I denna artikel undersöks möjligheter och utmaningar vad gäller att utveckla kritisk litteracitet för vuxna som deltar i sfi, studieväg 1. Artikeln bygger på intervjuer av fyra sfi-lärare och observationer av deras undervisning, inom ramen för ett aktionsforskningsprojekt där fokus var på kritisk litteracitet. Luke och Freebodys skriftspråkliga praktiker och Janks ramverk för dimensioner av kritisk litteracitet användes för analys. Studien visar både på möjligheter och utmaningar. Även om de fyra olika praktikerna pågick samtidigt är det tydligt att den kritiska uppfattas som mer utmanande för lärarna. Samtidigt framträdde en spänning mellan skolans demokratiuppdrag och lärarnas beredvillighet att låta elever ha direkt inflytande över exempelvis vilka frågor som väljs ut för kritisk analys. Ur ett maktperspektiv befinner sig eleverna på studieväg 1 i ett läge av underordning, såväl vad gäller möjligheter att utöva sina medborgerliga rättigheter som möjligheter att påverka rådande diskurser. Vi konstaterar att lärarnas villighet att inkludera kontroversiella frågor även behöver balanseras mot aspekter som klassrumsklimat och skydd av enskilda elevers välbefinnande
The aim of this study is to shed light on discourses in national assessment material for recently arrived students and discourses about students' knowledge as they emerge from teachers’ use of the national assessment material for newly arrived students. The empirical material consists of assessment material for five students, two with little or no previous school background and three with long school background. The documentation in the mapping material is analyzed with Gee's discourse analysis. The result shows two different discourses in which information of different kinds is made significant: assessment discourse for newly arrived students and important knowledge at Language Introduction. Through the assessment material, the Swedish National Agency for Education supports a comprehensive assessment where information about students' previous knowledge and background regarding language and education is requested, with a particular focus on numeracy and literacy. What emerges from the study is that the documentation is inconsistent, often fragmentary and abbreviated. The results also show that the teachers consider personal matters, such as fleeing and arriving in Sweden, to be important knowledge at Language Introduction that they need to document. Additionally, the documentation regarding students who have experience studying in formal schools is more informative compared to the documentation for those students who have little or no experience of formal education. Thus, the information which is intended to be provided through assessment material appears only vaguely, and there is a discrepancy as some information is left out, particularly for students with short or no earlier schooling.
Syftet med detta kapitel är att bidra till en dialog gällande forskningsetik utifrånsåväl juridiska som humanistiska aspekter. Exempel hämtas från dilemman somuppstått i etnografiskt inriktade studier där deltagarna är andraspråksanvändareav svenska och där många har begränsad erfarenhet av formell utbildning ochanvändning av skrift. Det kan vara svårt att ge forskningsinformation på ett sättsom elever med olika bakgrund förstår, särskilt vad gäller konsekvenserna avinformationen, av att delta i forskningen och vad det betyder att vara anonym.En utgångspunkt för kapitlet tas i begrepp som rör etisk omtanke samt i begreppsom rör samtycke och som utvecklats inom forskning om och med barn: inlärtsamtycke och samtycke som pågående process. Samtliga begrepp behandlar på ett ellerannat sätt den makt forskaren har i relation till deltagarna. Vidare diskuteras hurdeltagares eventuella utsatthet eller sårbarhet behöver ses i relation till denaktuella kontexten snarare än utifrån på förhand definierade kategorier.Avslutningsvis belyses forskares ansvar för att hela tiden göra etiskaöverväganden i sin profession och att dessa innebär en ständig och systematiskreflektion och en mängd val. Vi ser ett samhällsintresse i att etnografisk forskninggenomförs i andraspråkssammanhang där deltagarna i olika avseenden kanbetraktas som i en utsatt position. Detta ställer krav på utveckling av nu användaformer för samtyckesförfarande.
