How educational leaders in Sweden address interculturalism: a systematic literature review and an illustrative case

This article presents a systematic literature review to analyse the knowledge contributions of research in Sweden as to how educational leaders are addressing interculturalism in schools. In total 18 articles were analysed. Besides that, an educational leader was interviewed to enrich the findings from the literature with the experiences of an educational leader who addressed interculturalism from a particular perspective a time when there was an influx of migrants into Sweden. Bronfenbrenner’s [(1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press] ecological theory was used as a conceptual framework. A major shortcoming in the research field on interculturalism is that there is little literature on how educational leaders in Sweden approach it. Furthermore, the research contributes with knowledge mostly about what hinders interculturalism and about the macrosystem. The findings of this article aim to explore these lacunae and provide suggestions on how to address interculturalism. The results are discussed in relation to needs for future research.