. So, that was a very
proud thing for me. So, I could at least answer back for that prejudice” (Kashia, Appx: 21).

Kashia is also explaining how the media are contributing in the stigma about criminality:

62
 “He says, that yeah they ask my son ‘they shoot in your place, I heard on the news’ or whatever.
Sometimes we don’t know it ourselves. Some people from the outside know more than we do,
because we don’t experience it like immediately.” (Kashia, Appx: 20).

Anja was aware about the prejudice of media before she moves in Vollsmose:

“[I knew about Vollsmose] but from Media, […] in the media you only hear about the bad stuff. So,
I was like ok.. it is going to be fine. And I felt like it was fine, I felt safe there.” (Anja, Appx: 41).

Kashia is providing an example of how the Danish teachers in her children’s school have internalized
and projecting the stigma about people that come from the ghetto to her son:

“[…] his teacher (laughs), she told him ‘I am very proud of you, because you don’t speak pizza Danish’.
Pizza Danish is a term that in one point a politician has used, like pizzeria Danish. That is Danish that
people who work in a pizzeria, speaking with an accent or something.” (Kashia, Appx:20).

Although the participants in this research are aware and dealing with the stigma attached to the
ghettos, many people tend to internalize the stigma. In the configuration of the established and the
outsider, Elias and Scotson (1994) explain that when the outsiders feel the stigmatization, they tend
to internalize the collective phantasy that the established group has ascribed to them. Sena is
supporting this view:

“[…] to say a ghetto, it actually, the government teaches the young people […] that it is ok to say
that we are from a ghetto. They teach them […] they come from a ghetto and then they will think,
if they do something ‘ok, I am from the ghetto, how does someone from the ghetto acts?’. They
are basically creating low standard people or like […] manipulating younger people to become
people from the ghetto.” (Sena, Appx: 26-27).

It is also noted that Sena has a quarrelsome tone about authority, which may indicate that she has
not internalized the stigma and perceives the established group like the oppressor.

6.3.4 Discrimination

Certain cultural practices of the outsiders’ group might be perceived from the established group as
disrespect and show their unwillingness to fit in the norms of the society and integrate. The
perceived disrespect can in turn lead to the rejection of the outsiders and to discriminatory practices

63
against them. Indeed, some of the informants have experienced discrimination at the school
environment. Kashia explains that she was bullied by her classmates in primary school because of
her cultural and religious practices:

“I was also bullied a lot […] because I put the scarf on. I put the scarf on at the second grade. I was
young, I wasn’t supposed to put it on that young, but because they started bulling me, I kept it on
[…] [in] defiance, kind of.” (Kashia, Appx: 14).

Sena also experienced discriminatory practices in her international school by the ethnic Danish
classmates and teachers:

“I have had a bad experience by being a non-ethnical Dane […] Because I was caught up […]
[with] Not being accepted as someone, like, with another background.” (Sena, Appx: 24).

In the case Sena describes a racist remark about her person by a classmate initiated in a fight
between them. The problem is that the institutional authority, like the teachers and the principal of
the school, aimed to punish her for her reaction and not the classmate for the comment. Her mother
was the only one that supported her: “if you want to take […] the black sheep out of my daughter,
then fine. Then I will go to the court’s way if.. if you want to mistreat my daughter like that” (Sena,
Appx: 25). Due to the greater power imbalance between the established and the outsiders, the
outsiders are always perceived as outside anomic (Elias & Scotson, 1994). Indeed, starting a physical
fight in a school environment might violate some of the norms of behavior, but so does the racist
name-calling. Still, the school authority saw the deviant in Sena and not her classmate.

The discrimination that people from the ghettos might face from the established Danish group is not
limited only in stigmatization and prejudice. The established group is entitled with much greater
power resources, which they can exclude the outsiders’ group from, which in turn keeps them in the
position of the outsider (Elias & Scotson, 1994). Kashia had felt these exclusionary practices from her
teachers during her compulsory education:

“Like they were thinking ‘oh maybe she is a refugee, she doesn’t need all these burdens’. They
didn’t expect anything from me […] because I didn’t have anyone to help me with the writing and I
was very shy, so I didn’t speak a lot. But they just left me to my own, like just alone kind of. Maybe
they thought they were being nice, I don’t know.” (Kashia, Appx: 15).

Kashia felt intensely the non-recognition about academic achievements and expectations for
participation in the labor force that were ascribed to her group by the others. The misrecognition

64
had to do with the expectations and the evaluation of one’s individual qualities according to the
dominating prejudice about a social group (Van den Brink & Owen, 2007). Her teacher expressed
that:

“[…] she hoped I could work in a factory […] in a factory in Jutland for instance. […] That’s the
highest hope for me. To work in a factory deep in Jutland. Jutland was perceived as like far away
in Denmark.” (Kashia, Appx: 15).

Another example of exclusion from resources from the established group to the outsiders, such as
labor, is provided by Anja:

“I had to change my address. When I had it in Vollsmose I searched for a job for three months, I
didn’t get anything and then I thought to myself ‘ok, I’m gonna change my address of my resume
to my parents’ house, down in Sydjylland’ and then I got a job interview within a week.” (Anja,
Appx: 45).

Even though the case that the respondent describes might be a coincidental incident, Anja believes
that it is a product of the prejudice about people that are living in ghettos from the wider society. In
both Kashia and Anja’s case we can observe how the educational system and labor market
respectively, is favoring the higher social classes and result in the reproduction of lower social
classes (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). At that point, we have to note that Anja is an ethnic Dane, but
she was perceived to be a part of the lower class by the potential employers by having her address in
Vollsmose.

6.3.5 The established as the Oppressor

By employing the stigma and discrimination, the established group manages to authorize themselves
as the standard by which the others have to conform. Anyone that fails to assimilate these norms
and values can be portrayed individually or collectively as anomic (Elias & Scotson, 1994). This
authority gives them permission to intervene with the lifestyle and conditions of living of the
outsiders. The permission is legitimized further when certain groups of the outsiders share some of
the opinions of the established group. For example, one of the participants agree with the policies of
Danish government about the ghettos even if she is impacted by them:

65
 “I support it [the ghetto plan]. Not because I am a racist of other. But yes, I support it because
ehm… I love this place. And because of other people’s fuck ups, I have to leave.” (Maria, Appx:
13-).

Nevertheless, the majority of the respondents expressed feelings of fear and powerlessness
regarding the policies that are based in the difference of norms and values between the Danish
society and the people from non-Western background. Regardless, the validity of their fears, their
feelings show a certain perception about the power of authority. Annette is describing the fear of
some women about child services:

“they were all afraid that they going to have their kids taken away, that they would take their kids
for nothing” (Annette, Appx: 36).

Pernille is talks about the reasons for their unwillingness to go the job center:

“the people here sometimes are stressed to go to other services… we are not like that. […] people
sometimes feel very (Pause) stressed with the demands other services have, and if they push them”.
(Pernille, Appx: 45).

Runa also expressed her opposition for the obligation to send her children to daycare from the early
age of one in fear that she will not be able to communicate with them in her language, but also
because it was opposite to her values of upbringing:

“[…] it was weird to her that strangers would only take care of her children and what if they only
learned Danish” (Runa, Appx: 28).

Thomas is aware of this problem, on one hand the educational system must respect the values and
upbringing methods that non-Western families follow, but on the other hand these methods
sometimes violate the norms, if not laws, of the established society:

“There is also, there is also invasion of privacy.. idea. Some people are afraid, they think that well,
perhaps this we shouldn’t really deal with what they, how they really want to raise their children,
that shouldn’t be what we get into. But I think that that is the, that’s dangerous” (Thomas, Appx:
5).

The intervening with the life conditions of the people in ghettos, often makes them more protective
of their own values and culture. As Sena clearly states:

66
 “My parents, they are not Danish, and I don’t want to leave like their heritage either, (pause)
because that is not the definition of integration. Integration is when you can merge your
background […] So, I don’t want to […] throw away all the values that I learned from my family, to
be a complete Danish. Because then I will assimilate, and I don’t want to do that.” (Sena, Appx:
26).

The overall stigmatization is sometimes resulting in people retreating in ghettos and show hostility
against any kind of authority that is exercised by the established group which is perceived as
oppressive (Whitaker, 1972 in Elias & Scotson, 1994). In such a manner, Sena felt fury against
authorities in her adolescence. She describes an occasion where many authority figures where
gathered and she had the chance to blame collectively the authorities for the creation and
conditions of ghettos:

“when I was thirteen, I was very furious, I […] just stood up and I ranged. The police were there,
all, like, the mayors from different areas around Fredericia, up to Aarhus and Horsens they were
there. and I said ‘how can you always put people in that position, when it is the government that
puts people together at the same place, you cannot come and say that we live in like a social
controlled environment […] You are creating ghettos, not us!’.” (Sena, Appx: 26).

6.3.6 Summary

The ghettos, as a place of spatial segregation, are contributing in the creation of two collectives, one
inside the ghetto and one outside of it. The two collectives build a community feeling and solidarity
inside of them through different mechanisms. The established Danish society employs mostly
associations while in the ghettos people are employing close and immediate relationships. Even
though the ghettos in Denmark are highly heterogeneous regarding the cultural backgrounds of the
people, their sense of ‘we’ is based in their differentiation with the outside society.

The prejudices and ideologies that one group has for another is leading to indisposition of contact
between them. Indeed, the respondents experienced avoidance during their schooling by members
of the established group. This pattern was also obvious in higher education. The avoidance pattern
encourages residential segregation and in further the school segregation. Segregated schools are
found to have consequences in the behavior of students, but also being unable to provide adequate
learning possibilities.The solution for the participants was to move to schools outside the ghettos.

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Stigma is a mechanism to reject outsiders and keep them in a position of powerlessness. Because of
the stigma the participants were judged only because of the area they resided. The stigmatization is
boosted by media and political speech. The stigma the participants had to deal with was about
welfare culture, criminality and language or accent linked to immigrant population and working
class. People in ghettos often tend to internalize the stigma and act as the established group defines
them.

Discriminatory practices might take place because the established group is perceiving certain
cultural values and practices of the outsiders as unwillingness to integrate and anomic. In this study,
the participants have experienced discrimination and bulling in school due to cultural symbols, like
the headscarf, or simply by being of different ethnic background. Discrimination is encountered as
well in the power resources between the groups. In this study, the participants have faced
discrimination and exclusion from teachers and help at school and labor force.

The established group is often experienced as an oppressor by the outsiders. This occurs because the
established have the power to intervene in the lives of the outsiders and change its conditions to
conform better to the established standard. That generates feelings of powerlessness and fear to the
outsiders in case of contact with the authorities, like child services, job center and daycare. The
result is that often people from the ghettos are showing hostility towards the established.

7. Thesis Conclusion
This study focused on understanding the challenges that women of non-western background in
ghettos in Denmark face on their continuation to upper education in the light of social control that
they might come up against from family, community and institutions. The research was carried
through eight qualitative in-depth interviews with women living in ghettos and people who worked
in relevant fields of educating or counseling in ghettos.

In general, social control has a range in interpretations. Danish state interprets social control as
restriction of freedom of choice for the women (Regeringen, 2018), while early sociology shows that
social control can be used in order to enhance the community’s solidarity and maintain its norms
and values (Durkheim, 1893). Indeed, social control was perceived very differently from most of the
participants covering many understandings.

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In this study, social control was located in three different levels of family, community and
institutions. The control that is exercised in regard to women of non-western background that reside
in ghettos in Denmark takes different forms and executes different functions. In some cases, social
control can restrict them from continuing their education, in other cases it can promote solidarity in
the community or promote their transition in upper education.

In the first part of analysis, it is observed that women of non-western background are expected to
fulfill certain gender roles that may interrupt completely or hamper their continuation in upper
education. According to the culturally ascribed gender roles, as they were mentioned by the
participants, women are expected to occupy positions mostly in the field of domestic life, and fulfill
the roles of the mother, wife and housekeeper. The patriarchal power structure in families of ethnic
minority women creates certain boundaries in their choice to occupy positions in different fields.
The figure of father or husband as the provider or decision maker in the household exert immediate
control in the freedom of choice by prohibiting the participation of women in education or labor,
under the assumption that the existing power structure in the household would be disturbed. Often,
women internalize these expectations and either comply with the wants of the family or they choose
gender-appropriate education or occupation.

Furthermore, gender norms that women must comply with is to be virtuous and avoid the contact
with other men. Due to the mixed-gender educational system in Denmark, some women might get
stigmatized for choosing to continue their education and cooperate with male classmates. Social
control from the community might also stigmatize women that choose to continue in higher
education because they do not fulfill adequately the gender expectations in the field of domestic
life. Women who have grown up in Denmark or have integrated in Danish culture often are trying to
participate in both worlds, one of the Danish society and one of the closed community they are
living, leading to a split habitus, which in its turn led this women to act in secrecy and alienated them
from the ghetto community since they felt the pressure of conforming in two different standards.

Social control, in these cases may act like community bonding and solidarity, but simultaneously
prevents the alteration of roles and expectations for both genders in order to compound with the
expectations of the Danish culture. Social control is employed by families and the community in
ghettos in order to preserve the existing norms and values.

Ghettos in Denmark are constituted by different background cultures. Attitude towards education of
women might differ significantly due to heritage, integration in the host country and values of each
family. Higher education is a big part of cultural heritage for some ethnicities. Social control can be

69
exerted on the girls of the families in order to promote their education. In this case the social control
is used to protect and care for the child (Udlændinge-, Integrations- og Boligministeriet, 2016).
Although, this pattern of social control might result as well in limitation of self-expression for women
in case participation in higher education is not their personal goal.

In the non-western background families, often the collective interest is more important than the
individual’s. Thus, the family often is depending on their children to acquire or maintain the
reputation and economic capital. The education types they should pursue are highly prestigious and
offer large economic earnings. Through education people that reside in ghettos can also pursue their
social mobility. The pressure over the girls of minorities in ghettos might be higher than the rest of
the Danish society because of their family background. Immigrant or refugee families most of the
times arrive in Denmark having lost a big part of their objectified and symbolic cultural capital.
Furthermore, their institutionalized capital is not recognized often enough. Hence, they are
dependent on their children for acquisition of capital and social mobility. Most of the women in this
study had internalized this need as destiny. Although, there are examples who did not want to
comply with the family demands by choosing their own path.

Higher education can be also used as a tool to escape social control. Young women of non-western
background can see it as an alternative way to escape the existing gender roles in their culture.
Additionally, certain ethnicities with refugee status can find a way through education to escape
control from the state.

Social control can be exerted from the wider host society and its institutions. The difference
between the host society’s culture and the immigrant population can deepen the need of control.
for the reason that the ghetto, as a place of accumulation of non-ethnic Danish that preserves
different cultural values than the host society, can lead to the perception of ghetto as a separate
world that needs to be disciplined.

This perception can create two interdependent rival collectives. On one hand, the wider Danish
society might see the ghetto population as a threat to its social cohesion. Also, the ethnic nationals
due to the power hierarchy they have can establish themselves as the standard that the others have
to resemble with (Pratsinakis, 2018). The established society might then employ measures of
intervening in the conditions of life in the ghettos to ‘normalize’ them. The threat and importance of
preserving social cohesion is obvious in the Danish ghetto plan: “Denmark must continue to be
Denmark” (Regeringen, 2018, p. 6). The perceived threat is leading to indisposition to make contact
between the two group, a pattern that is obvious throughout the educational system from primary

70
school to higher education. The segregation in schools impels an image of schools in ghettos as
institutions with lower opportunity for learning and social problems.

The power imbalances between the two groups is enabling the Danish collective to attach social
prejudice to the collective in the ghetto. The stigma results in a collective assessment of each person
and not evaluating his/her individual qualities and capabilities. The stigma in this study was mostly
about social problems, like criminality and unemployment, but also for cognitive skills such as
language skills and learning ability. Internalization of the stigma can lead to the entrapment of the
ghetto population in the collective image that the established society has built for them.

Stigmatization can result as well in exclusion from resources. Discrimination practices manifest
themselves in different forms excluding the people who live in ghettos from opportunities in the
educational system and later in the working force.

Often, the established society, through institutions and legislation is intervening in the lifestyle and
conditions of living of the ghetto population. This might incite feelings of fear and powerlessness or
oppositely, hostility towards authority.

If we want to understand how the educational system might disadvantage the women of ethnic
minorities from ghettos to transit to upper education, we should examine their whole journey in the
educational system from beginning to the end. In this study, it was found that the women start
facing problems already from their primary school, which could have possibly averted them from
seeking to continue their education. Hopefully, the women of the study had a strong family and
cultural background that promoted their social freedom and continuation of their education. Once
they reached higher education, they described a very different environment from compulsory
education that actually recognized aspects of their cultural capital and flexibility that helped them
adjust to their multiple roles in private and social life. Although, women from the ghettos that lack
this kind of capital might not attempt to continue their education.

Furthermore, families and individuals that strive for recognition through existing structures such as
accumulation of institutionalized and economic capital may have already submitted themselves to
the social order of the established Danish society and the recognition solutions that are offered in
this context.

7.1 Future research

71
The informants that took part in this research seem to contradict the existing statistical information
about the level of education in ghettos in Denmark. As we discussed these women had a very
promoting cultural and family background regarding education, which is not always the case for the
majority of the population in ghettos. Future research on this issue should include also women that
did not occupy positions in higher education or labor force in order to analyze more holistically the
challenges of continuation to upper education.

Unfortunately, this population is very hard to be approached. First, the contact with these women
and their willingness to talk might depend on trusting relation between the researcher and them,
which should be either pre-existing or build up carefully during an extended time before the
research, since previous research has shown that women of ethnic minorities tend not to participate
in research when they have something to hide (Danneskiold-Samsøe et al., 2019). Second,
connectivity of researcher and participant could be built through likeliness in language, gender and
socio-demographic characteristics (Richie & Lewis, 2003).

7.2 Perspective
Women of non-western background in ghettos are dealing with a lot of pressure when they are
pursuing their educational development. The pressure is exerted to them both by their own family
and community, but also from the wider society.

When I first started this research, the existing literature led me to focus on the problem mostly
through the lean of gender roles and prohibitions that are imposed on these women from their
ghetto collective and family. During the interviews and analysis of the data, it became clear to me
that the pressure from the wider Danish society and formal institutions was an equal part of their
problem. The image of the ghetto impacts highly the self-image of these women and the
understanding about them from the wider society.

