The purpose of my study was to find out about the newly arrived students’ views and perceptions of the Swedish high school, how this vision and perception looked like before they moved here, and if it has changed. I also wanted to find out how they perceived the meeting with the Swedish school, and if they believed that this meeting should or could be improved. In this study, I used a qualitative research method, the phenomenological method, in which I have used qualitative research interviews to collect the empirical data and detect patterns in my research. The theory I used is cultural encounters, and with it, I try to understand how people with different cultural backgrounds create interactions to work together in communities. I also wanted to understand how the students thought and acted, based on their cultural backgrounds.

What I concluded was that in all, the newly arrived students’ views and perceptions of the Swedish school before they moved here was relatively positive. The views and perceptions of most of the students consist quite well with the ones they have today. But for those that it doesn’t, the explanations could be many. One of the reasons was how they hade been treated by the school, another was the lack of existence of Swedish speaking students, that forced the newly arrived ones to associate with the ones that spoke the same mother tongue. Also, the educational level seemed to be too low for some students. The treatment they all received looked similar, but some of the students mentioned that the Swedish school needed to develop the introduction classes so that the students with similar expertise could develop in the same rate.

It is to be mentioned that the title of my research is a quote from one of the students I interviewed.