Language as a Proxy in Inclusion and Exclusion: Language in Bordering Practices

Language thus acts as a gatekeeper for in/exclusion in society, and speaking an official, national language is portrayed as a sign of loyalty towards the state and a proof of ‘integration’ and trustworthiness. In this, language practices become a site in which assumptions about belonging, competence and cultural alignment are imposed. This is also relevant in institutional encounters, where assessment, documentation and language requirements may shape access, participation and belonging. 

Research in language studies has, however, for several decades shown how language ideologies are always about more than language. In many state policies, language is used as a proxy for race, ethnicity, religion or other categories that cannot legally act as basis for differentiation. In this, certain populations and speakers are surveilled and marked more than others, maintaining colonial power asymmetries. ‘Language barriers’ thereby also reflect embedded power hierarchies and structures to in/exclude. 

Monolingual language ideologies are deeply embedded in conceptions of identity and belonging, as well as in how the host society interprets its existing linguistic diversity in relation to the linguistic integration of newcomers. At the same time, research shows that an individual’s language use reflects their linguistic citizenship: their agency, participation, and opportunities to exercise control over their linguistic resources and to construct new identities and communities.

This panel aims to bring together scholars working at the intersection of language and migration studies to explore different ways in which language acts as a means for social inclusion/exclusion, through topics concerning for example:

• Language learning and teaching
• Language requirements and testing
• Language in institutional encounters
• Language ideologies
• Linguistic citizenship and activism

The language of the session is English, and we invite presentations from a range of contexts and angles.

As language proficiency requirements for migrants are tightening across Europe and high-stakes language testing is becoming more common (Bocker & Strik, 2011; Rocca et al., 2020), research on their impact on individuals and societies is becoming increasingly relevant. These policies are often justified with their assumed positive effects on migrant integration and inclusion, although empirical evidence supporting them remains limited and some research even suggests that they may be detrimental to migrants’ well-being and language learning (Carlsen et al., 2026).

Finland has also seen a tightening of language proficiency requirements and a rise in the number of migrants who take a test to obtain a certificate of their proficiency in one of the national languages (Hirvelä, 2024). In my doctoral dissertation, I explore how adult migrants in Finland perceive the requirements and navigate the process of preparing for and taking a high-stakes language test. Drawing on questionnaire data and critical ethnography with two groups preparing for a high-stakes language test, one in Finnish and one in Swedish, I look into how test-takers negotiate themes of validity, fairness, and justice, express solidarity, and build resistance.

In my presentation, I focus on my first article that explores the ways in which the process of preparing for the test makes visible and reproduces issues of social justice (Carlsen & Rocca, 2022) related to language proficiency requirements and high stakes testing. The findings highlight the complex and individualized nature of the process and its consequences, implying that taking and passing the test does not automatically lead to greater belonging, participation, or inclusion. Furthermore, the study suggests that high-stakes tests used for the purposes of language proficiency requirements may risk reproducing existing inequalities, highlighting the need for a deeper consideration of migrant perspectives in policymaking.

The summer of 2026 marks the 10-year anniversary of Sweden’s turn from permanent to temporary residency for asylum-seekers. Family reunification and prolonged resettlement were then tied to gainful employment, raising the stakes for language education by extension, as it was the single highest threshold for labour market participation at that time. Today however, the stakes have become explicit when learning the language: safe and prolonged residing behind country borders or societal ones are granted to those with sufficient outcomes. Yet learning a second language is highly affected by previous experiences of schooling. It is also affected by surrounding life circumstances. Human rights such as safe refuge, sanctity of family, and meeting basic needs are effectively conditioned on one’s preconditions for learning.

In our study, we reframe residence status as an educational condition. This addresses a gap in educational science on how legal circumstances affect educational outcomes among refugees. Exploiting the aforementioned legislative reform in 2015/2016 that shifted asylum-seeking families’ default permit from permanent to temporary, we apply a Regression Discontinuity Design onto register data on families with minor children applying within 100 days before and after the cutoff (N=8,471), examining probability and teaching hours for progression in SFI. In our results, we find that permit type did not affect progression probability but that temporary permits prolonged teaching hours to pass the first course and reduced likelihood of beginning the last SFI course D among students with limited previous education. We find causal evidence that residence status functions as an educational condition that differs significantly depending on one’s previous schooling. We also find that regarding refugee’s educational outcomes without differentiating between previous schooling risks concealing the precarity of the most vulnerable. When language functions as a proxy for inclusion and exclusion, the already disadvantaged are likely to become further disadvantaged.

This article examines how language requirements became mechanisms of racialization and exclusion in Swedish migration governance through the Upper Secondary School Act (2018 2025). The Act offered around 8,000 youths – primarily Afghanistani boys – facing deportation a conditional route to permanent residency via upper-secondary education and employment. Although the law did not formally require language proficiency, its implementation shows how Sweden’s neoliberal education system made language a de facto criterion for residency. Framed within broader European trends of using language as border control, the article links contemporary citizenship regimes to colonial practices of racialized language hierarchies. Drawing on 21 interviews with teachers, study counsellors, principals, social workers, NGO staff, and legal advisers, it demonstrates how “raciolinguistic borders” were locally enacted, with youths’ prospects varying significantly across municipalities.
Keywords: local borders, migration control, racialization, racial borders, refugee youth

Borders increasingly extend beyond territorial boundaries into everyday institutions and governance practices. Among less contested forms of bordering are high-stakes language and civic knowledge tests that regulate access to citizenship, residence, education, and employment. Drawing on the concept of border struggles (Mezzadra and Neilson 2013), this article examines how test takers respond to, negotiate, and strategize around citizenship-related high-stakes tests, making visible the labor behind these broadly uncontested testing practices.

The article compares Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, three Nordic countries with different citizenship-testing regimes and policy-change trajectories. Denmark has both language and civic knowledge tests for naturalization; Finland requires a language test and is developing a civic knowledge test; and Sweden has only recently introduced civic knowledge and language requirements. Together, these cases enable comparison across established, emerging, and changing testing regimes. The article draws on interviews with 74 people with experience in test preparation, test taking, or test implementation in the three countries, complemented by participant observation, policy analysis, and media analysis.

The article discusses six border struggle strategies used by test takers: adapting to underlying ideologies; strategic instrumentalization; mobility around test locations; switching between tests; ‘cheating’; and silence. By bringing citizenship testing into conversation with the literature on border struggles, the article shifts attention from the restrictive effects of high-stakes tests to the agency of those subjected to them, and what that agency itself reveals about tests as governance tools.