The fact that the Danish government has undertaken a series of attempts to involve the ghetto
population in education shows that there is political will to promote their integration to Danish
society. Still, there are many barriers for women to overcome in order to participate equally in
higher education and the working force. The coordinated effort for lifting social control barriers in
ghettos so women can enjoy freedom to participate in education is important. Although, there is still
space for improvement in the way that integrational efforts through education are being performed.
The danish school system should also be able to adjust in specific difficulties that children of non-
western background face due to cultural barriers, xenophobia and discrimination. Both parties

72
should showcase equal effort in order for the differences to be bridged.

[1] Social kontrol er mere udbredt blandt personer med ikke-vestlig baggrund end blandt personer med dansk baggrund. Mere end ni ud
af ti kvinder med dansk baggrund har følelsen af den same frihed som jævnaldrende mænd. Det gælder kun lidt over halvdelen af kvinder
med ikke-vestlig baggrund.

[2] Protection or promotion of interests through associations.

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Appendices

79
 1. Thomas’ Interview
Interviewer: Alright, so, would you like to tell us some things about your work as a teacher?
Interviewee: sure, well I… I’ve been working with groups og immigrants and young people with
problems through the last 10 to 12 years. Something like that. And I’ve seen these waves of
immigrants coming to Denmark initially from Afghanistan and Iraq and later here, in the later years
from Syria. And, ah, it’s been interesting to work with, with these groups, I think. Ahm, I think what
you were interested in was like how immigrants perceive being in Denmark right?
Interviewer: hm
Interviewee: yeah. So, so, I think that I, that I. I get this feeling that a lot of them are very, very
happy. At least to begin with, very satisfied being in Denmark. They feel like they have all options
open to them. And they, they see a future, but as, as they progress, I also hear a lot of them
meeting, well, you can say that they bump their heads against the walls. They are, some things are
different here in Denmark. You know if you want… to cope in Denmark you need a lot of education
and such.
(mini pause of the interview to check the recording)
Interviewer: so, alright, how is the relationship of student of these groups, ehm, formed in your
school? Like with other students or… if I understood. Are you working in a school with only
immigrant teenagers or are they mixed?
Interviewee: they are actually mixed. And I would say that. It depends on the different classes. I
mean, sometimes, you have a class where they will mix very well. There’s no problems. But often
they are separated. So, you have the Danish students forming some groups and you have the
immigrant students forming their groups. And of course, as a teacher you would want to try and see
if you can mix them. But it’s of course easier if it happens naturally. They would just start finding out
about each other. But I think that, ahm, I would say that when I started working with this groups,
combine them, I was afraid that we would have a lot of confrontations and such but I can’t say that,
that is the issue. That is the case. It’s ah… it’s pretty, it’s pretty fine actually.
Interviewer: so, are you aware any discriminations or unfair treatment that these students from
ethnic groups might have experienced.. in, in school environment?
Interviewee: ahm, let me think.
Interviewer: in the school environment from other student or by the education system as a … if you
can think of something.
Interviewee: I would say that in general the Danish school system is open to, to people from the
outside. But of course, they have incidents where, where some people feel like they have been
treated differently. Ahm, but I can’t, I can’t, can’t point to specific cases. Not really. That is why we
are here. I think it is not that, not that common. I do think that, as a teacher I don’t see everything
and I don’t hear all the conversations and such so.. sure, there can be situations of such character
but yeah.
Interviewer: so, ahm, how is the relationship of ah.. the students who come from ethnic groups with
the teacher? Do you have an open relationship, do they commit? Do they discuss their problem with
you?
Interviewee: that’s very.. ahm… that is a delicate question. For them I think ah… I always get that
feeling that they are not honest with me, especially in the beginning. Now, that I, I think… especially,
with the women I think it is difficult in the beginning. Ahm, but some of them I managed to teach for

1
several years and that opened up. And especially if there were situations where I could tell if
something was wrong. I would, I would try to talk to them about it. As I could. And that way I, I
managed to establish a friendship with some of them, and then they would open up and tell me
what is really going on, but I get this, this feeling that there is this closeness around their families.
That they are extremely loyal to, to their families and they don’t talk to strangers about what is
going on. Ahm.. especially about, if we are talking about the women, they are afraid that it will
somehow get back to their families. That it will hurt them if they tell me.
Interviewer: it will hurt the families? The family reputation you mean or the person you mean, the
girl that will discuss this with you?
Interviewee: exactly! It will hurt the family reputation and that would hurt also hurt her, because she
will be punished for it. So, that’s, that is sometimes the issue there. I think with the, with the boys. I
often, they are often telling stories you can say. They have this story about themselves, that they are
telling and you get the feeling that is not always the truth. Sometimes, they would tell me that they
are sons of a general or that they actually come from ah.. some kind of rich family in the mother
country or father country. So yeah.. they would tell me stories. And in the beginning I was like ah!
That is really interesting, but you soon realize, that well, perhaps it was not the full story. And also
about problems. They really do not want to discuss that. They always have some kind of excuse, if
something is going on. So, they are very protective of their.. their honor.
Interviewer: yeah… are you aware of any case that this fired back on the students? Like building
relationships with other students or teachers and this fired back?
Interviewee: yes. I have met many stories that suddenly some student would not show up, and we
figured out because they were threaten, because of something they have done. If they, for instance,
just talked to a woman from a different family, and they would find out. They would be threaten to,
for instance, to get out of the city and staff. So, we have had situations like that. Ah.. I also have had,
ahm, women, ahm, who have been physically abused by their… because of things that have
happened at school. Ahm… nothing that I had anything to do with, but.. ahm.. but like if they would
talk to someone, or if they would behave in a way that the family doesn’t approve. Well, they would
be beaten afterwards.
Interviewer: ah.. and can I ask you something? (Interviewee: yeah). But how, in some cases this
would be known to the family? From the school environment to their family?
Interviewee: because they.. that is interesting. It is because they tell about each other. So, even if
you have two very good friends, you would think that, that this girl and the girl, the girl right next to
her are the best friends in the world. That is what you think! But if something happens, her best
friend would tell, her family and then they would tell the other girl family. So, so, even if they are
best friends they have to tell and I asked them about that. Why would you? Why would you tell on
her? I couldn’t understand, because I thought, well you are best friends, so why wouldn’t you be just
quite about it? But they can’t! they don’t feel that they can. They feel that if they don’t tell what
they have seen, that they will, they will be punished for that. That has to do with religion as well,
they are afraid of, of what god, would Allah, would think of that. So, so they feel forced to tell what
they have seen. And, and that was difficult for me to understand. Cause, you know, if I had seen
something happened to one of my friends, I would probably not tell, if I knew that you would
probably be punished for it. Ah… that is how it goes with the girls.
Interviewer: yeah, very interesting. So, (Interviewee: very, very different). Yeah. And that makes me
think that: if a family keeps a person, a girl or a boy from school, for certain reasons like that. I guess,
for example, in my family, whatever happened, school was the first priority and then everything else.
(Interviewee: yes!) Like they wouldn’t keep me for some reason at home (Interviewee: no!). Do you
think that education is valued differently comparing to some other..?

2
Interviewee: Absolutely! Religion is number one and school comes after that. School is probably not
even number two. Number two is doing you chores for the family. Living up to the expectations of
chores for the family. If we are talking about girls especially. Ahm.. they would have to, to act in
ways that, that you know.. but we are talking about immigrants for Muslim countries, right?
Interviewer: yeah. Mostly. I mean my initial plan was…
Interviewee: because this is what I know most about. I’ve had. I’ve had ah… students from eastern
Europe as well, but they are rarely a problem. They usually just fit in. I should say, like that people
from cheznia, is the same, is the same issue actually. Ahm, as with the muslims.
Interviewer: ah yeah. Very closed communities. Ah.. so, you said about living up to their
expectations. The.. the.. to the extend that you are able to know. What are these expectations for
the women and the girls?
Interviewee: well… yeah… it’s basically, basically, being the perfect housewife. You can say. The
chores at home. As a girl you are expected to, sort of, take over some of the work of the mother of
your, your husbands family. So, that’s the main thing is that you are supposed to learn these chores.
You, as a woman their working area is in the home. And that is the main a lot of families don’t see
the point of women taking education actually. But in Denmark when you sent your teenagers at
school they get money for going there. So, the family sees the point that they take some income
right there. So, that is one of the reason that we have girls at all in school. So, is that.
Interviewer: so, you said husband’s family. Have you encountered cases that ah… students were
married in a very early age. Like since they were students?
Interviewee: yes. Absolutely. I’ve had several students that on paper they were 18, but in reality,
they were younger. It is just that when they came in Denmark they had no papers. So, they you
know.. they would just fill in whatever it would fit the description. So, so, yeah. A lot of that. And
also the ones that were not already married, ahm.. very often they are engaged in very early age.
I’ve talked to some of them about that when I was doing my own thesis and what I found was, that
they… they were often given the choice to marry, but it is under such pressure that it is really
difficult to say no. The family would usually say something like, they gonna give this and that amount
of money, for you to get married, don’t you think that would be a good idea? And then, the girl
pretty much has to say yes. So, so they under a lot of pressure to get married with the person that
the family has chosen for them. So yeah. (pause). Am I talking too fast?
Interviewer: no it is ok. (laughter) it is just that. I think that…
Interviewee: so yeah yeah I have seen that a lot actually. I think it is the majority that have some
kind of a back story that have been in an arranged marriage. Yeah.
Interviewer: but, do you ever thing that some og these girls might have different aspirations for their
lives, that… as a teacher for example, have you encountered cases that the girls wanted to continue
their education but it wasn’t possible?

Interviewee: absolutely! (Interviewer: oh!) I would say that the majority of the girls actually want to
continue their education. And when I asked them about it, they, they feel that this is the way to
freedom in a way. That they have this ah… that if things don’t work out, education will be the way
that they can live on their own. I am not saying that that is everyone, because most of them actually
feel like living up to the expectations of the family. But they do, they do have inspirations of getting
education and do well. I remember reading that, because we, in Denmark we are very happy to see
that more and more young girls get an education, they become doctors they become a lot of things.
Unfortunately about them, they disappear out of the work force at around the age when they get
married and have children and many of them don’t really return. So it is still a problem that many of

3
the.. this… characteristics of their society eh… in the middle east, still continues in Denmark as well.
But I think that will change.
Interviewer: hm, in what way you think it will change?
Interviewee: I think it will change so more of the women will stay in the job market or at least return
after they will have their kids.. ah… but as it is now, I can sent you the statistics from a few years
back, where it shows that they are around… 23 or four when they disappear out of the force and
they don’t really come back. So, up until then they are doing better than, even than many of the
Danish students. But then suddenly they disappear out of the educational work force. So… so but it
is the culture.
Interviewer: I also saw some statistics about ethnic women in Denmark and in Scandinavia in general
and ah.. I saw that sometimes they are choosing very specific educations, like teacher or nurses. Do
you personally know, of your students, if they had certain aspirations and might didn’t have the
chance, they what were the majority of them… choosing you think?
Interviewee: oh yeah, absolutely. (pause) well, it goes back to the family again, because they feel like
there are specific jobs that they can’t take, they have to be like, what can you say, acceptable
women jobs. So, even if you have people from.. I think Iran ah… there are some other countries that
is more acceptable for women to work as well, but they usually going into typical women’s job, it is
like taking care of children, it could be like being a school teacher or ahm.. yeah.
Interviewer: yeah… caregiving.
Interviewee: caregiving basically. Yeah, very much, very much so.
Interviewer: can I, can I return a little bit back to our conversation and ask you ahm… since you said
that many of them are doing better even than Danish students up until the age or around 23. How,
how is the family involved in the education system? Like, do they talk with the teachers? Do they
support their achievements? Up until then? How do you feel?
Interviewee: I think that in general, I would say that… in terms of showing up to teachers
conferences and stuff, they do that less than Danish parents do but in terms of pushing their girls to
reach, what can you say, academic goals, I think they are very active actually. I think they would like
to see them. They would like to tell story to their friends that their girls are doing well in the school
system, even though, when it all comes down to it, to them is not a support, but they, you know, it is
still like showing… well, it can be used also to show that their girls are… what can you say.. obedient.
Interviewer: hm.. yeah, ok, I understand.
Interviewee: yeah, so, so it works in ways of, of what you feel is a way that a woman should behave.
So, doing well is fitting with that image as well. So, so they are pushing for that, but it is not like.. we
don’t see them showing up so much. It is difficult to generalize, because it depends on a lot of
things. I am talking in general terms and of course I am looking at where the problems are. But, but
we do see less activity. And especially if you have like a boy, who is not behaving, you will not have a
very good relationship with the parents. That can be very difficult. They, they don’t want to deal
with it. You can say. So.. but it is also… I’ve had incidents where we talked to the parents, and the
parents were very serious about it, but the way they would deal with it was to punish, like physically,
punish the boys. And that’s not what we want! So, sometimes we are also difficult to talk on it. Ah…
Interviewer: and in this kind of cases would you prefer not to talk to the parents, like if you knew
that this case was to go this way?
Interviewee: I think, it is a dangerous territory. Like really. I mean I haven’t had ahm… the the…
people that have been teaching these past years, we don’t have a lot of contact with the parents,

4
but earlier I was teaching younger kids and then we have been trying to contact the parents, but if
we had, we had this idea that the child would get beaten and it was difficult to know, you know,
should we, should we call them about this or should we try to…yeah! I think there’s a lot of, I mean,
it is difficult. We don’t really have the tools, I would say, as teacher in the school system. Not yet!
Not yet completely fit to deal with these types of issues, it is not really what we’ve been taught.
Interviewer: that’s very interesting, actually. Like, what do you think, in the school system will help
you as teachers to deal with these things?
Interviewee: yeah.. how, how we can do that?
Interviewer: yeah, like maybe an extra canselour, I don’t know.
Interviewee: yeah, yeah… maybe perhaps, perhaps. I mean we have in the educational system,
especially for smaller grades. We have this, these counselors from the municipality that you can call
them and talk with. So, so it’s there… but I think it can be difficult in the everyday situation to know
exactly how to deal with these new things. Ah… I think that… there is also, there is also invasion of
privacy.. idea. Some people are afraid, they think that well, perhaps this we shouldn’t really deal
with what they, how they really want to raise their children, that shouldn’t be what we get into. But I
think that that is the, that’s dangerous. I mean, that is like. Ah… so, it is like closing your eyes to
something that you should be dealing with. So… yeah.
Interviewer: well, I guess.
Small pause for personal questions about the interviewer.
Interviewee: you’re asking for the parent-teacher relationship there. And to be honest I don’t know
a lot about it. It is mostly through colleagues, I only had few when I was.. I was teaching elementary
school at one point, but these past many years I have been teaching young adults, so..
Interviewer: yeah, that is fine. Ah.. ah.. and again about the relationship of students and parents. I
didn’t ask you. What do you teach after all? What is your topic.
Interviewee: well, I have been teaching English and I have been teaching Danish. I also have been
teaching Danish as a second language as well. So, to immigrants. But I would say most of my classes
are in English. Which is great, because many of the students have decent English, what can you say
(Interviewer: skills?) yeah they are pretty good in English.
Interviewer: do they.. do the people from ethnic groups have problems because they are already
bilingual? With their Danish and the English?
Interviewee: I am not sure. I mean Danish is a diffilcult language to learn.
Interviewer: I mean especially for people that were born here it is pretty easy with their…
Interviewee: I think that the reason I bonded with them well, is that since their English skills were
better than their Danish skills, it is difficult for them to really express what they think in Danish,
ahm..
Interviewer: oh! I didn’t get that! That you think that their English skills are better than their Danish
skills. Really?
Interviewee: well, it was, they ones that I was teaching had better English skills than Danish skills. It
depends. It is very different from where they are from. But the ones that I was teaching, their English
skills were pretty good. And ah… that helped them, talk to me often easier than the Danish teacher.
So that.. I guess that was a way in as well.

5
Interviewee: oh yeah, I understand. And I wanted to ask you like. Probably not from you experience
but, ehm, in the extend that you know from colleagues and also, do you… do they ever, you or your
colleagues experienced any problems with the content of the lesson? Because of the, because they
students thought it was very..?
Interviewee: yeah, exactly, yeah. We do think about it a lot. And I try not to take out subjects
because I’ve been talking about arranged marriages in English. I wouldn’t use a case from one of the
countries they are from, but I would find something similar to it. And, and sometimes that would
give reactions like someone would cry or feel uncomfortable about it. And that’s what it was. One
time we saw a movie, I forgot there was a nude scene in it and some of them walked out and stuff.
(Interviewer: ok, yeah) Those reactions we do get, yeah. But I haven’t seen any… it’s not like.. they
always, they always behave like, what can you say? They behave well about it, I haven’t seen
someone angry or upset. And in that way, it is mostly like sublte ah… reactions I get. And sometimes
I would apologize after saying “oh, I forgot about that, I am sorry.” No, it’s ok we are in Denmark
now they say. (both laughing). They have a certain understanding that thay have to accept some
things.
Interviewer: yeah, that the standards are different here. But..
Interviewee: yeah.. but that not saying that they accept that it is ok for them. That is the interesting
part. Especially the girls have an idea there are two worlds. There is the one that the Danes live in
and there is their world, they can’t really mix. I think that is, that is very difficult (pause) to live in, to
be sort of torn between two worlds. And the younger the more difficult that is.
Interviewer: yeah, they are somewhere in between.
Interviewee: especially the ones that are born here and grew up in minority community, they have a
difficulty, difficulty to be sort of two persons. One at school and then one at home.
Interviewer: can you elaborate a little bit on that because I didn’t understand like in what way? Like
in a behavioural way or (interrupting: yeah).
Interviewee: I think that it is very natural to want to behave like your peers, like the people around
you in the classroom. If you are with a lot of Danish students you wanna be like them. Even a lot of
what they do is not aloud at home. So you get this, this sort of split personality that they have to
be… they try to behave like their friends when they are at school but they have to keep it secret for
the parents, and so… that can be very difficult to navigate in, if you are young individual. So, maybe
you wanna go to a party and you can’t do that, yeah… it is difficult. Ahm.. I would say that the ones
that you’ve got versus the girls from Syria that came a few years back, that have been raised in a
muslim environment, they had a… it is easier for them to say ok the Danes are like this we are like
this we don’t do… but it is more difficult if you’ve gone to kindergarden, you’ve gone with… Danish
kids all the way, you just look at the other people and you want to be like that. That’s what I hear
from them. They feel like they are deprived and free. Yeah… pause…
Interviewer: so, education as you said is a way to escape but..
Interviewee: that is how they feel. If it happens, I don’t know, but… that is one of the reasons that
they are pursuing this that they feel like if they can manage on their own, then they don’t, they don’t
really stay with the family.
Interviewer: I am very … curious to know, if a person got submitted in a program in another city, if
their families would let them go there. I don’t know if you have any information about it.
Interviewee: well, my … ah… from what I know is.. if we are talking about the girls. That is my ah.. my
focus has been on the girls because that is really… I feel a lot of empathy for them. But the girls are
not allowed, are not really allowed to live on their own. No, that is usually not accepted. They should

6
be living with a male, sort of caretaker. But, the only exception, that is actually if they have to go
somewhere for education. That is from what I’ve read, mosty the only acceptable sort of… so, so in a
way from what I hear you ask, that is a possibility.
Interviewer: alright, that is interesting. I don’t have myself other questions. Would you like to add
something?
Interviewee: I, I think we have it covered
Interviewer: thank you.

