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The legitimacy of the mother tongue subject in a changing political landscape: An analysis of Swedish parliamentary debate in the twenty-tens. This paper highlights and discusses the arguments in favor of, or against Mother Tongue Instruction (MTI) in Swedish parliamentary debate between 2010 and 2020. New to this decade is the entrance of yet another nationalist and populist party with the abolishment of MTI on its political agenda. Building on a critical discourse analytical frame and argumentation analysis, we discuss this party’s rhetoric on MTI – based in an Othering discourse and the construction of MTI as a path to alienation – and the parliamentary counter-voices. The latter mainly concern the role of MTI for development of Swedish and learning in other school subjects, implying that MTI in its own right is subordinated. We argue that this counter-discourse represents a shift in how MTI is legitimized – and in fact plays into assimilationists’ hands – compared to the pluralistic ideology that initially made way for MTI. The importance of scrutinizing political rhetoric is stressed to anticipate political action.

I denna artikel urskiljer och diskuterar vi diskurser i vetenskapliga texter inom det akademiska fältet i Sverige om skolämnet svenska som andraspråk (härefter sva) efter dess införande 1995, utifrån begreppet likvärdighet. I studien analy­seras vilka typer av argument som anförts, i vilken teoretisk och empirisk bas de kontextualiseras, och vilka antaganden om likvärdighet som de avspeglar. Två kolliderande diskurser identifieras där argumenten i den ena, sva-diskursen, främst sprungen ur fältet flerspråkighets- och andraspråksforskning, utgår från erkännandet av språkliga undervisningsbehov hos elever som lär på ett andra­språk som ett uttryck för likvärdighet (equality-as-equal-opportunity) och som motstånd mot ”olikhetsblindhet”. Sva mejslas i denna argumentation fram som del i en pluralistisk språkpolicy i vilken såväl ämnet sva som ämnet modersmål ingår. Kritik mot ämnets organisering återfinns inom diskursen samtidigt som behoven av andraspråksundervisning erkänns. I den kolliderande diskursen, som kretsar kring begreppet inkludering, beskrivs ämnet istället som uttryck för bristperspektiv på de elever som ämnet är avsett för, och särskiljande av elev­grupper ses som ett huvudproblem. Interdiskursiva relationer urskiljs i det att aspekter av inkluderingsdiskursen även finns inom sva-diskursen. De olika tolk­ningar av brist och språk som framkommer återspeglar hur diskurser konstru­erar sina objekt, i detta fall innehåll i och syfte för sva (Foucault, 1972). Diskursernas anteciperande prägel indikerar en involvering av aktörer med hög grad av agentivitet, vilket reflekterar det akademiska fältets relativt stora in­flytande på det politiska fältet avseende språkpluralistisk utbildningspolicy. Den empiriska forskning om sva-ämnets undervisningspraktik som till dels under­bygger de identifierade diskurserna är dock påfallande begränsad. Nyckelord: svenska som andraspråk, diskurser, pedagogisk inkludering, likvär­dighet Similar or similar opportunities? Discourses on the school subject Swedish as a second language within the academic field in Sweden Abstract In this article, we take the concept of equality as the basis to discern and discuss discourses in scholarly texts within the Swedish academic field on the school subject Swedish as a second language (SSL) after its introduction in 1995. The study analyzes the types of arguments, their theoretical and empirical under­pinnings, and the assumptions of equality reflected. Two colliding discourses are identified, of which the arguments of the SSL discourse, stemming from research on multilingualism and second language research, recognizes lan­guage educational needs in students’ learning in their second language as an expression of equality-as-equal-opportunity and resistance to “difference blind­ness”. In this line of argument, SSL is constructed as part of a pluralistic language policy comprising SSL and mother tongue education. However, the recognition of second language educational needs exists alongside criticism of the subject’s organization. The colliding discourse centers on inclusion, describes SSL as an expression of deficiency regarding the students, and considers the separation of students to be a key problem. As aspects of the inclusion discourse are also found in the SSL discourse, interdiscursive rela­tions are discerned. The emerging interpretations of deficiency and language reflect how discourses construct their object (Foucault, 1972), in this case contents and aims of SSL. The anticipating characteristics of the discourses indicate an involvement of actors with a high degree of agency, reflecting the relatively high impact of the academic field on the political field in terms of multilingual education policy. Research on the SSL educational practices, partly underpinning the discourses, is however strikingly limited. Keywords: Swedish as a second language, discourses, pedagogical inclusion, equality