Search

Drawing on a larger project on teaching Swedish as a second language to migrant upper secondary school students in Sweden, this paper focuses on one teacher’s literature class and a book-group discussion about a graphic novel based on Selma Lagerlöf’s A Tale of a Manor. The aim was to contribute to further knowledge on the dialogic potential of teacher-led literary discussions on graphic novels with language learners, by focusing on the cumulative aspect of the interaction. We also analyzed the teacher’s role and how it affected the students’ responses and interpretations. Our findings show how the cumulative dialogue created new student insights relating to the novel’s protagonists, literary themes and the saga genre, which is central in Lagerlöf’s novels, and how literary concepts and visual cues were used as resources for interpretation. The discussion of the graphic novel included multifaceted and multimodal analyses, in which the teacher urged the students to formulate interpretations and responses anchored in both the written text and the images. This teacher-led dialogue holds great potential for encouraging students’ literary reading, as well as their confidence when it comes to giving responses to literature, which is of relevance to similar language and literature teaching contexts.

Utifrån en kritisk diskursanalytisk lins undersöker föreliggande studie hur fem fler­språkiga lärare i grundskolans tidiga år diskursivt positionerar sin egen flerspråkighet och i förhållande till undervisning, elever, kollegor och vårdnadshavare. Syftet är att bidra med ny kunskap om vilken betydelse lärares flerspråkighet kan ha i under­visningssammanhang i skolans tidiga år. Med en etnografisk ansats genomfördes del­tagande observationer i två grundskolor med hög andel flerspråkiga elever (ålder 7–12 år) och lärare. Data består av transkriberade intervjusamtal med de fem flerspråkiga lärarna och fältanteckningar från deras undervisning. Resultaten visar hur lärarnas diskursiva positionering av sin flerspråkighet och av flerspråkig användning tog sig olika uttryck, som rättighet och resurs såväl som problem (Ruíz, 1984). Lärarnas flerspråkiga policy uppfattades ha särskilt stor betydelse i förhållande till vårdnads­havare även om det också fanns uttryck för ambivalens, t.ex. i positionering av språklig behärskning av svenska och andra språk. Negativa upplevelser fanns av att bli positionerad som icke-legitim talare av svenska, jämte uttryck för en mer dynamisk syn på språk och identitet hos några av lärarna. Trots lärarnas legitimering (Van Leeuwen, 2007) av en flerspråkighetspolicy lokalt (Bonacina-Pugh, 2020) utmanades inte svenska som undervisningsspråk i stort, vilket t.ex. var märkbart i uttryckta gränser för an­vändning av andra språk än svenska. Fler liknande fallstudier i ordinarie undervisning i skolans tidiga år behövs, då elever socialiseras in i skolans språkliga register, för ytterligare kunskap om hur flerspråkiga praktiker kan ta sig uttryck, var gränserna går och deras betydelse i dagens heterogena klassrum. .

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.

This article focuses on language education policy for language learners in Sweden by building on a synthesis of findings from a research project on the school subject Swedish as a second language (SSL). The project was located in three upper secondary schools and one primary school with a large proportion of migrant students, of whom a majority studied SSL. We present previously published core findings, as well as revisit data for new analyses. The overarching aim is to contribute new knowledge on the complexities of arranging for sustainable, equitable and high-quality language educational provisions that include the teaching and learning of the language of schooling, through the lens of SSL. First, we outline and discuss the relatively unique design of SSL and discourses surrounding the subject, and also make some international comparisons with English as an Additional Language. Secondly, we discuss the role of pedagogical scaffolding of advanced literacy and literary content, and of multilingual aspects in SSL, as well as examine policy frictions in the data. We conclude by reflecting on the role of teacher competences and research methodology. Researching a second language subject is to stand in the crossroad of macro policy, the theory and practice of language education, and equity. All these aspects need to be considered to reach sustainable educational goals.

This paper builds on a collaborative pilot project on "Critical Multilingual Language Awareness" (CMLA) in a linguistically diverse Preparatory Class with migrant adolescents in Sweden. Importantly, the approach involved Multilingual Study Mentors (MSMs), whose role normally is to provide scaffolding in the strongest language of recently arrived students to facilitate learning in the language of instruction. Previous research has shown that MSMs are left at the margins of education. This paper explores some of the many audio-recorded conversations on multilingualism between the six MSMs and the students as scenarios of possibility (Heath, S. B. 2000. "Seeing Our Way into Learning." "Cambridge Journal of Education" 30 (1): 121-132. doi:10.1080/03057640050005816), facilitated by the MSMs' widened epistemic authority and invested symbolic self (Kramsch, C. 2011. "The Symbolic Dimensions of the Intercultural." "Language Teaching" 44 (3): 354-367. doi:10.1017/s0261444810000431). Through their careful positionings and personal involvement, students were encouraged to engage in various themes on multilingualism via co-learning processes and translingual practices, beyond the mere display of accurate and efficient communication in the majority language, hence, moving towards increased student participation. These findings demonstrate the potential MSMs -- or possibly other community members -- have to shape co-learning that is of importance to CMLA.

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