2. Maria’s Interview
Interviewer: So, we are going to start with questions about the university and your life, would you
like to say some things about your self and…?
Interviewee: ah.. yeah my name is Maria and I was born and raised up in Copenhagen and my my
father is also born and raised up here, so we are apparently.. I am third generation immigrant here
in Denmark. And currently I am studying occupational therapy in UCL and ahm… and eh… but I am
also a cosmetologist from my previous education.. Educational background which I completed in
2006, but then when my son got diagnosed with mental retartment on autism, so I planned to
pursue another education, which is occupational therapy. Not only to help him, but also to, you
know like, it gave me a huge inspiration. My son is my biggest inspiration of changing the education
direction.
Interviewer: when did you start this program?
Interviewee: oh… I just started a year in. first, I had to redo my, redo my college. Because I feinsihed
college in ah.. 2000 and as for the new laws in 2017, that is expired. So I had to redo the college
again.
Interviewer: yeah… so, this was a difficult part of getting in the course.
Interviewee: yeah, yeah it was.
Interviewer: what where the other requirements to get in the course?
Interviewee: oh, you have to have… nine months of working experience and you have to have
psychology and biology and Danish, English and sociolo… no, no sociology, political science as a
requirement and that I have completed.
Interviewer: yeah, so what the education that you are doing now is it difficult for you? How is the
course?
Interviewee: it is primarily body autonomy that we have right now. The … it is built up on 7
semesters that you also have to have internship included in the hospital, where you see… where you
get to know and FEEL the basics of the education, you know, with your own hands and senses. And
that is to become an occupational therapist. And we work with a… mentally impaired people,
handicaps and psychologically impaired people, children with special needs..
Interviewer: so, can I go back a little bit? And ask you about ah.. so you grew up in Copenhagen.
Where did you grow up in Copenhagen?
Interviewee: yeah I grew up in Brondby strand in Copenhagen.
Interviewer: where is that?

7
Interviewee: that is a little bit further from it’s … it’s southern Copenhagen.
(pause for checking the recording)
Interviewer: and like about the environment in the university, what do you think about that?
Interviewee: the environment is very good, because they have multiple issues in UCL. They have…
they have programs and basically they have, we are in the health sector, where.. where there are
nurses, occupation therapists and physiotherapists. So, these three are the primary big ah…
programs in that university, so the environment is very good and everybody is just taking care of
their staff and they eh,… and the structure is well, organized as well. And you… and you… you can
also choose to work from home. You just have to be active 40 hours per week averagely, including
homework. So, these hours can get covered.
Interviewer: is there a difference in your experience in the cosmetology and the college
Interviewee: (interrupting) oh yeah it’s huge! Because eh… in cosmetology you work for.. I mean you
built up on something which already is perfect. And on the other hand in occupation therapy you
built up for basic needs. I mean you help people to strive through their daily basis life. You try to
make things easier for somebody who is in need. And in cosmetology you are basically, you know is ..
youuuu want to look good. You wan to shine bright and have a glowing skin and with occupation
therapy, you know, it’s like, you just wanna use your hands. You want to enhance your motor skills,
your fine motor skills, your gross motor skills, so I think it’s a huge difference. And the similarities in
both education are that you are trying to help someone filling better about themselves, so that’s the
similarity.
Interviewer: and also about the similarities or differences in the environment in the university. Like,
do you feel there were differences between school and university?
Interviewee: yeah yeah yeah! There is a huge, there is a huge difference. As I said before, as I said.
Because in colleges and in in in schools you are up to… there are attendances. Yeah, number one,
whereas the things are more ahm.. open in UCL where you can choose. What lessons you wanna
take and what not to take, you can work from home, but you just have to be student active by
submitting the assignments some times.
Interviewer: did that help you in every day life with the children and everything?
Interviewee: yeah yeah! Yeas of course! Because you have flexible hours. So, that is very, it is plus
point when you have children to, to cope up with.
Interviewer: and (pause) like.. did you experience changes after you got in the program with your
everyday life? Did you have to adjust things?
Interviewee: of course, being a mother and eh… living with a family (pause) it is all about
adjustments. Life would have, would be so much easier if I was a bachelor and I would do this
program. But, but then you have a nosy kid in the middle of the homework or a sick child, so you
know it is basically all about adjustments. Because you have to adjust. It is all compromise.
Sometimes you are in a situation that I have a sick child and I have an assignment to cope up with
and then you get stuck. What thing? What, what would you prioritize mostly right now. So, that is
the dilemma, working with… having children and studying. That is the biggest dilemma.
Interviewer: and eh… what are you expecting? What are your goals taking this education?
Interviewee: I would say that my, my goal at pursuing this education is professionally and
emotionally, because as I said my biggest inspiration pursuing this education is my son. Because half
of, when we used to go to meetings with the occupational therapy, therapist, most of the things I
(emphasized) had to do with my son at home. So, that made me half therapist already. You know,

8
with all those exercises, all those tasks that had to be done, during the day, helping my son out. So
that made my son my inspiration. And I have seen, well, I remember when he was ruled out eh… for
the diagnosis he’s got, there were 12 eh… doctors and therapists sitting on one table, and I was
there, my son’s pedagogue was there and the…. Neurologists said “ahm… the situation right now
looks like that, I don’t even think that your son will come to a normal school.” But the therapy has
helped him so much, that today he is in a normal school, in a public school, just having his therapies
added on! So, you know, occupation therapy has helped him strive! So drastically, that from special
needs school to an.. now he sits among normal children, in a normal class. Like if there is nothing,
you know!? So, that is why he is my largest inspiration. Which made me think that, I should do more
of it. I should help eh… people eh… in this field.
Interviewer: yeah, it changes a lot!
Interviewee: it changes! I can come, I can come with my own experience, I can share my own
experience with somebody that might have lost hope about their child! I can share my experience
and you know, make them think..! that listen this is not the end of the world. That there are chances,
you just need to have hope, you know! And trust yourself. Trust you instinct and trust your child
importantly, yeah! So that, and then, then it helps.
Interviewer: yeah, ok, it changes a lot in the way you see. And but… do you think it changes also ah…
like getting an extra education, an upper education eh… it changes something in the way other
people see you? Like in the community, in the family?
Interviewee: yeahhh! Of course! Because in the community I live in, there is a lot of negative society
control. And I often get these questions. How do you manage? Don’t think that you children get
neglected? Don’t you think that your husband gets neglected? Don’t you think this? Don’t you think
that? Because they think out of their perspectives. Because these are the basic things that keeps
them (emphasized) out of getting their educations done. Because they need, they think that they
can’t move forward because eh… the think that children or family are their barriers! For an
education. And they can’t get out of their barriers. And that, and that keeps them away from, from
pursuing a character, a carrier sorry! Or an education, because of the negative society control here
in Vollsmose.
Interviewer: hm! But..
Interviewee: but one thing I wanna add is: because of the co-education system here in Dermark,
(noise). Because of the education system here, mainly the women, the people here in Vollsmose
they are from Muslim countries, yeah. Basically from war torn countries. So they don’t have the….
(pause). And then, they, for example, see that “oh, so you, you work with men? So you ah.. so you sit
along with men? And, you know, you do homework with them? Oh, you are oh.. you know” because
the go through this, that if one woman is standing and talking to her classmates, male calssmates,
and some man from they society sees them, it is just gonna revolve around that, that woman, she is,
she gets known to be a slut maybe. Because she mingles around, that she mingles around with other
men. And this is the reason that she goes to college or university. That is the perception here.
Interviewer: did you have this experience (pause) or someone you know had this experience?
Interviewee: I did not have this experience now. But! From my earlier marriage, this was the main
reason why I was not allowed to have an education, because I had to sit around in a class with a
bunch of boys.
Interviewer: alright! And you mean, like.. your husband eh..
Interviewee: yes, yes. My husband. My ex husband (Interviewer: oh, ok I see). And a lot of women
are facing this here.

9
Interviewer: did you get your cosmetology degree during?
Interviewee: after my divorce.
Interviewer: ok, ah, after your divorce. Because, do you believe that if you went to a… only female
like ahm… class he would let you? Or do you believe there were other reasons other than men?
Interviewee: I think. I think that it was, if it was, if it was only for females then he would. Because
there is a lot of insecurity which lies in this culture’s men. And the eh… insecurity is the biggest
barrier for all these women to pursue their educations. Because there is, their insecurities. Because
of their luck of trust, or because they are horny for power. That I have the power on my woman… I
think there is also that. That is the issue. I think.
Interviewer: I see. But now during this education do you have some kind of support from your
family?
Interviewee: oh yes! I have complete support.
Interviewer: you mean by your husband? Like in everyday things like..?
Interviewee: yeah. I mean we do the tasks 50-50 eh… despite my back issues. You know I am not
allouwed to vacuum or scrab the toilet. He does that. So, when I have to do homework, he will sit
with the kids and I when I have to do assignments, he would take the kids out for a day. Yeah! Just to
hang out, you know, taking them to the beach or Stige or some legeplads. So I can have peace.
Three, four hours of peace, so I can do my assignments. Yes, it is pretty important.
Interviewer: And what about your.. eh parents?
Interviewee: oh my mother she! My father he… he passed away ten years ago but he was
accountant in time, so he was very career oriented. He really, really wanted us girls, and especially
us ehm girls eh… I have a little sister, and my little sister, she is a eh… how do you call it? She is a real
estate agent and she did her bachelors from London school of economics, so, we never had this
problem. She got, she just got married couple of years ago. She, she had no issues, you know,
finishing her education.
Interviewer: so yeah, you family was supporting education. Alright. Ahm. Ok, but do you believe that
your family, like your parents or also your larger family like had certain expectations from you that
..?
Interviewee: as I told you earlier, the culture that we come from, they are very ahm.. they (Pause)
they are hungry for education. They will do. They would sacrifice, for example the men, the country
men, they would sacrifice, the men, as soon as they become parents they sacrifice their lives to, to
sum up for their children’s education and their futures, so that they can have an education. Because
they don’t have a welfare state in Pakistan for example. And ehm.. people are very supporting there.
They want their children to strive. And to have an education. Because it means a lot as a family, it
means a lot that a child gets their education done (emphasized). Maybe you know, Malala Yousafzai.
She was a girl next door, she came from Taliban, from Taliban, how do they call? They Taliban had
taken over, in that part, particularly small part of Pakistan. They are all gone now, but in that time,
the education was so important for her, that at that time, she went out. She survived a head wound
from a gunshot and she is… she opened up her mouth and stood up for the girls’ education in
Pakistan, as an example.
Interviewer: so there are expectations, but they are totally different from what… (both laugh) so,
but, but I just wanted to say, as you describe it is like, the opposite of like what you experienced with
your first marriage or something. And now I want to ask you some things about Vollsmose that you
are living and what do you think about this place, as a place to live?

10
Interviewee: I really love Vollsmose, as a place. It has, it has huge apartments. Spacious apartments.
And you open the door and you have access to nature. Unfortunately, unfortunately… because of a
small community… because there are 10000 people living here and maybe 400 – 500 hundred of
these 10000 people. 500 is still small comparingly to 10000. They have ruined this place completely.
Interviewer: in what way?
Interviewee: in… in… being privileged, and taking advantage of the system.
Interviewer: you mean the welfare system?
Interviewee: the welfare, the health system. Everything. Everything. And you know, when you live in
a ghetto, it… it… it is contagious. That when you sit with people that they are not doing anything. Or
just having, you know, social help. Then when you see them, “oh! They are living actually a lavish
life, by doing nothing! Why don’t I just do the same?” this thing has made this particular place a
ghetto! Because it is so contagious that people want to do the same! Why do I have to stand up, shit
o clock in the morning, drive 20 kilometers to a work space and get three, four thousand more than I
get in social by doing nothing! So, it is just so contagious that it ended up making this place as a
ghetto. And once this thing is contagious it has spread around, then criminality steps in. negative
society control is there too. Because primarily, everybody knows everyone. Because they are from
the same country, same culture, same religion. So, everybody knows everyone. So, my business
might be everybody’s business.
Interviewer: so, everything is known.
Interviewee: so, everything is known. So, I work for an NGO, and once, I have a friend her husband
she called me once, HE called me once saying that “you stay away from my wife!” and I am like
“why?” “oh, you guys are the people who make divorces, because you are the ones that lift up
women, you tell them, you you educate them in wrong rights and then they don’t want to take care
of their homes anymore, or cook food, or anything anymore, so you are bad influence on my wife, so
you stay away from her” and I said, then I answered him “but she always spoke good about you, she
was actually happy that you were her husband, she doesn’t have any issues, so why are you scared?”
you get me? So, there! He had his answer. He did not answer me back, but there he had his answer!
What is that that is scaring you so much? That your wife needs to take her education, or a job, earn
some money independently, because domestic violence comes, it is not only about hitting! There is
economic violence, there is psychological violence, there is so many abuses! But he doesn’t want to
take the power away from, from himself by making her independent.
Interviewer: yeah, such a small thing as education let’s say, seems to him…
Interviewee: exactly! Education, or just a job. He did not want to give her the privilege. (interviewer:
not even a job?”) yes! Because if the husband earns let’s say, 14.000, 15.000 and if a woman
educated herself, unskilled work, because majority of the men living in this community does not
have an education, unfortunately. So, if they are in a job, they are unskilled jobs, and if the women,
they get an education and they end up earning 10.000 more averagely than their husband. And then
their husband has an ego issue! Yeah!! It is all about the ego issues. Why we need to support our
wives to earn more than us, then she will think higher of herself, then he will lose control, and I
don’t have control over her. This is the, this is the basic problem with women and education in this
society.
Interviewer: that is also very interesting because, as far as I saw the last statistics in Denmark, like,
the women in Muslim communities and ghettos in general, exceeded… like they were going so good
in education until about 22 to 24, right about the time that they were getting married and having
children. So, women were able to take, I believe able to take education. But after marriage it seems
that this was not their right anymore.

11
Interviewee: no, they disappear! They disappear! Because they don’t.. the first thing that they get
labeled with, or stamped with when they go out for jobs having children and having a family to
support, the first thing they get stamped with is “oh, she is neglecting her family for her career.”
They get stamped of being a neglecting mother. So, this, so women think that “oh, I would rather
stay home and cook hot food for the children and the husband every day and do this and do that,
like daily house chores than being labeled, and that demotivates them, and then they get so used to
it that is how they live the rest of their lives, unless they get divorced. Because many women, 90% of
the women pursue educations again after in their marriage, is actually when they get divorced.
Interviewer: yeah, and even though they have their children by their own and everything they still
pursue (Interviewee: yeah yeah they still pursue!) alright, that is interesting.
Interviewee: but there is only like 10% of them. The ratio is not high. There is only a small amount
that does that.
Interviewer: and what are your personal relationship with the rest of the community here like?
Interviewee: ahhh… I have an ok, good network. Because ah… apparently, you know what halal is
yeah? Haram is the forbidden. With me and my husband it is that we are too, we are too haram for
the halal people (Interviewer: ok! Ah!) and we are too halal for the haram people (both laughing) for
the, for the non-believers. So, it is like just you know, we don’t know, we don’t know where we fit in.
because when, when we sit with community women here in Vollsmose, and when they get to know
“your husband he drinks, oh!! Oh, and what other you guys also do?” well, we party, at home, also
we sometimes you know we take a joint. “oh you smoke joints with your husband, that is so haram,
now aren’t you a muslim, and how do you do it, why?” bla, bla, bla. So, you know, you get labelled as
a… so you keep your distance at times. Yeah? So they do keep their distance, but people who know
me, are my friends, I don’t have an issue there. But the rest should not know. Because if they get to
know, they come up with so many questions and so many eh… judgmental, what can you say,
remarks! That it just pulls you down, so, I’d rather not.
Interviewer: yeah, yeah. And ah… would you rather keep still living here?
Interviewee: well, now they are ripping down the buildings and they have a greater Vollsmose plan,
where they have to spread the community in the rest of the parts of Fyn or Odense. So, they want to
break, break down the word ghetto from here. So, let’s see in the future. But I completely
understand. I don’t have any contradictions on their plans. I completely understand that they should
do it.
Interviewer: do you support it?
Interviewee: yes I support it. Not because I am a racist of other. But yes I support it because ehm… I
love this place. And because of other people’s fuck ups, I have to leave. And I don’t think that I will
get, you know, this thing in other places, where I would just have to open my back door and have
access to nature and to play areas in other places. And because of other people’s fuck ups, it’s,
families, like my family have to go through pain of living this place. But it is important. It is
important.
Interviewer: yes, I see. And ahm.. ahm.. and this thing that you described before with the whole
community and ah the very close ties of the community, and also the negative parts that this has, as
you said like social control, and rumors and everything. Do you think that it would be different
outside of a ghetto area, or do you think it is similar in the rest of the country?
Interviewee: no! it’s a… it’s a… it makes a huge difference if a woman lives outside a ghetto area.
Because there, then, there you can, you don’t have that, you don’t have the eyes of the country
men, lurking after, following you, where you are going and… sometimes, some women also
experience some, for example, I have a friend. She went to Granparken to drop off her daughter, a

12
couple of moths ago. She went to Granparken to drop off her daughter and all of a sudden she had a
call from her husband saying: “where are you? I just heard you are in Granparken?” and she said
“what the hell? Do I have GPS in my car? How do you know I am in Granparken?” “oh, somebody
saw you”. So, that somebody, is so jobless, that he saw somebody’s wife in Granparken, dropping
her child and he called her husband telling him, that your wife is in Granparken.
Interviewer: yeah, and this is like at the edge of this area, right? It is not even far.
Interviewee: it is not even far.
Interviewer: so, you believe that this wouldn’t happen if it was not here? Yeah?
Interviewee: this wouldn’t happen if this was not a ghetto. And people didn’t know each other.
Interviewer: ok, do you have anything else to add or something that you think that we didn’t say?
Interviewee: well, we covered mostly about negative society control and the women and the women
that are having an education despite having children are the ones that are divorced. Yeah. I think we
are good.
Interviewer: thank you so much!
Interviewee: you’re welcome.

