A European Future: Expectations versus realities that immigrants find when coming to Sweden.

Abstract: Typically, when we think of Sweden it is often thought in terms of a harmonious society where diversity, equality and freedom has intertwined itself into the daily fabric of society. This essay explores the experiences and expectations of immigrants who arrived in Sweden in the 1980’s. It is a qualitative study and uses semi-structured interviews and focuses in particular on immigrants of Syriac and Assyrian decent who arrived in this time period. In general, this paper aims to look at how and what information they had been communicated before entering the country and whether or not their own personal expectations were met in regard to access to food, shelter and education. The overarching research question is: the experiences of immigrants and aid workers alike – are they in line with the communicated expectations they had upon entering Sweden. The aim is to explore what motivated the immigrants to choose Sweden in particular and if there were any hindrances or predispositions that they encountered. The results that emerged from the qualitative data suggest in general the move to Sweden was based on the communicated experiences of relatives and the church, thus what they had expected and experienced was similar. This essay is guided by a constructivist epistemology with a hermeneutic perspective that aims to describe, analyse and draw conclusions based on the purpose of the case study.