This paper explores the ethical challenges and possibilities of conducting responsible and transformative translanguaging pedagogy in adult education for second language learners with limited previous experience of schooling. We identify and explore ethical dilemmas in teachers’ interaction and multilingual teaching practices. The data was produced in a linguistic ethnography and action research project. It consists of classroom observations and interviews with teachers who teach in the programme Swedish for Immigrants (SFI). The teachers expressand embody ambivalence in relation to the students’ use of their whole linguistic repertoires and the students are not always treated as competent to make informed decisions about their own use of linguistic repertoires. This touches on issues of citizenship and democracy and here the framework ethics of care offers context-specific ways of understanding and responding to the ethical challenges of multilingual teaching.
I artikeln undersöks pedagogiska, språkliga och kulturella aspekter av studiehandledning på modersmålet för att uppmärksamma frågor om likvärdighet och social rättvisa i grundskolan. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten tas i Bhabhas begrepp tredje rummet samt i en dynamisk syn på flerspråkighet genom begreppet transspråkande. Artikeln bygger på intervjuer med studiehandledare, och observationer från studiehandledningstillfällen. Studiens resultat presenteras i följande avsnitt: 1) Studiehandledningens pedagogiska praktiker, 2) Användning av multimodala resurser och 3) Studiehandledningens kulturella ramar. Därmed synliggörs komplexiteten i de pedagogiska, språkliga och kulturella praktiker som studiehandledningen innebär. Enligt våra slutsatser kan studiehandledning inte ses som enbart stöd genom elevens modersmål eller starkaste språk, utan bör snarare betraktas som en transspråkande praktik som utmanar språkliga och kulturella gränser. Detta stärker förståelsen av studiehandledningens mellanförskap, som inte bara innebär ett mellanrum mellan två kulturer, två språk, två livsåskådningar och två kunskapssyner, utan en komplex och dynamisk mångfald. Dessa transformerande praktiker synliggör studiehandledarnas upplevda brist på aktörskap, som medför att eleverna går miste om kunskap med potential att vidga perspektiv och gynna deras kunskapsutveckling och kritiska tänkande. För att uppnå likvärdighet och social rättvisa i skolan framstår nödvändigheten i att stärka studiehandledares position genom förtydligande av uppdraget samt ett mer strukturerat samarbete med klass- och ämneslärare.
In this article focus is directed towards Study Guidance in the Mother Tongue (SGMT) and SGMT tutors’ professional roles in Swedish compulsory school. The aim is to study how SGMT tutors are positioned and position themselves in relation to official documents and other actors in school. Questions that are highlighted in the article deal with forms for participation in school activities, opportunities to agency and voice as well as expressions of professionality in the SGMT tutor role. The empirical material builds mainly on interviews with SGMT tutors together with official documents. The results show that there is big variation between individual SGMT tutors when it comes to their possibilities for agency and to make their voices heard, as well as when it comes to participation and influence. Several co-operating factors have been identified that may strengthen the SGMT tutors’ profession where competence and possibilities for co-operation with class and subject teachers appear as crucial. Also questions of organisational art, such as time allocated for preparation, are important for SGMT tutors’ profession.
Due to migration, Swedish pre-schools are linguistically and culturally diverse settings where approximately one in five children is bi-/multilingual. Hence, pre-school teachers work in a diverse landscape in which they are expected to support the multilingual and multicultural development of the children. The aim of this article is to analyze the discourses of diversity in Swedish pre-school teacher training and, more specifically, how students are positioned and position themselves in relation to such discourses. The article takes its point of departure in an ethnographic four-year project that studied a group of students recruited to the pre-school teacher training by a municipality because of their migration background. The material analyzed consists of interviews and observations during the four years that the students participated in the program. Using the framework of nexus analysis, it reveals an ambivalence in attitudes in relation to diversity and in the positioning of certain students as other. Due to their historical bodies, the students are expected to add value to the pre-school teacher training program, but at the same time, they are expected to perform like everyone else in the program, reproducing a discourse of diversity as a positive asset.