3. Kashia’s Interview
4. Interviewer: alright, would you like to tell us some things about yourself?
5. Interviewee: ahm, about my, what would you..?
6. Interviewer: about your background, your life here, your family maybe, some basic
information?
7. Interviewee: I was born in Libanon. I have two refugee parents, they are from Palestine. And
I came, we were refugees in Denmark when I was four years old. So, I’ve been living here
since I was four years old and I’ve been… I started the school system in Denmark from the
very beginning, from kindergarden and all. I have been living in Odense, in Vollsmose for all
my life here. And eh.. yeah.. I am the oldest of nine children. My.. I went to a school, how is
it called? Primary school and it was a predominately Danish school, with Danish children.
8. Interviewer: was it here in Vollsmose?
9. Interviewee: no, it was outside Vollsmose, because we were living at the end of vollsmose,
so we actually belonged in the other district school. And… what else? My father worked.
That is an important thing in my background to say, that my father worked and supported
us. And yeah! So, that was it. And then after I left, I finished my school years with
predominately Danish kids, also I continued that tendency in my high school and all of that. I
had it easy with the Danish kids.
10. Interviewer: so you.. it was vary easy for you to use the language in every day since you were
young and so?
11. Interviewee: yes! And I say somehow I was better with the Danish because I was also bullied
a lot (laugh), that is cool.
12. Interviewer: that’s cool?
13. Interviewee: yeah, my plan was cool, since the second grade and up til I finished. But I had
one good friend.

13
14. Interviewer: for what reason?
15. Interviewee: because I put the scarf on. I put the scarf on at the second grade. I was young, I
wasn’t supposed to put it on that young, but because they started bulling me I kept it on
(Laugh)
16. Interviewer: like from..?
17. Interviewee: defiance, kind of.
18. Interviewer: so, you wanted to support your background.
19. Interviewee: yeah!
20. Interviewer: so what about your life nowdays? After you had your own family?
21. Interviewee: yes, I am married. I was married at 19. I have three children and yeah!
22. Interviewer: oh nice! Would you like to tell us a little bit about your studies? Like in
university and masters?
23. Interviewee: yes. I started in… I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I was very good at math
and physics and staff like that, but I liked more the social studies. And eh.. when I was ready
to start studying, because I had a ten year break, as of the children. Ten year break from
studying, then I came back. I wanted to study something I love, but I wasn’t sure what and
then at the same time, a study called intercultural pedagogy opened in the university. It was
a bachelor. It was both with an Arabic line you could choose and a Danish line. And it was
very much about interculture and staff like that. So, that appealed to me, I chose it and then
studied cultural sociology in Esbjerg, as a master.
24. Interviewer: as I understood you finished high school at 18-19 that you had your family and
children and then you continued again around 28. And how come did you continue? Did you
always wanted to go to upper education?
25. Interviewee: I was always wanted to go to upper education, I was always… by my father, my
whole family, they saw me as I have to. I am very smart (laugh) that’s what I have to. So, it
was always on my mind. I couldn’t have peace without having an education. Because ten
years is a lot time to be away and then come back. So, it was always like a destiny to me, I
had to have, I had to have an education.
26. Interviewer: so, your family supported you as I understand a lot.
27. Interviewee: yeah a lot. My mother helped me with the children and everything.
28. Interviewer: so, what about your other brothers and sisters? Is it a notion in your family,
they think highly of education?
29. Interviewee: yeah, very highly. So, all my brothers and sisters have education as well.
30. Interviewer: impressive. So, what were the challenges… like you are a mother and a wife and
you also had a heavy schedule I guess at the same time.
31. Interviewee: yeah I had a schedule with the children and studying in the university. My
mother helped a lot with like, babysitting and staff like that. But it was fine. Yeah. That was
the mediate challenge from the family.
32. Interviewer: there was what?

14
33. Interviewee: that was the immediate challenges. Like family life and working, and balancing
with the studying. But I had a lot of challenges as well, even bigger challenges.
34. Interviewer: like?
35. Interviewee: that was the constant bullying in primary school. The constant, what is it
called? Teachers not having expectations for you. That was the biggest challenge. Always
having to like, prove yourself. That made you also, might not trust authority that much,
because if I trusted the teachers and.. then I was nothi.. I couldn’t do anything. And my
teacher actually told me she hoped I could work in a factory (laugh)
36. Interviewer: excuse me?
37. Interviewee: in a factory in Jutland for instance.
38. Interviewer: she hoped?
39. Interviewee: yeah, for me. That’s the highest hope for me. To work in a factory deep in
Jutland. Jutland was perceived as like far away in Denmark.
40. Interviewer: ok, I am very sorry to hear that.
41. Interviewee: so yeah, I never got that recognition and I was… I am not sure it was pure ev..
that it was evil intentions from the teacher. She was more like, maybe she was more like,
maybe it was good intentions but with very bad results. Like they were thinking “oh maybe
she is a refugee, she doesn’t need all these burdens”. They didn’t expect anything from me. I
never handed any papers or anything and I had bad grades. Yeah…
42. Interviewer: because you didn’t have this good relationship or because..?
43. Interviewee: because I didn’t have anyone to help me with the writing and I was very shy, so
I didn’t speak a lot. But they just left me to my own, like just alone kind of. Maybe they
thought they were being nice, I don’t know. (Laugh). They just left me alone until seventh
grade. And then seventh grade I had a chemistry teacher, I talked with him a lot. I saw him
actually the other day after 20 years or something. So, I had this chemistry teacher, that was
very nice and then one day I was packing the, putting the glasses that we were using for
experiment and staff, putting the back in cabinet and I was very like structured and staff like
that and he complimented me, he said “you are very structured, you are very mentally…
how you put the glasses back” so… so, he gave me a compliment that wasn’t about anything
like academic. But when he did that I was so happy, so, I went home and I was studying only
his subject. And we had an exam, like a test sort while after and I had memorized the whole
part that we had, I did really well at that test and he complemented me again, so that was
the first time that I got like ah… recognition, academically or for anything actually at my
primary school. So, that was the challenge for me also, I think what helped me through all
those years in primary, I think it was the fact that maybe in school I was bullied, I was not
really, nothing, no one expected anything from me, but home, I was a superstar! I was very
live, everybody said I was smart. I think that was what helped me through the school system.
44. Interviewer: hm, yeah. It gave you certainly confidence to succeed. you were the biggest of
the children, I guess you had some responsibilities and?
45. Interviewee: no actually. (laughing). You mean like in home?
46. Interviewer: I guess like the qualities they were different, because you said you were like a
superstar.

15
47. Interviewee: yeah yeah. And my father was very good at that, like treating. I didn’t help
much at home. I was like.. my mother, she took care of everything. Not like I had to help
with the small children, or maybe clean and stuff. I didn’t have to do any of that! Or I have to
learn how to cook. My father said like no! Kashia has to concentrate on studying. So, she
doesn’t have to do anything at home. And my mother actually, she was, she was doing
everything.
48. Interviewer: ok, that is very interesting. It is like you were supposed to go there. Like ah..
also back in the country you come from? Is it very common for people to study and
continue?
49. Interviewee: yeah, yeah actually. Especially Palestinians, because we… we were thrown out
of our country and we don’t.. we are stateless as they say. So, actually it is a very high
percentage, actually I think the highest in the world that do it. Maybe it doesn’t reflect here
in Palestinians, but worldwide, it is a different ah..
50. Interviewer: what do you think.. how do you connect that is a stateless.. Palestinian people
with the education?
51. Interviewee: because they see education as the way for a better life. Because many
Palestinians they were in refugee camps and like that. So education is the way out, to a
different country, to a different… out of refugee camps.
52. (pause in interview)
53. Interviewer: what were your expectations from doing a bachelors and a masters?
54. Interviewee: ah.. my expectations. I don’t know. I didn’t have a lot of expectations. I just
wanted to start, see what it was, I was curious with this intercultural thing I chose the Danish
line, not the Arabic, because I thought, I speak Arabic, I should take the other one, in that
way. So, I took the Danish line. It was very interesting after I started. Actually after I finished,
well while studying it, I realized, that this was my first time my qualifications, or my
background was validated, because in that study we really needed to have connections and
every time we had a test or exam, it was about interviewing people and me and a couple of
other students with foreign backgrounds, we actually had the largest network. So, this was
the first time I felt wow I don’t know, ok that’s, that means something. It is not just nothing.
Because up to that point it was meaningless, worthless, it wasn’t anything like you know,
your network, your second language no matter how fluent you were, it was not seen as
positive or a capital. It wasn’t seen as a capital, but this was the first time I, it was, we were
helping the other Danes, Danish students finding people and stuff like that. So, all of a suden
it was currency. It was capital. Yeah.
55. Interviewer: so, the as I understand the university environment was very different from your
primary school.
56. Interviewee: with this bachelor especially, because it was all about intercultural. It was
meetings with the minorities and stuff like that. So, in that way it was very different also,
other than the academic part around it.
57. Interviewer: and what about the master’s? how was the environment there for you?
58. Interviewee: the environment in the master’s was also interesting for me, because there
were a lot of international students. Up until now I had only mingled with the Danes mostly,
not so much international or foreign backgrounds. But what I found out in my master’s was
that I actually connect well with the international students. We had something that
connected us immediately, even though I had a good relationship with the Danes as well. I

16
 also saw something else. It was that the Danes were kept to themselves. They were alright
with me because I speak the Danish language fluently, they were not actually very open to
the others. What I saw! To the other students. So, the international were kept to themselves
and I was in that group as well, and I was also in the Danish group. So, I was like in the
middle of those and I found that interesting.
59. Interviewer: yeah, interesting observation. But you were living in Odense and you were
going to Esbjerg, right?
60. Interviewee: yeah, but I did get an apartment in Esbjerg because I was tired back and forth.
So, I did get an apartment sometimes, somedays of the week I could stay there.
61. Interviewer: yes, I understand the struggle. i would like to ask you some things about the
Vollsmose and your life there. You mentioned that it really helped having a big network and I
want to ask you how is your life there. Do you like living in Vollsmose?
62. Interviewee: I live there for all my life as I said. As a kid it was fabulous, because we were
playing. There were so many kids to play with. Also kids from my background, so I could
speak my mother tongue. But we also played with other kids with foreign background, some
Danish kids. No, no! not some Danish kids (laughs). Because unfortunately, most of the
Danish kids there had many social problems. Most of their parents were.. had a drinking
problem. We didn’t mingle a lot. We did a little, but not really. They had also some
prejudice, and we had some prejudice probably about them. But they had a very tough life I
think those. They had it worse than we did I think. Because their parents were drug abusers,
and abused alcohol and staff like that. And I’ve seen them growing up and they have the
same problems too, with alcohol and staff. So, we mingled mostly with other foreign kids
and then, but we couldn’t just play, like we were not allowed to just go anywhere in
Vollsmose. Like we weren’t allowed to go to the Vollsmose Torv, the shopping centre. We
weren’t allowed to go there for instance. From the beginning
63. Interviewer: why? Was it far?
64. Interviewee: first it was far away, you just didn’t, in my family we just didn’t walk however
you wanted out in the streets and at any time. We were.. I played with my cousins, they just
moved there. so, they always knew where we were, that was vey important also for them,
because other children could go wherever they wanted. Not all the children there in
Vollsmose were so like ah… their parents knew where. Also, my father didn’t like us to go to
those clubs, because they had these social clubs opened there, mainly for foreign children,
but also for Danish children.
65. Interviewer: activities?
66. Interviewee: yeah activity clubs and stuff like that. We were not allowed to go there,
because my father said it was the parents responsibility to do these things with their
children. And also the kids who went to the activities… my father thought their parents
didn’t care enough about them, but not because he had the prejudice, he actually knew
them. And also people, the family now that has a lot of problems, it is a known family in
Vollsmose, they all went there. they were basically raised there, they went there all the
time. That is why we were also not allowed to go there.
67. Interviewer: was it like bad reputation?
68. Interviewee: yeah, bad reputation.
69. Interviewer: and what about your life now as a woman there? is it different?

17
70. Interviewee: now.. I don’t know. I live in a park where there are mostly Somalis. And also, I
don’t know many. I don’t mingle so much, but I know people on the street, we say hi to each
other, and that’s it. We don’t have a lot of close friends in Vollsmose.
71. Interviewer: ok. Do you have other friends outside? Why don’t you like to mingle?
72. Interviewee: I don’t know. I keep more to myself and I also visit mostly my family. And all my
network, all my close friends are from my studies. So that’s were I have my friends, but I
don’t have many.. but I know people and I know their parents and stuff, and I say hi on the
street and that is as far as it goes. My children don’t go out to play too much as well in the
area. (laughs)
73. Interviewer: how come?
74. Interviewee: I don’t know. They haven’t mingled with anybody. They didn’t click with
anybody maybe there. maybe I just continued the tradition of not having my kids out
somewhere, also with the family. But they don’t just go out the streets there, out in
Vollsmose.
75. Interviewer: are you also concerned like your father was about mingling?
76. Interviewee: I don’t know. Yeah maybe I am. (laughs)
77. Interviewer: yeah ok, I understand that.
78. Interviewee: my kids also don’t go to these social clubs either, for instance. Because it has
this reputation. Someone with social problems goes to those, or children whom their
parents cannot handle them or something they go to those. Maybe.
79. Interviewer: can I ask you what… what do you think.. what relationships people in Vollsmose
form with each other? Like not only your personal ones, because I understand you avoid a
little bit but..
80. Interviewee: yeah I don’t know if I try to avoid. I was also speculating myself about this, why
do I have so little friends in Vollsmose, but I don’t know.. it was.. I say it was not on purpose.
It was not destined, because that was the people I’ve met on my way, they were not from
Vollsmose. So, I say that, but I don’t know if that was the only explanation. Maybe I was
distant to myself. Maybe.
81. Interviewer: it’s also like those ten years, that you were not meeting these people. You had
your children, you had your family.
82. Interviewee: yeah exactly. And it is the people that you meet on your way that you form
meaningful relationships with, but on the other hand, I got a friend when I was like 23, my
first Arabic friend and then I was observed at least that it was very easy to get to know them.
For me at least. We could relate in so many levels without speaking.. but we had the same
background. So that was interesting.
83. Interviewer: so do you want to keep living in Vollsmose?
84. Interviewee: ehm… no. (laughs)
85. Interviewer: ok I understand.
86. Interviewee: people have good relationships there to answer your question. Actually they do
have good relationships there with each other. Visit the old people for instance. They don’t
feel lonely, because there is always somebody visiting them. For instance the old ladies and
men. Not only their children and family, but also the surrounding community, they visit

18
 them. We condole each other. We don’t have to know each other very well for that. If
somebody dies, we go there and give our condolences, if they lose someone. So. In that way
yeah, we have a good realtioship. Ahm.. what else? But why I don’t want to.. well, my
parents just moved from Vollsmose to… not very far away. To Syn. It is not very far away, but
they moved away from Vollsmose and I was thinking. That is why I was thinking to move, to
be close to my parents. But also it struck me that my children didn’t grow up with friends
from the same area. I was like what? What? How come? But I didn’t think so much about it
while they were growing up, because we always had family and a lot of network, so I didn’t
think they didn’t have a lot of friends from that area to play with. So, that is why. Also,
because I don’t wanna live in an apartment. I want a house. Also, there are also problems in
Vollsmose. Like recently, the shootings. And for the first time in this incident a person
actually died. So yeah! And also because of my children and now my children are getting
older.
87. Interviewer: how old are they?
88. Interviewee: 16 to 17 and then 14 and 13. And they also only gone to schools outside
Vollsmose, and yeah. I want to also spare them the stigma “oh, I come from Vollsmose’ so
they don’t say to their friends that they come from Vollsmose. Even though I said to them
that it is fine to live in Vollsmose, but the pressure has become too much.
89. Interviewer: I understand that you were very stigmatized to say that. But do you think that
even now your children are stigmatized in their schools?
90. Interviewee: because we live in Vollsmose, I told them that wherever that is, even though I
also went only to a Danish school. I wasn’t ashamed of living in Vollsmose. Maybe I was
taught to be whoever you are. So, I told them the same. He says, that yeah they ask my son
“the shoot in your place, I heard on the news” or whatever. Sometimes we don’t know it
ourselves. Some people from the outside know more than we do, because we don’t
experience it like immediately. But yeah stuff like that. And maybe they don’t say it like
directly to them but yeah.
91. Interviewer: ok I understand. They act like…
92. Interviewee: prejudice. Maybe they don’t say to my son “oh, he comes from there”. in their
mind they know what area he comes from, and in their mind they put this prejudice, who
they expect he is. For instance, his teacher (laughs), she told him “I am very proud of you,
because you don’t speak pizza Danish”. Pizza Danish is a term that in one point a politician
has used, like pizzeria Danish. That is Danish that people who work in a pizzeria, speaking
with an accent or something. She’s very proud of him (laughs). She meant it in a nice way
93. Interviewer: aah! Yes, I understand, but I also understand the prejudice that you are
describing. Yes, yes ok. (pause) ok. And after your education what have you succeeded, with
work and.. can I ask you something? Were you working before your education?
94. Interviewee: no. I have not worked., I just was taking some classes, because I had some
language concentrated high school diploma if you can say that. I had latin and Greek, but … I
didn’t have those math and physics in the level I needed if I wanted to eh.. if I wanted to
study pharmacy or something. So, I was taking those classes at that point. And I worked, but
like my father opened a place making place and stuff. I was making some cakes (laugh).
Wedding cakes and stuff. But other than that no, not working before the education.
95. Interviewer: and now?
96. Interviewee: so now yeah. Well, I finished my education. I was.. I don’t know. I had.. when
you finish your education you feel like on top of the world, like conquer the world, but then

