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Writer's pictureHeidi Hokkanen

How Cohesion Appears Under the Multicultural Microscope



The starting point for the European social integration happened in 1950 when today´s European Union was published after the consequences of the Second World War. The last sixty years have shown how the Union has grown from an economic collaboration to an organization that pursues development cooperation. The term social dimension took its place by the vision of social inclusion that the EU wanted to be part of the society's economic and social system. What it comes to the early years of the integration phase ( 2.4, Early Community Social Policy Initiatives 1958-1986), social security took its place in legislation that supported the community's ideology of freedom in workers' safety standards.


In a western ideology, social integration is a definition for a stronger social discourse of equality and especially how the immigration policy is functioning in modern culture. Behavioral environments between individuals from different backgrounds always introduce this topic as a fascinating connector in the world that requires more assimilation. But how it is working in a real context without overtaking the fact that transformation is necessary for an individual experience to be part of the new social values (Ferguson, 2008).


How language ideologies are based on reciprocity

- The view from Pakistani in Finnish society


Ali Nunari is a doctor from Pakistan. According to him, language is the culture. The last five years as his profession as a doctor in different locations in Finnish health stations have proved that the social dimension in his case has been mostly based on personal experiences. The social boundaries between people are always highly connected to approachable behavior and its consequences in changing environments.


“My junior years as a doctor in Pakistan teach me a lot about hierarchy and how to respond with the touch of empathy when it´s needed. My middle-class background and higher education have anything to do with my values and a respectful way to face different people. I know I'm privileged, I have faced my home country’s social policy and how the society is based on a higher hierarchy. In some of the cases, people were blind to their own behavior. By those lessons, I wanted to create my personal road”, explained Ali Nunari during the conversation.

Social integration could be seen as a stakeholder that enables all people to participate in social and political life with rights and dignity. Ali Nunari´s story included many features of an elitist theory and how a person´s social class can make an impact in daily life. He couldn´t see that those factors had a remarkable impact on his growth in a profession and as a human. Before landing in Finland, Nunari got a recommendation from his friend of the Finnish society and applied to get an internship in a profession where he already got an education. After a six-month period as an intern in different locations in Finland, he passed a three-level exam in the Finnish language to work as a doctor. The lower hierarchy in an educational system enabled one to be involved in working life as soon as needed.


“I didn’t know anything of Finland before I landed. I had only a personal recommendation in my hand and the curiosity of the unknown. The high educational system fascinated me the most, of course, the importance of learning the national language was essential in the starting point. The working experience with foreign language taught me to be a part of the Finnish health care system in a really short period of time.”

Nunari closed his story.


This kind of integration as progress would be seen in a two-way process where the factors are interlocked with each other. Finnish Institute for health and welfare has shown some results that support integration as progress. Non-discriminatory is a complex area to solve out especially considering the personal growth, Ali Nunari´s deviant story as an angle.


The UTH survey is the measure that has proved the results of foreign integration in the most extensive way as it´s possible in Finland. How people can trust and lean on the authors and the other social services is only a scratch of the statistics, but tells a relevant fact of a society´s way to reach the trust of the outsiders. Foreign backgrounds seemed to have a stronger bond with the authorities than the Finnish population has as a whole. Statistics show that the amount of foreigners in the Finnish population has risen from 0,8 to 5,9 percent between 1990 and 2014. Over one-half of the immigration happened because of family reasons, so the personal impact has something to do with the importance of the integration progress without forgetting the basis of the home country´s social security compared to Finland. This all should contain more detailing of the frames that support the welfare state but still, the statistics bring up the question in a national self-awareness, how we can´t see the forest for the trees.





References:



Nunari, A. Pakistani doctor who has lived in Finland for five years. Gave an interview face to face.


Dodo, M. (2014). Historical Evolution of the Social Dimension of the European Integration: Issues and Future Prospects of the European Social Model. L'Europe en Formation, 372, 51-66. https://doi.org/10.3917/eufor.372.0051


Ameer, S. (2019). Social integration of Pakistan and Indian ESOL learners. Language Issues, 29 (2). pp. 79-91.



Gibson, J., & Duch, R. (1991). Elitist Theory and Political Tolerance in Western Europe. Political Behavior,13(3), 191-212. Retrieved September 13, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/586124













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