In this study, we investigate linguistic diversity in teacher education in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a setting where discourses on emigration and re-emigration are strong. The aim is to explore social discourses on linguistic diversity as constructed in teacher training programmes for teaching English to primary and secondary school pupils, in course descriptions at two universities, and the implications of these discourses for the suggested teaching practices. Four discourses were identified: double monolingualism, contrastive perspective, linguistic diversity as one of many types of diversity and English as a gateway to future possibilities. Students’ earlier linguistic resources in other languages were treated as negative for the development of their English-language skills. English and Kurdish were treated in ways that suggest they should be kept separate and skills in other languages were rendered invisible. This is likely to have an impact on students’ teaching in the future, making them less inclined to recognise their pupils’ prior knowledge of other languages. We conclude that, more research is needed focusing on issues of circular migration and diaspora, and on other themes than those dominant in the West and the Global North, such as high number of immigrants and issues of integration and assimilation.
In this article images of and narratives about a specific homeland, heritage and culture in Mother Tongue Tuition (MTT) in Sweden are analyzed in order to discuss if and how the MTT classroom is constructed as a transnational space. In the Swedish context, MTT is a voluntary school subject with the aim to support students to develop knowledge in and about the mother tongue, namely languages other than Swedish used in the home setting. Through a modified nexus analysis of policy documents, field notes and photos from observations and semi-structured interviews with Mother Tongue teachers, a picture emerges of MTT as a transnational space. However, while the discourses of official curricula express a simplified view of the relations between language, culture and the geopolitical space perceived as the homeland, the analysis of the linguistic landscape of the classrooms and the MT teachers? voices exposes the complexity of such relations in a globalized world. The analysis revealed that the construction of the homeland is not limited to relations between two geographical places, as expressed through the national curriculum, but rather the discourses in place may include varied diaspora communities as well as complex national situations in the perceived homeland.
The aim of this article is to generate knowledge about an MTT classroom in a Swedish elementary school and MTT is positioned as a safe space for translanguaging. By studying a school context as a potential translanguaging space, our focus is mainly on two dimensions of space: the physical, including the material space of MTT, and the social, including safe spaces in MTT. The material is mainly from one selected Kurdish MTT classroom, in the form of field notes from lesson observations, photographs in the classroom interior, video recordings co-created with the MTT teacher. This classroom may be perceived as a space where Kurdish dominates, while being included in a Swedish-dominant school setting. This Kurdish space has borders that are physical and related to the scheduled lesson in the specific classroom. Both students and the teacher pass the door and through this shift language practices. Linguistic landscaping as a method, in combination with the collective reflection between the researcher and teacher, added another dimension to the study of MTT. Schoolscaping made language hierarchies and the language policy of the school more concrete and visible.
Vikten av att elevers språkliga kunskaper och erfarenheter ses som tillgångar för lärande i skolan är den röda tråden för den här kunskapsöversikten.
The focus of this article is on relations between classroom interaction, curricular knowledge and student engagement in diverse classrooms. It is based on a study with ethnographic perspective in which two primary school classes in Sweden were followed for three years. The analysis draws on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics. The results indicate that language use in the classrooms is on a basic everyday level and that high teacher control results in low-demanding tasks and low engagement among students. Interaction in the classrooms mainly consists of short talk-turns with fragmented language, frequent repairs and interruptions, while writing and reading consists of single words and short sentences. Although the classroom atmosphere is friendly and inclusive, second language students are denied necessary opportunities to develop curricular knowledge and Swedish at the advanced level, which they will need higher up in the school system. The restricted curriculum that these students are offered in school thus restricts their opportunities to school success. Thus, I argue for a more reflective and critical approach regarding language use in classrooms.
In applied linguistics and critical theory, identity has become an important theoretical and analytical concept. Work with multilingual identity texts has been developed in Canada by teachers and researchers in cooperation to creating opportunities for students’ identity development academically, intellectually and personally. The focus in the article is on student engagement and negotiation of identities. Results are presented from an ethnographically inspired action research where students in grade four where inspired to use their multiple language resources. Through participant observation and interviews material was created during the project. Students’ talk of how they navigate in multilingual environments outside school and of how they try to extend their linguistic repertoire by learning from each other challenge traditional views of mother tongue and home country. The work with identity texts made students’ varied and complex linguistic resources visible while opportunities to negotiate identities were offered, creating space for changing roles and for discussions about emotions related to language. The project showed that changes in classroom practices by including different languages put high demands on teachers, on development of the cooperation with mother tongue teachers, study guidance assistants in the mother tongue and parents, and on organizational support. The multilingual writing increased students’ engagement while also increasing linguistic awareness among students and teachers.