19
 reality hits you, you have to sit down and realize that there are many people with the same
qualifications and you start writing those job applications and they hit you hard. They have
all those rules. You have to write two times a week. And they treat you like, I don’t know.
When you are free like a student. You are a free bird, now you have like to really…
97. Interviewer: ah! You mean in..
98. Interviewee: job centre. And check your, I don’t know, but every week and do all kinds of
things.
99. Interviewer: was it a stressful period?
100. Interviewee: very stressful! But now I think in hint sight, you have to take it easy
with it, because there is nothing more you can do. You can apply only for so many jobs and
whatever happens, happens. But they do definitely try to stress you out. So, yeah. And then I
start applying for jobs. I thought I was pretty good myself (laughs). I would do a great job in
different areas. So I applied fo those, but I never heard back for six months, this.. I guess it is
normal. It takes a while before you find a job. But then I saw this job for translator.
Translator, that’s not a great job, because I was doing it, I was doing actually some
translation work as a study job, when I was stydying. And everybody can be a translator, kind
of. That is the notion. So, I wasn’t really, but my friend wanted to apply. She wanted me to
see her application in Danish. It was fine. And she said why don’t you apply as well? Just for
fun. So, I applied and I got the job and she didn’t. so, yeah, now I am working there. it is not
my dream job, but.. it’s fine for now. Yeah.
101. Interviewer: I can see. Ok. And did you feel that now, after this job and studies there
is different way that the people perceive you? Like your family maybe or people in
Vollsmose after?
102. Interviewee: in Vollsmose actually I was always perceived as an educated person.
Not only my family actually. Everybody I Vollsmose actually was thinking me to be … to
study. In my generation we were many. I was the first actually generation who went to high
school, gymnasium. So, they were all like thinking hihly of me, because I was the only one
in.. like a big area in Vollsmose who went. So, that was also pressure for me, but after I
finished.. I don’t know. It is the same. They always perceived me that way. I feel. My family
no. the same. Of course I think they are proud that I’ve finished because they had lost hope
for a while, when I stopped for ah.. the children.
103. Interviewer: your father and family you mean?
104. Interviewee: yeah. So, I think they are happy and..
105. Interviewer: what about your children and your husband.
106. Interviewee: they are proud, my children it think, because that is what I said in the
beginning. When you told me to talk about myself, I said my father worked, because it was a
very big thing in my… in the forming of my identity. It was a very big thing, because you get
the prejudices that ah.. foreigners don’t work, they get on the social benefits and stuff, so,
when they were bulling me at school and said “oh, you are on social benefits and blab la”, I
had this weapon saying “no, my father works”. So, that was a very proud thing for me. So, I
could at least answer back for that prejudice. So, yeah I saw education myself also as a way
to lift my children up actually, for their generation. So, yeah it is always a bigger thing. It was
not just studying. It was studying to lift my children up, their generation and all that. So
yeah, that mentality there.
107. Interviewer: and what about your husband? Does he also work or educating?

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 108. Interviewee: my husband has an education from an Arabic country he was raised
there. and he.. I got married and he wasn’t raised here. So, he came from a different
country. He had a very hard time with Danish language. He has actually a master’s degree in
religion, but that doesn’t mean anything here. So, he didn’t manage to… but he works as an
Arabic teacher, in like privately. Yeah.
109. Interviewer: nice. Ok I think I finished. I don’t know if you have something to add.
Something we didn’t discuss and you were thinking about.
110. Interviewee: I don’t know maybe I talk too much (both laugh). No, nothing I think.
Well, as we were doing this interview I was thinking that social control in my life, was coming
from society. My family, my culture and the background I was coming from. That was the
background that was lifting me up. The social control for me it was in school actually. From
society. They try to get me in this box. Ok you are a foreign kid, you stay in this box. That was
very interesting. And now that my kids are in school, I’m always trying to go to the meetings,
because I am trying to lift this iron curtain for them, that of prejudice that mine had and i…
to show that they have strong parents. What I mean by strong, like they are there to speak
about them, they are there to stand up for themselves, they are educating, they are
working. And maybe there will be no prejudice about them after that.
111. Interviewer: ok thank you very much!

4. Sena’s Interview
Interviewer: would you like to tell us some things about where you grew up? About your family?
You?
Interviewee: yes, ok. Just let me know when to start.
Interviewer: yeah, you can start whenever you want to. Like now.
Interviewee: my name is Sara. I am 27 years old. I am born and raised in Korskærparken, in
Fredericia. My family background is from Iran. They came to Denmark in 85.
Interviewer: your parents came?
Interviewee: my father came in 85 and my mom she came in 86. And I basically, lived in
korskærparken until I moved out, when I was 19 for a year and then I came back and worked there
until I was ready to go to Odense, where I lived for the last couple of years before I relocated to UK.
Interviewer: yeah. And did you move to Odense to study?
Interviewee: yeah. But I stopped. It was not for me for instance, and just like every other person, I
wasn’t so sure and I changed my studies. And up to the point that I felt it was more smart to work a
little bit more and whenever I want I can turn back to my studies.
Interviewer: what was the subject of your studies?
Interviewee: I have studied, the last thing it was hospitality management. But the first thing was
international business and communication, but that is not, they don’t have that program anymore.
Interviewer: ok. And eh… how was the education when you were there?
Interviewee: the education was fine. It was not, I was more myself. In SDU it was much more, how
do you say, more you are on your own kind of, when you study. It was like.. it has its pros and cons.
And on the other side, in UCL it was completely like, boop… studying was not my type. I was more
like to work.
Interviewer: so, was it difficult? Was it like a lot?

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Interviewee: it wasn’t challenging for me like intellectually. It was like, I didn’t, I don’t feel at that
point in my life that I wanted to study, because I was pushing myself, because education was
important in my culture and I was pushing myself very hard to keep, get an education no matter
what. I came in terms with it and I just announced like “I am going to drop out, I need to work for a
couple of years” and my family was very supportive, even though.. “it is your own choice”.
Interviewer: hm, yeah. Like.. do you feel like they expected you to study? It was meant?
Interviewee: since I was like young. I am the youngest of three, and my parents were like “you are
smart, you just go and study and we will do everything for you” and they did, basically did everything
for me. I never had to think about anything in my life. Eh… so.. and also like in between, if I wanted
to change my studies, I changed my studies three times so far. And they were like “you just choose
whatever you like”. They didn’t expect me to become a doctor or.. as other families do, or engineer.
Whatever. They were like “study whatever you want, but study something so you don’t have to work
hard labor”. So, you won’t, how to say, that’s their perspective. Study so you won’t have to tear your
body apart, like while working.
Interviewer: have your parents also studied or?
Interviewee: my father was sent in the military, so he didn’t study like, how to say, they have
mandatory high school. They have to have a grade. So, they have to study two years after that as
well. And then when he went to the army, he didn’t like, he was just being trained. He was in the
army. And my mother she had… I think she had something like shorter study after highschool.
Interviewer: in Iran? Was it recognized here?
Interviewee: it wasn’t recognized, any of it, but mostly my parents they were… like my mother, she
managed to pass everything in her Danish citizenship and everything. She taught herself Danish, she
didn’t go to school. Same as my father, but my father, he started working from day one. Like back
there it was different in the 80’s. it is not the same as now. Like my father when he came, they asked
him like what is your background from Iran? And my father explained he was in the army, he was a
wrestler, like he always has been into sports. And he has wrestle professionally as well. He started
working with sports and he did that until he retired here in Denmark. But my mom took another
path, because it is not like how you say… my mom she didn’t have any.. she wasn’t like a sports’
person or whatever or someone who has a degree in it. So, she had to start from the start, and she
did actually. She managed to learn Danish by herself and later she wanted to work… what is it called
like nursery pedagogue? She started that, but then she got sick and she had to like, she can’t like..
how do you say? They told her that she won’t be eligible to work with people and stuff like that,
because she had a form of epilepsy for example. But she helped me. I remember that my parents did
taught me mathematics. I didn’t know, like I didn’t understand my teacher, so my mom, like my
mom especially she would help me a lot when I was a kid.
Interviewer: nice. Ok. So, would you like to tell me some things like for your years, school years in
Korskærparken?
Interviewee: my school years. Like elementary school.
Interviewer: yeah. like how was it there for you?
Interviewee: well, when we started, it is called like zero class, like beginners’ class, when you go from
kindergarten to school. We had like a more, a more of a blend with Danish people, like ethnically
Danish as well, but that, as we were growing up, like first grade, second and third grade, it was less
and less Danish, they were all moving away. And on the other hand, I had the chance to meet people
from all over the world. We were just.. it has its pros and cons, like it has in every daily basis. I think,
my school it was like very eclectic.

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Interviewer: eclectic? Like what you mean?
Interviewee: it was a wide range of people, you know, as any other school you have the ones that
like sports, you have the musical ones. It was like.. how can I say? My school was good, but it also
had some issues as well, because we didn’t have structure when we grew up.
Interviewer: what do you mean by structure?
Interviewee: structure that mattered, there would be fights at school. Like it could be any kind of
fight. It could be with someone that you didn’t fight yesterday, but somehow you got into a fight the
day after. And it was like, nobody will come and save you. You needed to fight.
Interviewer: hardcore (both laughing).
Interviewee: you need to fight. And usually other would have older brothers and sisters, but I am the
youngest of mine, and my brothers are 13 years older than me and I had to fight by myself. Even
though I was very calm, like I was always the peace keeper of the school. It was not like, it was just
one clique, it was… I was by myself, but I was cool with everybody. So, it was everybody else I have
fights with too. That happened, but.. yeah.
Interviewer: can I go back to university life, like after your school and stuff? When did you start the
university?
Interviewee: after my high school. I had begun after high school, but I finished high school and I
went to… it is like a three year high school instead of… because I had a gap. I had one and a half year,
when I had my own business. And then I went back in high school.
Interviewer: what was your business?
Interviewee: when I was like 17 years old, I had my own coffee shop.
Interviewer: I am so amazed right now.
Interviewee: yeah, I had my own coffee and juice bar, but the thing is that fredericia is a very dead
city. So, it was very very hard for, how do you say? For hospitality management to keep their
businesses alive. Even like clothing stores couldn’t be open.
Interviewer: how come you did that?
Interviewee: because that is the thing. Back then I was like young and stupid. So, I was like “I don’t
want to study, I want to.. I am too smart for this. I don’t want to” (laughs)
Interviewer: you wanted to be a business woman!
Interviewee: yeah! And I was not very old at that point, I was like barely 17 and my parents were like
panicking. And they called my brother like please, talk to her, make some sense. She needs to study,
she is smart”. You cannot use that thing as an argument. You can be smart and do what you want to.
But that was the thing that I meant that we didn’t have structure. We didn’t have… our school from
zero grade to ninth grade it was like.. we didn’t have structure at school. Like at all. We did what we
wanted to do. We just had to do our assignments and we did that in the evening or whenever we
wanted to do, that’s what I meant. No disciplined.
Interviewer: because I don’t exactly know how Danish school system works, is it any different than
other schools?
Interviewee: yeah, so basically I had actually… one of my teachers from that school, the one that is in
Korskærparken, an English teacher when I was around… I think it was in sixth grade, so basically my
parents moved me at another school. So, another one instead of the center of the city. So, I had like

23
a bit of culture, because she saw that I had a bit of English, and everything else, she said that it
would be better for her to be in a school that has more like… it was an international school and on
the other hand it has like… it is more disciplined. So, my parents were like “oh, thank god, we found
something” and then they sent me actually. (laughs)
Interviewer: they sent you to the other school that your teacher proposed.
Interviewee: so, I went to an international elementary school from seventh to ninth grade and I
moved out of this school after ninth grade. So, I had two years been away.
Interviewer: what were the differences in that?
Interviewee: the difference they had, basically what happened, the scenario was, imagine I had
started seventh grade after summer holidays and come there, like first day of school, and I am the
only no ethnical Danish girl in the classroom! And it was like, you feel like so much out of your own
world. It’s completely weird for me. But I liked my teachers, because they were from the UK and
they were very very nice. But like, the classroom were… both my classmates and the Danish
teachers, were so odd that I decided to tell my parents that I wanted to move back to my previous
school.
Interviewer: what do you mean off?
Interviewee: how do you say? It was like, I was just known as the girl from Korskærparken.
Interviewer: like they didn’t mingle?
Interviewee: I have had a bad experience by being a non-ethnical dane, like for one and a half year
and then… that was actually where I had my first fight. Literally. Because I was caught up, how do
you say? Not being accepted as someone, like, with another background.
Interviewer: and it was also an international school!
Interviewee: those are, the international line in a Danish school.
Interviewer: so, you didn’t make like… there were no friends there, as I understand.
Interviewee: no. the only friends I had in that school they were not in my classroom. They were in
another… in the regular classes, like the Danish classes. I saw those once in a while. I knew some of
the other kids as well. I have been with my own. I had like, I didn’t bond with them at all. And I think,
I think it was in eight grade or it was at the beginning of ninth… it was in eighth grade, and then a
huge fight broke out. And it was like, I will never forget that day at all. They called my mom to come
to the school. My mom she was called in, they called her. And they were like “we need to speak with
you right now” and the Danish teacher, she hated my guts, she hated my guts and I was like “I don’t
know what the problem was”.
Interviewer: but shouldn’t they support you if you were a little bit like.. you know. They didn’t
understand you?
Interviewee: (laughs)
Interviewer: did your mom at least understood?
Interviewee: my mom came to the meeting and then the other girl’s parents came to the meeting
and my mom was… because I was really calm as a kid, I was energetic and bubbly, but I wasn’t like,
how do you say? Aggressive. So, my mom she was like “I can’t understand how she actually did it! I
cant understand how did it start? Because you don’t say how the fight actually happened.” And then
they explained to my mom how the fight actually happened and my mom she was like “you are
racist that you want to punish the other one and then you are fascists. If you want to take the, how

24
do you say, the black sheep out of my daughter, then fine. Then I will go to the court’s way of.. if you
want to mistreat my daughter like that”. And then when I actually told my mom that I didn’t want to
go to this school anymore, she didn’t argue with me, she was like “ok, fine, let’s go”.
Interviewer: yeah, I understand. Ok.
Interviewee: see, it has its pros and cons, because when you are in a different city, even in Odense,
when you say you are from Vollsmose, everybody has like, some sort of point of view towards you.
But, for instance, when I say I am from Korskaeparken or… they say ok.. they have a specific image of
you without knowing you.
Interviewer: yeah, like what image do you believe they had for you?
Interviewee: it’s not what they say. It is like, how do you say that? It is like “oh, here comes one of
those immigrants” just like that, or whatever. Or… even though, I am born and raised in Denmark,
most of us are born and raised in Denmark, here. Or like something, that we are all like criminals or
whatever.
Interviewer: ok yeah, i wanted to ask you something about that. It was about this thing, about the
discrimination. You said that you were born and raised in Denmark, ok with ethnic background, but
like, do you think that your values are different from the Danish society? Like the ethnic Danes have
different values?
Interviewee: yeah I think I have like, I have a little bit. I have different values. I am not going to hide.
Because the thing is, and that is like the beauty of living in a group of society, that some people
come from different, they don’t remember that (laughs). my parents, they are not Danish and I don’t
want to leave their like their heritage either, (pause) because that is not the definition of integration.
Integration is when you can merge your background, that is society. I think my parents have done
that beyond any other circumstances. And I made the same thing. My siblings are doing the same
thing. So, I don’t want to, how do you say, throw away all the values that I learned from my family,
to be a complete Danish. Because then I will assimilate, and I don’t want to do that, because no
matter what, as I have been shown since I was born. No matter what, if it was a job interview, if it
was a meeting anyone, how do you say, at a public place, or whatsoever, “oh, you speak so well
Danish” or .. so, why should I let go?
Interviewer: of course, of course.
Interviewee: I am entitled to mix whatever culture I have come. Like I grew up with another, other
kind of, how do you say, nationalities as well. That is the beauty of it. That is one of the pros being
like race and in a so called ghetto or whatever, because I learned about other places in the world,
without being there. yeah, I think I found people that they expect from other people.
Interviewer: true, but do you think that people in Korskaeparken for example, they relate different
to each other, in another way? Comparing to Danish?
Interviewee: like even the Danes that are there, they are different kind of Danes. They are more
openminded Danes. Like, I haven’t had any Danish neighbor telling me, how do you say, it is like a
bad word that you say to a person who is not Danish. You know. I’ve never heard any of my
neighbors saying, how do you say? Say offending things or whatever. So, whatever. If there was
anything that I grew up it was more in between foreigners and the Danish who lived there. some
people who were living in some other like parts of the city had a different view as well. It is like a
complex situation. Like, when I grew up, where we were, have you heard about the youth clubs, so
we have, we can go, like, after school. (interviewer: yes). So, when I was around like fourteen,
fifteen, me and five other guys, we were ambassadors from the commune. And we actually
managed to have like a youth club in Korsaeparken. Just to lower down shenanigans, how do you
say, keep the guys from going to like, blow up posts, stuff like that. They do, it was like… (laugh). So,

25
basically, from that point we went to a congress, because one of the ambassadors and they were
speaking about Korskeaparken had just got off the ghetto list, they were putting it back again. And at
that point, when I was thirteen I was very furious, I didn’t, like, give a, give any opinion about anyone
else, I actually like, just stood up and I ranged. The police were there, all, like, the mayors from
different areas around Fredericia, up to Aarhus and Horsens they were there. and I said “how can
you always put people in that position, when it is the government that puts people together at the
same place, you cannot come and say that we live in like a social controlled environment, but you
move into a city and you go and give your name to one of the offices (pause) to get a house, right?
why do they always put Mr and Mrs Mohamed or Kyriakos or whatever at the same place, instead of
sending them to other different areas, that’s how you create ghettos. You are creating ghettos, not
us!”
Interviewer: how do you feel about the word? How do you feel that it is called a ghetto?
Interviewee: I don’t like the word ghetto, because I don’t see it. In UK I’ve seen ghettos (pause).
Because that’s where are people that they don’t even have food to eat. I don’t… I don’t… in Denmark
with the social standards we have, to say a ghetto, it actually, the government teaches the young
people, these younger ones that are ten years old now, it teaches them that it is ok to say that we
are from a ghetto. They teach them, how do you say? In their brains, the come from a ghetto and
then they will think, if they do something “ok, I am from the ghetto, how does someone from the
ghetto acts?”. They are basically creating low standard people or like, how do you say? Passively-
aggressively, manipulating younger people to become people from the ghetto. Because in Denmark,
we don’t have like, how do you say? That poor when you cannot eat, and you are living on the
street. Because you cannot be homeless without actually choosing it. You can’t. so, if you want to
define a ghetto just because it is more with people with a non-western background, that is racist.
We should actually wanted to call veto of the ghetto list.
Interviewer: so, what is the difference with UK and you say in ghettos?
Interviewee: right now, where I live is new houses. If I walk fifteen minutes away from my house,
you will see abandoned houses, trash everywhere. People that are on a lower social income. And
that’s how you can feel, ok, this is actually what we see on TV. Not in Denmark with the freaking
luxury apartments. Where is actually expensive to live, because in Korskærparken is not actually
cheap to live in. All the apartments are new.
Interviewer: I have never actually been there, but I have been in Vollsmose and I was ok.. that is not.
Interviewee: ok, it is newer than that, because it has actually been renovated, like a couple of years
ago. They are always renovating Korskærparken, every couple of years. Like it is all new, outside,
inside, whatever like, you name it. And it is like, that is what I am saying, it depends on what kind of
point of view you want to look at. The women from the ghettos! The women from the ghettos are
the ones that are more into high school, more into university, because we come from non-ethnical
Danish backgrounds where it is more likely that you will have to take an, how is it called?
Identification.
Interviewer: like a value? Like a cultural value?
Interviewee: like a cultural value! Like for me, whoever I know, Iran, Turkish, even one of the Arabic
countries or even from one of the Balkan countries. They are valued to study. I can speak from my
own background, the Iranian one, because that is I grew up. I and all my childhood friends, we were
basically, how do you say, we always knew that education is a must thing.
Interviewer: what did you expect when you started education? Like what did you want to do with it?
Interviewee: I expected more clearence. Clarity.

