How to receive newly arrived migrant pupils in Scandinavian schools poses a dilemma. Namely, a dilemma of how to handle different pupils in the Nordic school ‘for all’ (Goodsoon, 1992; Kettunen, 2011). The dilemma concerns whether ensuring equality for newly arrived migrant pupils requires special provisions such as reception classes or if this interferes with the unified school (Enemark, Li & Buchardt, 2022). The dilemma between on one hand the mainstream classroom signifying the continuation of everyday life and on the other hand the separate reception classroom sheltering newly arrived migrant pupils is the core of political and pedagogical reception approach debates. This dissertation revolves around how these reception approaches, and their inherent dilemmas, are handled through negotiations amongst national and local politicians, civil servants, academics, and school staff. Because of the indeterminate nature of the national policy framework, attention is directed towards one municipality’s local negotiations about reception approaches to newly arrived migrant pupils. It is explored using structured classroom observations, policy documents, and interviews, while resting on a theoretical framework combining ‘the pedagogic device’ from sociologist of education and knowledge, Basil Bernstein, with implementation scholar Michael Lipsky’s notions of ‘street-level bureaucracy’, autonomy and discretion.  By using one municipality as a case for reception approach development and transformation, the dissertation shows how these local negotiations are affected by the policy indeterminacy of the national policy framework; by the autonomy and discretion awarded to civil servants and school staff eager to influence the approach; and how negotiations result in imagining a local reception approach that mixes existing approaches relying on different knowledge logics.