26
Interviewer: in what way?
Interviewee: clarity about “ok, this is what I want to do. Yeah, discover my… how do you say? They
called me an octopus, because I wanted to do so many things at the same time. So that… but I didn’t
get that. But that was half because I was putting myself in that situation, where I wanted to figure
out “ok, what kind of study can I find that will help me to get to that point where I.. what kind of
study can I find that I will finish?” but when you don’t want to, and you are not, how do you say? Not
cohe… coherent. You are not determined. Then, there is no point of pushing yourself.
Interviewer: so, as I understand you do get a chance for self-exploration rather than…
Interviewee: because that is the thing. I wanted to do so many stuff, but I didn’t have like, how do
you say? A good guideline of figuring out, ok, which way I actually wanted to like, be with. So, I was
doing five different things at the same time. That doesn’t work out all the time you know (laughs).
Interviewer: yeah I see. Anyway, I am ok with my questions, and I don’t know about your time now.
Can I contact you if I have some questions some other time?
Interviewee: yes, you can if you think… I am sorry I cannot even speak now.
Interviewer: you were actually so empowered when you were talking about the things that you
believed.
Interviewee: but seriously, that’s what I meant, when I open my Facebook it is not like Odense
internationals or Odense, welcome to Denmark. My Facebook when I open it is a whole other thing.
It is completely different when you come as an expat, because they cannot even tell apart if you are
an immigrant or refugee, or local for the matter. I am actually very surprised by England, because
basically they.. they are very afraid of being called a racist.
Interviewer: but Danish people do it too.
Interviewee: it is not like Danish. In Denmark people would be like “oh, you are, you don’t look
Danish or you know”, but here they ask me “so, where did you come from” and I say that I relocated
from Denmark and they don’t ask you more than that. They don’t want to be impolite. You know.
Interviewer: ok thank you.

5. Runa’s interview
Interviewer: would you like to tell us some things about yourself? Introduce yourself?
Translator: Runa is 52 and she lives 18 year in Stengardvej, she has three children, two girls and a
son, 22 , 24, 26. The son is 24. She is a single mom from 2004 and in 2007 she started working as a
cleaning assistant and she still works as a cleaning assistant.
Interviewer: Did she come here with family or husband?
Translator: her husband lived here, so she was at Dubai at the time, they got married and then they
got family reunification so she yeah…
Interviewer: and ah… what made you want to have a job?
Translator: so, we had something called a job shop before, that was something like that. And she
was there and everybody was laughing at her, because her Danish were so good but she wasn’t
working. And they said, but you have to work and she said “no, no, no, I have little children” and it
was not a cultural thing to her, because her mom was working and her sisters were working. It
wasn’t a thing like that, it was more that she had small children, so how would she have the time?

27
Plus it was a new country, so she didn’t really know how it worked here. The whole.. do you know
that kids go to daycare here basically from one year old, it is the most normal thing here, even nine
months. And this was a new country, so she didn’t really understand the whole daycare thing, she
saw that here family would send their kids to the daycare, it was weird to her that strangers would
only take care of her children and what if they only learned Danish. And also Runa’s Danish talking to
the people in the daycare, she was maybe a little worried that that would be a problem, maybe that
would be weird. And then she really wanted her children to be able to speak their language, Runa’s
language, so they can communicate, because what if her children only learned Danish and then they
couldn’t.
This was right when she came to the country, she has just got married and she went to visit her
friend, where she saw that this kid have learned Danish, but not Somali or Arabic, not a language she
spoke, so she was really freaked out about how the mom couldn’t understand the child. They had to
call the father of the child all the time, so he could translate, because she didn’t understand the kid
and she was of course.. shocked. She was pregnant and she was super shocked about it.
Her children, when they were four, the biggest one, and when they were four and they started
daycare, and they were in this.. it is called a receiving class, which is when you don’t speak Danish.
And it is a little bit more extra help there. if you come and you don’t speak a lot of Danish, and they
start and they went really good.
She feels lucky that they didn’t have any issues with Danish, because her goal was to learn Somali.
Her language is Somali, because I know she speak different languages, just wanted to make sure that
this was the language she meant (all laughing). Her goal was for her children to learn Somali, and
other languages after that. And that ended up working, because.. her oldest daughter worked as an
interpreter and she was interpreting between Danish and Somali and they have asked her “did you
grow up in Somalia?”, “no, I grew up here”, because her Somali was so good. And she felt a little
proud that her daughter got so good at Somali, that Somalians thought she was Somali, or grew up
there.
Her friend worked for a private cleaning company and she.. Runa has gone to this course already
about cleaning in Esbjerg Kommune and then she was like “no.. I will start working next year” and
then her friend, she was working for a private cleaning company and then her friend got sick, she
went with her friend to work one day and when they were there, they were sitting and talking and
then the coordinator, the manager there heard them speaking Danish and they were speaking to
them in Danish and when Runa left, the manager spoke to her friend and said “she is super good in
Danish!” and her friend said “yeah, and she also has a car” so… so that was the big plus and they
contacted her and offered her a job. She thought it was a joke at first, she got hired as a cleaning
assistant.
Her friend called her one day like half past seven one morning, and said where are you? You were
supposed to be working. And she said “no, no, no I’m just kidding but I need you to help me with
something” and she goes really fast, gets in the car, go gets her friend and they go to the office of
the cleaning company and she basically just jad a paper to sign and that’s how she got a job. And she
asked the manager “but why are you just hiring me like this, you don’t even know me” and they said
“No, but we know your friend and she can vouch for you and we know you’re good, so this is why we
want to hire you”. So, she was basically tricked into (laughing).
So, in the begging she was a little bit worried about her children. At the time the were between 8
and 12 ish. And it was in the afternoon, so it was when they came home from school.
So she had three hours to do things, but it only took her and hour and a half, but she was super
stressed, cause she was like stressed out, because she was like “oohh,” and do everything really
quick, because she was stressed out for the children alone, and maybe the ex husband maybe not,

28
and doing her job well enough. What if she got fired for doing her job really quick and then the
manager contacted her and said “you are doing a perfect job, but you are doing it so fast, so.. slow
down, it’s ok” (laugh)
If she saw a police car or a fire track or something she was worried it was about her children.
Interviewer: so they children were home alone yeah
Translator: it was a whole different life when she start working and she had been home with her
children for so long suddenly. She was working and they had to make it work in a different way.
Interviewer: was it good after she got used to that?
Translator: they are adults now, so she doesn’t have to worry about them (laugh)
When they call now and say “Mom” she says “no, no I don’t have time for this now”
Interviewer: can I ask you now, when you start working did it change something in the way your
family sees you? Like respect or…
Translator: her.. like some, some people, just like some friends said “oh, you are rich now, because
you have both the welfare and your job money” and she said “ no, no I only have the job money”
and then she spoke to her mom about it and her mom was like “oh, and what about the children”
and she said “ yeah, but I am providing for myself now, and I am meeting people and I am out” and
then her mom said “oh yeah, that is good” so, her mom was really supportive.
She says that the best thing she taught her children when she started working was not to open the
door. Do not open the door. No matter who it is, somebody we know from Copenhagen, Dubai,
family you are not allowed to open the door. And she even tested it. She sent her friends to go knock
on the door, but the children did not open, so the children behaved well.
Her cousin, Fatime, came and knocked on the door once and the children did not open. And she said
“but I am your aunt” and she told them off “you are supposed to open for me, I am your aunt”. And
the kids were debating “what do we do now? Mom said no, but she is our aunt, who are we
supposed to listen to?” and Runa came home and said “why did you open the door? I told you not
to!” and they said “but she is our aunt and she told us off” and Runa said “no, no, no! we had a deal
you do not open the door.” That was the first and the last time they did that.
Interviewer: and, did it also something change in the way you see yourself? Did you like it?
Translator: it is a very different life. Before when she was home taking care of the children, she was
happy, but now that she is out and she is working, she is asking but how did I do this before?
Because in this life, she gets to meet so many people and she has a different network now that it is
way bigger…
She says one thing is the salary and of course she is very happy with the salary, but she is also very
happy that she gets to leave the house every day and she goes to do stuff and she gets to see things
and she has different experiences, like make little changes at work or move from one workplace to
another so it is new.
We had a eh… before there was an election, always here, we always invite the politician out, and it
should be some local politicians, but sometimes it is not, depending of the kind of the election of
course. And in one of these meetings with the politicians here and Runa was there to listen to and
they were talking about the people that are working and the people that are not working and it
made her feel proud that she was in the group that was the working people. So, when the politicians
are talking about, like they are very.. there is a big divide, like these people work and these people
don’t.

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She feels like she has a different perspective because she is working, it is not because her..
somebody else who is not working is worse than her, is just that she can feel that there is a different
respect also, also from politicians and like…
She feels like there is a general respect towards her because she is working like from the… she meets
the teachers, like her children’s teacher maybe from, even from us, anybody. If somebody asks if you
work and she says no, she didn’t really think about it before, but now that she can say yes, she feels
like there is a little bit more respect towards her, from people around her. Like anybody. It is not
anyone specific is just in general there is more respect towards her, because she can say yes when
they ask her.
Interviewer: something that we didn’t discuss. What about the husband, were they still married
when?
Translator: they got divorced before she got a job. They were divorced in 2004 and in 2006 she
started doing courses and 2007 she started working.
When she got divorced, basically her man just left. He left and travelled somewhere.
She didn’t know where. He just left the country. Later they found out it was London. But he just left
and then he called back in Denmark and said “I am not coming back”.
It was not a big conflict it was just that all of a sudden, so, it was like ah… felt like a stab in the back.
It just felt like.. what is this? So, Runa felt really worried about everything. Because there is a lot like,
is she allowed to be in Denmark? What about her children? He was to meet his case worker in the
Kommune just a few days later and he didn’t show up for that, so she was super stressed about
everything and she went to see her doctor and she told her doctor everything and the doctor was
really good and said “all of these, this is what you have to tell your case worker and they will help
you” and Runa was worried about talking to her case worker, because she didn’t know her, so it felt
like, felt wrong to go to someone who she didn’t know and talk about all of these and the doctor was
really good and said “do you mind if I talk to your case worker?”. So, the doctor talked to the case
worker and they figured out somehow. That’s a good doctor.
Interviewer: yes, a very good doctor! Ok. Ah.. and now I would just like to ask you some things about
living here. Like do you like Stengardsvej?
Interviewee: yeah! It is good. (all laugh)
Interviewer: what is the best thing about living here?
Translator: she moved here because she was a little bit sick for a while, so she needed to move on
the ground floor or somewhere that there was an elevator or not too many stairs at least. And the
first offer she got was in Stengardsvej. And she never planned to stay here, but she is happy that she
ended up here.
Interviewer: what is the best thing that you like here?
Translator: there is always life.
Interviewee: Life… life.
Translator: there is always people! In the morning when the daycare open, it opens half past five and
that early in the morning people start talking on the street. There is life here that early in the
morning. There is always life here.
Everybody knows each other here and especially Runa she knows everybody. And that is true.
Everybody in Stengardsvej if you ask about Runa they will know who it is.

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She’s not a closed person. She is very open.
Interviewer: and is there something here that you would like to change?
Translator: she wishes she was a policeman so she could stop the boys from driving around with
those mopeds at half pas two in the night (laugh). And maybe some of the boy troubles, like… yeah,
they are kids.
She says that no matter what age they are, they are all kids and they came with different
experiences and years and years of… (laughing). Sorry about that (laughing). All of the kids come
with different experiences and of course they should behave and follow the rules and all of it, but
that is not always the case.
Interviewer: do you think that there are differences in relationship with like people here than
outside Stengardsvej?
Translator: she things that connections are a little bit closer here.
It is a closed community.
She has a friend who lives in Skoleparken and at some point there was an ambulance and she asked
her. She was going to her friends in the afternoon and asked and said “I don’t know, I don’t know
him, I don’t talk to these people. We don’t talk to each other”. And she says that that is not a thing
here in Stengardsvej. And she was like “what? You don’t know your neighbors?”. Because in
Stengardsvej people know each other. And you might not be close and stuff and you don’t talk to
everybody, but at least recognize them when you see them.
Some people think is nosy. Some people might think of it as nosy that you are like “who’s your
neighbor? What’s going on with them?”, but she also sees it as caring.
She keeps an eye out for her neighbors. She might have not seen a neighbor for a few days, and if
she doesn’t see the neighbor she will watch the car, like does the car move or is it parked in the
exact place, and if it is not she will start asking and maybe knock on their door and see. She is not
going to talk to everybody all the time. She doesn’t have to know about everybody all the time, but
she is like watching out. Is everybody ok? She worries about people.
She says it is a little bit part of the culture that you make sure everybody is ok. Of course, sometimes
it can be a little bit of conflict, but there are no conflicts right now and everything is good.
Interviewer: conflicts you mean like when you overstep or what?
Translator: what she means is like when there is a little bit of conflict and everybody is in each other
business all the time and what she is saying is you don’t have to meddle in that conflict, you could
also just stay out of it.
She says just stay out of it, out of the conflicts. She works so she stays out of it, out of the conflicts.
You can try to calm people down and try to make them understand, you are not against them or
anything, you just try to calm it down a little bit.
There was a conflict with a woman, that was ahm… the police was involved and all these things. And
Runa saw the woman running, so she ran after her and just hold her, grabbed her and just tried to
calm her down. She was very freaked out and the woman at the time, she managed to calm her
down and after a few months she came to Runa and said “thank you for doing that, otherwise I
would have done a thing, and I would just found a stone, or hit them with something like that”.
She was trying to prevent the fight, she didn’t know that it was that serious, but it was a thing with
their sons and it was some boys hitting somebody with the car.

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Things like these happen everywhere. It is not because it is a ghetto.
Interviewer: actually, I saw that you have a problem with the word ghetto. How do you feel about it?
Translator: first she didn’t know what it was. And when a journalist asked her, she didn’t know what
a ghetto is. She asked “how do you feel about the word ghetto?” and she answered “what ghetto,
no no no, no, no. everybody is happy here. Everything is fine. What ghetto?”.
She says the government is sitting over there and they are just look down and they don’t come here
to talk to people.
We made her talk to a few politicians. (laugh)
Interviewer: really?
Translator: it is often Runa that we ask to talk to people, because we know that she will say what she
needs and sometimes some of the people from the Danish parliament, even government has been
down here, and we asked Runa to be the spokesperson.
She says a ghetto is supposed to be one kind of people, one country or one culture and this is not
that.
(Pause)
Interviewer: is still like a community. Do you think that different nationalities or different cultures
have more close ties? Like when you are Somali are more friends with Somali, or with everybody.
Translator: Runa is a special case. She is friends with everybody.
Some Somalis are staying very close to each other.
The Arabs too. They stay close together, but there are also friends here. Some of Runa’s friends are
very across cultures and yeah. Turkish, Arabs, she is just listing some of her friends.
Some of them do not have the language, but they are still saying hi. They still greet each other
across.
She is one of the Somalis that are really good at making friends with people that are not Somalis.
Some Somalis are a lot.. only Somalis.
Interviewer: Is it because of the language?
Translator: Runa has the, speaks Arab as well, she was in Dubai, so people know that she speaks
both Arab and Somali and of course Danish and a little but of English when she dares (laugh). So,
people know that they can talk to her. Especially, language-wise she hasn’t have the same barriers.
And Runa is also good at helping. If there is an activity going on in the area and help after that.
She always. When she shows up anywhere and there is like an even t going on and she is like the
Libanese here and the Somalis here and the Arabs. She will go to every single group and say hi and
make fun with them (laugh).
Somali friends are like “ah, Runa calm down, you don’t have to talk to everybody!”, but it doesn’t
cost anything to go say hi!
Do you have more?
Interviewer: no actually I am fine with my questions

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Translator: I also have to say about Runa that she is of the ones that they are very active in the
community. So, she knows a lot of people because she is active and the other way around. She
always knows what is going on. And we use Runa also, when we do something, and we need people
to be invited. We use Runa to tell everybody. She has a really good network. So, she is like a key
person.
She says it is her area, we live here, we have to do stuff here.
Interviewer: very nice! So thank you! (all laughing)

6. Annette’s Interview
Interviewer: would you like to tell us some things about yourself first?
Interviewee: well, as I told you before, I did the same master’s as you, but the people who work for
this project, we have very different backgrounds. Ethnically, or where we’ve been born, where we
grew up, age wise and gender and all of that. And when it comes to religion we are very different in
a lot of ways. We also have very different educational backgrounds. One of my coworkers is an
acronome, which is (laughing).. he knows a lot about farming and this industry. She was a refugee
herself and she came to Denmark and just like learned a lot about the system and their perspective
and so… somehow that makes sense. And somebody is an old butcher and somebody is a
blacksmith. So, we have very different backgrounds. We all had the interest and we have been
socially engaged in some way. So, that’s how we ended up all here.
Interviewer: ok, can you tell me some things about the project too? Like ah… since when it’s on
and..?
Interviewee: the project we are doing right now is actually about to end. Cause we have to apply for
funding for four years every time and this one that is about to end now is the fourth one and this
one is over by the end of September. So, we are very close to ending right now. And that’s the third
one in a row and before that there were some other ones that were funded a little bit differently but
I don’t know those. And right now we are in the process of applying for the fourth project.
Interviewer: so how many years have you been working here now?
Interviewee: I’ve been working here for five years.
Interviewer: five years ok. And what is the project that you are doing right now about?
Interviewee: we are working at a very wide range, very holistic. We work with people from very
different perspectives. We help people with economic perspectives, with their financial situation.
Interviewer: like advice? Consultation?
Interviewee: very much advice. Advice on financial staff, like law staff and social stuff like how you
use the commune and how if you are about to get kicked out of your apartment how can you get
through that and if you … like all of these. When you get a letter in your mailbox and what does that
mean? What is this like that? Why is it that way. Both people with minorities backgrounds, but also
there a lot of Danish people here. So everybody. And to us I think it is quite important. We are not
an integration project, that’s not what we do. We help people in this area and some of them have
minority backgrounds, for some people that means different.. how do you say that… some people
you help them a little bit different.
Interviewer: and how is the environment here at your work?
Interviewee: in the work place or in the community?
Interviewer: first I would like to ask you within the project.

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Interviewee: well, between my coworkers and I, it’s super good.
Interviewer: and how about the relationship with the beneficials?
Interviewee: yeah, I think in general it is really really good and you have a chill tone when you talk to
people. And we know each other pretty well. I guess. I just sprinkled my ankle and when I came back
at work after that, I run into the first five women and the told me (shouting) “why didn’t you tell
me? I would have come to help you”. So, it very… we know each other, sort of, we try to be part of
the community or they know who we are and… we help people but also they also they help us
however they can, we like to think that this building here and this, this s like a community house. So,
they help us with activities, but we also help them. I think we all try to make it sort of fairly equal.
And we also try to make equal relationships with people and also try to.. have them being in charge
of their lives and not. Like we try to improve their self-efficacy.
Interviewer: and I would like to ask you some things about the community here, regardless of the
project, I think stengardsvej was classified as a ghetto once. Like not so many years ago right?
Interviewee: yeah. Actually it was classified as hard ghetto. You can be a ghetto and you can be a
hard ghetto. And this is a hard ghetto.
Interviewer: what does that mean?
Interviewee: it means that we had to tear down a bunch of buildings. Yeah there is a lot of.. this is a
very political discussion as well. I disagree with this and a lot of my coworkers and the project in
general disagrees with this. But basically the only difference between a hard ghetto and a ghetto is
how long it has been on the list. If we have… how many minorities do we have here and that’s the
difference. If you have a hard ghetto you have a bunch of laws that come into effect that we have to
do with the area. I say we, but I mean is like the housing association and the commune. So the area
has been hit by the ghetto plan and ahm.. that, well that means a lot of things, but it means that
people also know some of the apartments will be torn down. That people that will no longer have a
home. Nobody knows exactly when they gonna tear down the buildings, but they know they gonna
have to. So everybody was super nervous about it. They gonna be kicked out of their home. And of
course some of the people here see it as a personal attack. That this is hitting me and I am not
allowed to live here. And it is true, if you basically, if you have a minority background.. no! I am not
sure that is true. I know that if you are on, if you get any money from the commune, like if you don’t
make your own money or if you are on SU you are not allowed to move into the area any longer. So
that means that if.. let’s say you have an empty apartment here and this building is torn down, you
are not allowed to live here. You have to move out of the area, cause you are not allowed to move in
a ghetto area.
Interviewer: ok. Yes.
Interviewee: so that means that you are not allowed to live where you lived before. So many people
really have to move away.
Interviewer: but i… I understand the personal invasion of your home, but do you think that some
people want to leave from here anyway?
Interviewee: no, actually a lot of people are really happy to live here. And there is a really cool
community out here. That I know this old Danish man was super sick in hid apartment and he was in
there for three weeks, but the somali woman upstairs made sure to cook him dinner and brought
home dinner everyday. Stuff like these happen everyday. I said to you before that I had a broken
ankle, they were all like “why didn’t you say, we could have helped you!”. So, there is a really good
sense of community. In Denmark we have the forenigsliv, like in associations that you participate a
lot. It is big forings culture in Denmark. And that is not as strong here. And in forenigs you volunteer,
that’s how you volunteer. But I think that, that is only a different sense of how you volunteer and

34
how you help your community and how you volunteer. You just do it in a defferent way. You help
your neighbor because you see, and it doesn’t matter if his is a different or same cultural
background as you. He is sick, I know him, I will help him. So, I think there is a pretty cool sense of
community right here, I just think it is a different way that you doing, compared to ethnically Danish
people that live in some small communities somewhere. Organized in a different way.
Interviewer: you mean without activity associations and stuff like that?
Interviewee: yeah yeah exactly. It is not as organized in this sense.
Interviewer: but people have solidarity?
Interviewee: yeah yeah. That’s how I see it.
Interviewer: hm, I understand. (pause)
Interviewee: oh sorry sorry, I just thought and I really want to tell you. There is also this other story
of a guy who, he is, I don’t know how well you know these areas function, but there is like a
democracy within the housing association, so if you live here, you get to vote and stuff, like how late
at night we are allowed to be loud, how long we cut the grass, what should rent be. How does this
effect each other, cause is an association. Again we are in Denmark. Everything is an association
here. Though, the chair of the board in one association here, he had a bunch of money that he had
to carry from this end of Stengårdsvej to the other end of Stengårdsvej to deposit the money. He
walks up the door, he sees a bunch of guys, 19 to 20 years old, all with different ethnic background
than him. They all know him, because he has been like superactive here forever. And they say “hey,
where are you going?”, “I have to be there for that”, “ok we will walk you”. So, like basically protect
him, they protect him and all of the money, so he can deposit the money. And I think that is such a
cool story cause you usually like, people who would have seen that situation, all of these guys
walking, hey where are you going, what is this, would have expect them to steal his money, like rob
him! But they just wanted to make sure that he was safe and, I think that is a super cool story!
Interviewer: yeah, yeah it is! And like ah… what kind of problems do people face here?
Interviewee: oh that is a very wide range question. Ahm.. it is all sort of things. I don’t know. It is a
wide range. They are very different because people are individuals. So, it is all sort of problems. Like,
how do I make my teenager to go to school, how do, what do you do with this letter that I got from
the commune. I don’t know. I think it is fairly problems that we all have and we also… do need some
people we meet, because they do need help. So that means that we meet more people that do need
help, than people who can manage on their own, who we don’t see as much. Ahm.. I don’t know. I
think is like everywhere else. Some people are loud, they complain about their neighbors. The same
as everywahere else I think. I want my kid like, my kid likes to play football and sports but I can’t
afford it and we see how we can figure that out. There is wide issues like people not quiet
understanding each other. We do a, we have this parent workshops that we do as well. I think quite
normal, when we do those, is quiet normal issues. Like, how do I have enough time for my three
kids. How do we make them sit, and how do we make them sleep. I think is very much like
everywhere else actually.
Interviewer: but do… the problems that women face here? Do you think there are differences there?
Interviewee: I actually had a really funny conversation with someone. That was on a parent courses.
It was Syrian refugees, and there was a time when all these Syrian basically came at the same time,
because first all of the men came and then came time and then they all applied for family
reunification, so all the women came basically at the same time as well. Like a year and a half later
or something like that. And they all came here and eh.. pretty soon we realized. Somebody who
knew, she lived here. And had like a Lebanese background but she knew a lot of Syrian refugees. And
pretty quick she realized that they were all afraid that they going to have their kids taken away, that

35
they would take their kids for nothing. They were worried that the .. would take their kids, if they
were walking down the street and the kid was running into the street in front of a car, and they were
grabbing their kid, they were been told that they were not allowed to hurt their kid, so they were
worried that somebody would see that and report to the commune and have their kids taken away.
They were so afraid of so many things, so we started this parent workshop and talked to them about
all sort of things and we try when we do this to base it on what THEY find difficult. Like we would
never base it on whatever we think they should do. We always start by asking them, what do you
need? And we talked about so many different things, but one day, we taled about the whole thing of
being a woman here. And they were like “we don’t get it, we came to Denmark because we heard
that this was the best country in the world to be a woman and to be a child. This is why we wanted
to come in Denmark, but we get here and you force us to work. And you force the children to go to
school” and you know that was really funny. This was a very different perspective to women’s right.
To them a woman’s right is that we don’t have to work! I can stay home all day! And yeah, so that
was a really funny conversation to have with them about women’s rights. “you guys are stupid, you
fight to work!” (both laughing) and I thought that was really, it is really, different perspective of
something, I think about sometimes and I like yeah. So I think for the… issues of women that live
here are very different, Compared to how long have you been here, what family did you grew up in,
what culture does your family come from, what religion does your family come from. I think it is a lot
more culture that religion actually. How long have you been here. Cause these women just came
here, and they were basically from day one forced to to work and some of them also said that they
had to do everything at home. They came from this place that this was not how the family works,
the man works 16 hours a day and the woman does everything at home and, ok, what you have to
do has been shared between the two, they divided it, but then they come here and they.. all of the
sudden the man is forced to work only eight hours a day, but she is also forced to work eight hours a
day, but she is still expected to do everything at home and so it is a lot more work for the woman to
be here. And if you come here and you expect this to be the best place in the world for woman I can
see how you go : “What is this?”. So, we taled to this woman about having their men help. And a lot
of the men did not mind helping out at home, but the problem was that other men see them helping
out. So, a lot more often I think it is a lot more what other people think than actually doing it. And I
hear then in other places as well, when I talk to women is not that they don’t want to do it, it is not
that they are not allowed to by the closest family members, it is that other people will see it.
Interviewer: and I understand that when you have this kind of community with very very close ties..
Interviewee: yeah yeah, there is a lot of.. like s… social control, the whole “did you see what he
did?”. Ahm.. and is, I think it is really important to me to stress that it is not at all the families, but it
is in some families. There are issues, but they vary in different degrees and it is definitely not in all
the families. Yeah.
Interviewer: and we are talking also about the people that live here longer than the refugees.
Interviewee: yeah yeah yeah. There are still issues also for people that live here for longer, but not
for everybody. I definitely know somali families that… Somalis have like the numbers say, if you look
at it statistically, the Somalis are the hardest people to integrate. Ahm, but I also know somali
families where all of the girls are, took it and outlived it. So they have university degrees, super cool
jobs and they do whatever the fuck they want. And the moms are like this is what is like, my kids are
growing up in Denmark, they gonna have to be able to live in Denmark, so this is how I raise them.
So, it is very different from family to family, how the families are deciding to do the whole thing.
Interviewer: but have you ever heard of people that had problems continuing their education for
these reasons, of social control or going to work, because of these reasons?
Interviewee: ahm.. I am not sure what you… if people studied because they wanted to escape the
social control?

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Interviewer: well, that too. I meant If the had problems to continue their education because of social
control, maybe they couldn’t go.
Interviewee: ah.. I don’t know. Because I think it’s hard to determine when it is social control and
when is free will. Because there should be also freedom, if want to stop your education, if you want
to get married and have children you should also be able to do that. So, I think it is very difficult to
say when it is social control and when it is free will. And when it is free will there because of social
control. I think it is very difficult to tell, because if you grew up and that was the normal and if you
saw your mom being happy like that then why wouldn’t you want the same and why shouldn’t you
be free to do that. I think that is a lot of debates around women. That is the same as the, with the
headscarf. If people should wear a scarf if they want to and if it is free will, and you shouldn’t wear if
it is not free will, I think it is, but when is it free will and when is it social control, I think this is very
hard to determine.
Interviewer: it is a very very fine line the one that we are talking, maybe we are not also the ones to
say these, because it is not a personal experience.
Interviewee: no exactly, and when.. if you find it beautiful to wear a scarf or it means a lot to you to
wear that headscarf then why shouldn’t you? Isn’t it not the same to wear a bra? Why do you wear a
bra?
Interviewer: well, ahm. Yeah, I understand what you are saying.
Interviewee: and in some ways, why do you dress the way you doing? It is another piece of clothing
that you choose to wear or not wear to me. And if you want to wear it you should and if you don’t
want to wear it you shouldn’t. the problem is when you are forced to wear it. And of course, there
are kids that they are forced to wear at a certain age, but I don’t think we see it that much. Most
women I talk to, they say that “my kid decides it on their own whether they want ot wear this or
not”. Whenever I talk with anybody, that’s their decision. I’ve never heard anybody say that they
have to. But then they might also not tell me. Cause I am an outsider, so.. whether we want it or not
there are a lot of people wearing headscarf here and as I said the should very much be allowed to.
And there are some things that women won’t do when there are men around. So, sometimes
working here feels like being let into a secret community, it is not secret but some of the women
that I know always wear headscarves all the time, but I’ve been around them when they take their
headscarves off and dance like crazy. (laugh). So these women, what you see in public, it is maybe
the headscarf, but then you see them when there are only women around and they dance like crazy,
and they have fun and they throw their headscarves. Well, there are some gender things still going
on and it depends on the family how much gender thing there is. There is still a lot of fun and
freedom when there are only women around. But it is just a shame that they cannot do it all the
time, to me that’s a shame.
Interviewer: so, I wanna focus a little bit on the education part, and what is the role of education
here in your organization? How do you work with it.
Interviewee: yeah yeah! Well, we try to always promote sort of education a lot. Ahm.. but also it
becomes very important to us, to not force university degrees on people. In Denmark we have a luck
of carpenters and bakers and all of these people. There is actually a luck of bakers and chefs and
people like that. And there is also that people think that this is not good enough. Somehow. But
some people do thin it is not good enough if you do an education, it has to be higher education. So
we are pretty focused, of course if you wan to go to university and if you have the capabilities you
should, but it is also important for the parents and for the young people to be accepting of a baker
or a yeah..
Interviewer: and do you think that here they are not? They mostly focusing in university?

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Interviewee: in some families and some cultures it is only good enough if you are a doctor an
engineer or a lawyer. In some families. definitely not all of them. So sometimes it is also, I think,
important to say, ok you are starting out as an electrician, but you can actually keep studying from
there. You work as an electrician for few years and you can do this degree and you can actually edn
up being an engineer. So I think it’s yeah. We try to also promote lower levels of education, because
that is also important. I actually don’t like that you call it lower levels of education. It is just different
specializations.
Interviewer: lower levels you mean like highschool or like ehm..?
Interviewee: like trade jobs. As a bake, electrician, carpenter. Stuff like that. It is also just sometimes,
eh.. giving people the one course that they need to get a job. It doesn’t need to be a full degree of
anything. We had a guy in our area that was like, he really wanted a job and he wanted it for so long
and we somehow found a way to let him borrow the money so he could become a driver. So now he
has his, a very good job, where he is a driver, it is for a taxi company but for disabled people, that he
drives them maybe to the hospital maybe to work, maybe it’s kids that have to go to school. Which is
a great job! So, that was a way of giving him a little bit of education, so he can get a really good job.
Interviewer: we already said some things, but how is education valued in this community? If you
have a general view. Of course you said it differs from family to family, but?
Interviewee: it definitely does. It is different from family to family, but also from person to person I
guess. Ahm.. I think in general education is viewed as a good thing, it is more, but if you have the..
not capabilities but the… capacities. You have the.. both financially and socially capacity to do it. And
sometimes, trying to get into an education helps with all these other things around that can disturb
it. Does that makes sense to you?
Interviewer: you mean like, getting people an education helps them with their economical, social
and everything?
Interviewee: yeah exactly, if you have.. if you been doing something for a lot of years and your.. let’s
say fired or something and you have to start over and you have to start studying again, you go down
in what you were making every month, is an example. And somehow you have to make ends meet.
So, you have to go look at that with you, you can make ends meet and still do this education. You
can also just be a young kid so much going on at home. Maybe you live with your parents and your
five other siblings so you are out all the time and you cannot study. Maybe there are really bad social
issues at home, like if you have a young kid with the mom an alcoholic it is super difficult to maybe
focus on your studies. There is a lot of diffent perspectives sometimes and having the yeah… if you
want to study, you have to be able, you have to have enough space in your life to be able to cope
with it.
Interviewer: do you think, like the story you said before about the women and the have to work and
study and take care of the house, of the children and everything? Is this like the space they might
not have?
Interviewee: yeah yeah exactly that’s a pretty good example. But If you are expected to do
everything at home and take care of your three children how are you supposed to do you homework
late at night and yeah.
Interviewer: and do you think that getting an education is changing a little bit the way other people
view you in this community?
Interviewee: I don’t know. Ah… well, I quite specifically know about a family that the mom decided
to do a professional bachelor. She is a pedagogue now. And I spoke to her kid once, this is not like a
community thing but within the family. This kid, he was not acting very well as a teenager, he was
doing a lot of, there’s a lot of troubles with him. And at some point he realized that if his mom could

38
go through education with the three kids and still manage to do all that, then he could too. Cause I
spoke to him, cause I asked him what made you change you ways. And he said “my mom, she was so
cool, she managed to do it, so if she can do it I can do it”. But that was very much within that one
family there. I don’t know other. If you grew up in a family where your parents are educated or at
least have jobs, then that’s the normal, it is not the normal being paid by the commune every
month. You grow up in a home and you see your parents make their own money, then that’s the
normal to you and that’s what you aspire to do as well. But if you see your parents sitting around
being paid by the commune every month, then that’s the normal and you wouldn’t really get why
you have to work.
Interviewer: yeah, I understand. And I am thinking now , that there was this in the ghetto list criteria.
That was about people, like more than some percent of people getting welfare.
Interviewee: exactly. And there are a lot of people on welfare here. But some of them also are on
governmental pension, but it is because you have some sort of disease. You can’t walk, or use your
hands anymore, or you have mental issues, or some chronic disease and so on. Then you can go on
pension before. Yeah. There are a lot of these people here and they are not trouble makers. They
are just ill and of course they need to still have a life. Yeah.
Interviewer: so, I am done with my questions, except if you have something to add.
Interviewee: I think in general it is very important to say that people are different and there are
many different stories. It is difficult to say that this is what the area is like. Every time you talk to
somebody it is a different story and different reasons why they do what they do. So I think it is very
difficult to say this is how education is looked and how people handle education.
Interviewer: thank you very much!

7. Anja’s Interview
Interviewer: would you like to tell us some things about yourself?
Interviewee: ok, my name is Anja and I am 30 years old, and a social worker, and I grew up in
country site in Gråsten, in Southern Denmark, where I have a family. I have a dog. I don’t know what
to say (laugh)
Interviewer: like mostly, when did you move in Odense and in Vollsmose?
Interviewee: oh yeah, I.. I lived in Birkeparken for two to three years and I worked as a telemarketer
at that point.
Interviewer: what are you working with now?
Interviewee: I am actually unemployed. I start my new job on august first in Odense Kommune.
Interviewer: congratulations.
Interviewee: thank you. And so, yeah, I am gonna be a social worker, finally.
Interviewer: so, you are living now in Vollsmose for two, three years. How is your relationship with
the people there?
Interviewee: they are really nice. Ahm.. I felt super safe. And they are really welcoming. I remember
when I moved in there, the first day, people came with all kinds of food. And I was like “what is
happening”!
Interviewer: to welcome you?

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Interviewee: yeah! But I don’t know. We don’t do that in Denmark, so I was really like, I don’t know
what to do with this, is this a gift? Am I supposed to give you food? Which is the ritual here? But
yeah, they are sweet people.
Interviewer: do you have closer relationships with some of them now? Friendly?
Interviewee: yeah, I have one friend, like really close friend in Vollsmose.
Interviewer: did you knew any body before you come here? In Odense?
Interviewee: no, no, I didn’t know anybody at all.
Interviewer: fresh start! (laugh) can you describe me a little bit more from what you have seen until
now about the relationships that people in Vollsmose have between them, or among them,
compared to what you have experienced up until now?
Interviewee: yeah. Well, they have really close relationship, they have a lot of gossiping. So, the
children are told to behave at outside, in public, because otherwise people will talk about them. The
women are super close. I don’t really see the men together, maybe that is more in a private sphere.
But the women are super close. They place that you are doing laundry, like every Sunday, the
women were there and they brought coffee and cake, and the like spent the whole day down there.
talking and hanging out in the laundry.
Interviewer: that’s cool. What do you think that the effect of this gossiping that you said is on other
people?
Interviewee: it is a kind of social control I guess. It is about that, yeah. Also, it is not my friend, but
my friend’s friend. She, when she had like a skirt on, she always had pants in her bag, so every time
that she went home she had to change.
Interviewer: I am just thinking about the different standards. Do you think that women in your age,
like your friend or friend’s friend, have different values than the society she grew up in?
Interviewee: well, I think so! Like she is trying to live in both worlds, like the family world with like
the… other kind of standards, but also in the Danish society. She tries to like.. fit in.
Interviewer: about the thing that we discussed earlier, about the social control. Did you, even you,
felt like.. uncomfortable?
Interviewee: well, I had one experience, where I went for a run, when I just moved there, and I had
just my shorts on and my sports bra, and that was it. I really didn’t think much about it, because we
don’t, yeah, think about how we are dressing where I live, where I come from, but yeah… I could fell,
like, the tension and the eyes looking at me. I felt really uncomfortable. So, it was a really short runs
(both laughing). Ok, I have to go home now.
Interviewer: before you move in Vollsmose, did you know about the area?
Interviewee: yeah sure, but from Media, but that is the same with Copenhagen where in the media
you only hear about the bad stuff. So, I was like ok.. it is going to be fine. And I felt like it was fine, I
felt safe there. I can feel, like ok, it is not acceptable for me to wear this kind of clothes.
Interviewer: did you try, in a way, not provoke?
Interviewee: yeah sure. Yeah sure. I tried to cover up a little bit more when I go grocery shopping in
the center. What is it called? Vollsmose center. Yeah. So, yeah I try to cover up a little bit more,
because ok, I don’t want them to stare. I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable either. So, yeah.
Interviewer: can you tell me a little bit more about this close friend from Vollsmose that you have?

40
Interviewee: she is also a social worker and we took our education together, that is how I know her.
And this education is not really. like (pause) her family don’t believe is the best choice. You don’t
earn that much money and it doesn’t give you so much status. So, she felt kinda pressured and this is
also kinda step into. So, she is gonna live her life the way she wants. But I can tell that when she is
talking about her friends, it is not always the same. Like if a parent wants you to become a doctor,
you are going to become a doctor, no matter what really want to be, a singer, whatever. Because it´s
the social pressure of the family .
Interviewer: Yes, one thing is the pressure but there is another thing, complete obedience, like it´s
ok to take an education, I guess, if you have a social pressure but become ,whatever, your parents
want, is that the thing? Yes, I have met people.
Interviewee: No, no. I haven´t me them. No. I hear the talk about it. Yes.
Interviewer: Ok. What do you think they have these high standards? Like, this is as you described
very different from Danish society.
Interviewee: I don´t know. I think -I don´t know, but I think´it´s because a lot of immigrants who
came to Denmark at that point was also highly educated. People with resources, otherwise they
didn´t resources to even get here. So they want the same thing for the children. That´s maybe just
the standard. I don´t know. I´m not from a rich family either. Maybe if I had a dad who was a doctor,
he would also liked me to be- I don´t know. It´s not my… It´s not how I think the Danish families are
normal.
Interviewer: What you mean, sorry?
Interviewee: Like, I don´t normally say, I want you to become something specific.
Interviewer: Oh, yes.
Interviewee: Yes, it´s more like ´become whatever you want´.
Interviewer: Aha, yes. Do you think that educated people are perceived differently?
Interviewee: In society in general?
Interviewer: Yes, probably most in Vollsmose I would like to ask.
Interviewee: Yes, yes, I think so. The more money you earn, like, oh, also the bigger the family is. If
you have a big family, that gives you status in Vollsmose
Interviewer: Like the members of the family? If you have ten children?
Interviewee: Yes!
Interviewer: Oh, I didn´t know that! Have never heard of it.
Interviewee: Yes! There is certain families, I don´t remember the names, one or two, maybe three,
really big families out there. All the cousins are there, all the uncles. The family might be a hundred
people in Vollsmose. That also gives you some kind of status.
Interviewer: Alright. So you think it´s about the money? We talked about status…
Interviewee: In general, yes and also the culture. I was at a Turkish friend, I was at her wedding two
weeks ago, and it was all about the money. “How much money can we get from each guest?” And “
my father gave this guy´s children some money and I´m expecting to get as this much back”. And
how much the food costs, like talking about money all the time! And how much money worth in gold
that the broom was supposed to give to the bride.

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Interviewer: Oh!
Interviewee: Yeas, old fashion (laughing).
Interviewer: Yes very. But it is also interesting keeping this kind of traditions as well, but how did you
feel it?
Interviewee: Uncomfortable. I´m out of the job now and I don´t have that much money. And they
gonna call you up and they gonna stay with the microphone in front of everyone and tell how much
money are you giving.
Interviewer: Is it public? I didn´t understand that.
Interviewee: Yes, a big party with a lot of people, everyone could here how much I gave.
Interviewer: Oh! I ´m from Greece and we have somehow similar tradition. But it´s like secretly,
giving an envelope with a name on it.
Interviewee: No. They ´re counting the money, like this one gave one thousand.
Interviewer: Oh , ok. Ok. (laughing). It ´s all about the money. Like when you are having a good
education, you get more money and you will be a higher status person, as I understand.
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: Or if you have a big family. Two ways then…
Interviewee: Yes.
Interviewer: What do you think about the women, mostly in your age, that you know in Vollsmose,
compared to this value system? As we said the example if you have either status and money or a big
family . So I think these are two different generations. Do you think that´s important still in your
age? Keeping the traditions like that…
Interviewee: Yes, I don´t know. Because I think most of the women are, like, trying to satisfy
themselves, like I gonna go out in the city and do what I want. But as Muslims are trying to satisfy
the family. So I think they have a kind of split. A lot of them, with the social control…
Interviewer: I understand, like the thing you said before ´two different worlds´.
Interviewee: Trying to fit in, in both worlds.
Interviewer: I guess there are some options that you cannot have.
Interviewee: Yes, like the boyfriends. I think it´s very difficult for them to choose their own
boyfriend.
Interviewer: Exactly, I was thinking about it… Even married.
Interviewee: Yes, they don´t really have boyfriends. I have boyfriends (laughing). They are not
allowed to sleep together and stuff like that. Muslim has to be a person from the same country as
the parents.
Interviewer: With the possibility or marrying… Otherwise?
Interviewee: Yes, if the boy don´t even want to marry the girl , to begin with , and to see how it goes
maybe. If he can say that I m gonna marry you some day, the are not even allowed to see each
other. They are not allowed to find out if something there.
Interviewer: oh like modern… like bringing people together, arranging marriages. It sounds like that

42
Interviewee: a new way of arranged marriage. Because I think that the Muslim, they choose the girl
themselves. Bu they know which categories they have to check before: Is he from the same country
as my mum and dad? Check! Does he have money? Check! They have to check all these before, then
ok, he can be my boyfriend.
Interviewer: (pause)
Interviewee: It´s not all cultures. It depends which country they come from. Originally, if they are
really religious… So it s not all of them but some of them. It´s like that.
Interviewer: Because there are so many different cultures in Vollsmose and I understood that with
my introduce as well. Pakistani had totally different expectations from Somalis or whatever. What
are mostly your neighbors?
Interviewee: When I live in Vollsmose? I only had Danish neighbors on each side. One of them was
Emil criminal, alcoholic, dealer. And on the other side, I had a gay couple, also alcoholic. Sometimes I
didn’t know if fighting or fucking, but… (laughing)
Interviewer: Like” should I call the police?” (laughing)
Interviewee: Well, I did once, but… they were just doing it.(laughing)
Interviewer: (laughing). I just asked you because the thing that you said, they welcomed you …
Interviewee: The block! It wasn’t really my close neighbors.
Interviewer: Like the block you were living.
Interviewee: Yes, like they were very sweet and always saying “hi”, and smiling, and I can always
borrow an egg.
Interviewer: Would you like to keep living in Vollsmose?
Interviewee: No! (laughing). Like, the apartments are really bad but that s the only reason. Not
enough sunlight coming in. So it´s not about the area or the people. It’s just like the condition of the
buildings. They suck (laughing)
Interviewer: (laughing). I’m thinking I am not having more questions.
Interviewee: Well, I m curious about your hypothesis. Why you even chose… -because I m a social
worker-
Interviewer: So we were talking about stigmatization, people in the ghetto, and you said …
Interviewee: I had to change my address. When I had it In Vollsmose I searched for a job for three
months, I didn’t get anything and then I thought to myself ‘ok, I m gonna change my address of my
resume to my parents house, down in Sydjyland’ and then I got a job interview within a week.

8. Pernille’s Interview

Interviewer: can you tell us some things about the Vollsmose Sekretariatet?
Interviewee: yeah! Well, the organization is “owned” (makes gesture of quotation marks) a small
percent, around 12, by the Kommune, and the biggest part from the housing association here in
Vollsmose and Civica and of course the residents here. When I say owned, I mean that they have a
saying in our decisions and there is where we find a part of our funds.

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Interviewer: what do you focus on?
Interviewee: well, we have very different things. It is a lot. Like, we try to make initiatives for the
people here. From big things to the smallest. It might be from consulting them about the children to
problems with their houses. But what we really try here is to give power to the people. Our moto is
“hjelp til selvhjelp”. You have to help people to help themselves. You have to teach them how to, so
they can do on their own.
Interviewer: what is the target group of the project?
Interviewee: everyone. Everyone in Vollsmose. You have to have the address in one of the parks to
come to us. But if you do, no problem. From small children to old people.
Interviewer: what is your position in Vollsmose Sekretariatet?
Interviewee: I am, how do you say? A counselor? But I am dealing with the issues of small children
and their families. Infants until approximately the age of nine. And their mothers come here for their
issues. Sometimes it might be something like, how do I get them to bed on time, how do I get them
to school without nagging, or my child likes football but I don’t have money to take it, and then we
give them some advice, or put them in contact with some associations we have and the child can go
to do sports!
Interviewer: how would you describe the environment here? Is hyggeligt? Is it stressful?
Challenging?
Interviewee: no! it is very nice. I think it is the best job I ever had! My colleges are great, we have a
great relationship and the place is good and the people here in Vollsmose are really good. They are
so warm. It is not stressful. No! People that come here are coming because they know what we do.
People are coming because they want to… Sometimes they hesitate and a friend pushes them, but
when they come they see that we are not as other services. Like, like… people here sometimes are
stressed to go to certain services… we are not like that.
Interviewer: What do you mean? Why stressed?
Interviewee: well.. people sometimes feel very (Pause) stressed with the demands other services
have, and if they push them.
Interviewer: so how are your relationship with the beneficials?
Interviewee: very good, very good.
Interviewer: what do you think about Vollsmose as a place to live?
Interviewee: well.. Vollsmose is a great place to live. You see it is sort of new buildings, it has so
much nature and parks. It is nice to walk here. People have their own shops and market with their
products and stuff… (pause) it is very nice place. Of course it has its problems. But the area is nice.
Interviewer: what do you mean… by problems?
Interviewee: well, you know. You have heard. It is a problem with criminality and people here
Interviewer: what kind of problems do women face here?
Interviewee: I don’t know! Everyday problems, I think. Well, there is a lot of problems with money.
They have economic problems. Some of them they live alone, their husband is not in the house and
they don’t have significant income. And they wanna work, but sometimes it is hard to work when
you have big family, you know. When you have a lot of children and stuff, and they are little and
they need attention.

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Interviewer: and so I can understand… how can you help these women?
Interviewee: we can offer them knowledge of how to seek for a job. A lot of people here are far from
the labor market and they lack some skills of job searching. And there… there are solutions. For
example, the women here… a lot of them are choosing to become, like, caregivers in hospice or
retirement centers.
Interviewer: is that a university education?
Interviewee: yes… almost. It is like a training, sorter. I don’t remember the English word.
Interviewee: and these jobs. Why do you say? Is it ofter? Is it like a pattern?
Interviewee: no. but it is often. Because, you know, it is easy for them to find a job after that. There
are a lot of vacancies. Also, I believe it is because of the culture. I think people here have a lot of
respect for the elders.
Interviewer: as you said before you are dealing with cases up to nine years old. What are the
problems of the children up to that age?
Interviewee: it is different. It is very different for every child. It depends… on the family, the
background, the school. I don’t know it depends on a lot of things. (pause). Sometimes it is about the
language in that early age.
Interviewer: what do you mean? Because they are bilingual?
Interviewee: maybe. That’s a big part of it. But I think also it is in the culture. You know, parents here
behave different to their children than Danish parents. It is not like a bad thing. It is just different. It
is because children don’t talk, so the parents say ‘why should I talk to my child? He doesn’t
understand!”. And I understand that, but we counsel them and say to them to talk and describe
everything that they do in the house. And the more the child listens, the faster he will start talking.
And the child will learn the parents’ language first and then.. it is easier.. well, sometimes… to start
talking Danish too.
Interviewer: so, how are the family connections here?
Interviewee: you mean inside the families?
Interviewer: yes yes. How is the relationship in the family?
Interviewee: well… I don’t know. It depends. It depends on the family. Every case is different. But in
general, families are very close here. For some people, family is above all. They stay close to each
other, they protect each other, they help each other even when they get old. It is often that you see
here, that the children don’t go so much away. Even families that have problems, you see! They are
very protective of their people.
Interviewer: and what about with the rest of the families in Vollsmose?
Interviewee: well, they do have good relationships. Some are closer, some are more distant. I
believe, they will look after their family first. Sometimes there is gossip let’s say and they have to
look for their families first.
Interviewer: do you think that this gossip has an impact on what a person can do?
Interviewee: definitely! Well, it is not always that intense… but sometimes it depends on the
reputation of a whole family. I mostly deal with small children so there are not so many problems
about that matter there. my colleague is working with teenagers and then sometimes there are

45
more problems with this. Some of the teenagers have more problems that can impact the family,
but I personally don’t deal with this kind of cases. I don’t know if I can say more.
Interviewer: what kind of connections do people in the ghetto are developing with the people
outside the ghetto?
Interviewee: oh, that is difficult to say. Again. I am dealing with children, so mostly their families
have their activities inside Vollsmose. I don’t think they don’t go out. There are cases that they
actually don’t, but I think it is very rare.
Interviewer: what are the goals of your organization on education?
Interviewee: well we try to promote it a lot. There are families that have a clear goal of sending their
children to university. There are others that do not have the knowledge of what that takes. So,
especially to those people, we try to counsel them. Personally many times. We have mentors and
these mentors are deciding with the people what they should do and search for the opportunities
they might have.
Interviewer: do you know how much the education is valued in the community?
Interviewee: it is different for everyone. I don’t know if we can talk for community in general. You
know, Vollsmose has lower educational level than the rest of the municipality. That is true. But I
think it is because a lot of people come here and they don’t have education in Denmark. It doesn’t
mean that they are illiterate. Young people are going more to university and stuff. But it depends
also in the expectations. Some people want to work. So, they will go for training.
Interviewer: would you like to add something we didn’t discuss?
Interviewee: well, as I said, it is very important to build the relationships here. I believe that when
you approach people with a smile and good intentions, they will return it back. Because people here
have faced a lot of stigma. And they become more closed to the other. But if you don’t have these
ideas in mind and approach them personally that open up and they are very warm.
Interviewer: so, you think people here are stigmatized?
Interviewee: yes yes, definitely.
Interviewer: by whom? Is it also from services?
Interviewee: well… I would like… It is hard to answer that.
Interviewer: yes yes, I understand. Sorry.
Interviewee: yeah.
Interviewer: thank you very much.
Interviewee: thank you as well.

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9. Statistics

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