Syftet med denna presentation är att visa hur rum för flerspråkighet och flerspråkig litteracitet kan skapas genom kritisk litteracitet i svenska för invandrare (sfi). Fokus ligger på vuxna andraspråksinlärare med kort eller ingen skolbakgrund innan ankomst till Sverige, studieväg 1. Studien genomfördes inom ramen för ett aktionsforskningsprojekt och det använda materialet kommer från observationer av en lärares arbete i fyra undervisningsgrupper under två terminer. Fältanteckningar, fotografier och videofilmer är analyserade med hjälp av Hornbergers continua of biliteracy (Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2000; Hornberger, 2003).
Analysen visade att den observerade undervisningen erbjöd rum för flerspråkighet och att eleverna explicit stimulerades till att bidra med sina egna erfarenheter och uttrycka sina egna uppfattningar. Därmed stöder denna studie tidigare anspråk av bl.a. Hornberger och Skilton-Sylvester (2000) vad gäller att alla lägen på kontinuerna är viktiga i litteracitetsundervisning för vuxna. Studien visar emellertid också att motsägelsefulla uppfattningar kan existera i klassrummet angående vad som sker och vad som borde ske. Teman som är vanliga inom kritisk litteracitet kan öka risken för denna slags motsättningar. Att utveckla skriftspråksfärdigheter i ett andraspråk innebär hårt arbete, i synnerhet när det handlar om att utveckla sådana på grundläggande nivå vid vuxen ålder. Det är därför en viktig uppgift för lärarna att skapa engagemang, vilket motiverar användning av kritisk litteracitet, samtidigt som vissa lärare kan tveka inför att ta upp känsliga ämnen om de är rädda för att de kan skapa konfliktsituationer.
The aim of this article is to study the space for multilingualism and multiliteracy in the development of literacy skills through critical literacy in Swedish for Immigrants. The focus is on adult second language learners (L2 learners) with low education and Hornberger’s continua of biliteracy is used for the analysis of material from classroom observations. The observed teaching included space for multiliteracies and students were explicitly stimulated to bring their own experiences and express their own views. Thus, this linguistic ethnographic study supports earlier claims that all points on the continua are important in literacy education for adults. However, it also shows that conflicting perceptions may exist in class regarding what is happening and what should happen. Topics that are commonly used in critical literacy may further add to such risks. Developing literacy skills in an L2 means hard work, especially developing such skills from basic levels in adulthood. Thus, creating engagement is an important task for teachers, while teachers may hesitate in raising sensitive topics if they fear it may lead to conflict.
This paper discusses interactional patterns in classrooms in primary school in rural Tanzania, based on an ethnographic study on literacy practices. The paper argues that the official policy of Swahili-only in primary school, together with the huge gap between high expectations on educational outcome and lack of resources, have resulted in the creation of safety strategies among pupils and teachers. These safety strategies include interactional patterns that also constitute a hindrance for students’ learning. However, I claim that these interactional patterns could constitute a potential for educational development, if research findings from bilingual education were taken into account.
Using nexus analysis to investigate discourses about basic literacy learning for adults in the Swedish for Immigrants program
This article investigates discourses about basic literacy learning for adult second language learners in the program Swedish for Immigrants (SFI), study path one, which is for students with little or no prior schooling. The study has its theoretical basis in nexus analysis, which here means that literacy education is studied as a social act through these three discourses: discourses in place, historical bodies, and interaction order. These are investigated through the analysis and study of current policy documents, teacher interviews, and classroom observations.
Current documents emphasize that the design of teaching programs should be functional. This corresponds with teachers’ views about how literacy education forms part of general education in Swedish and how it has clear ties with what students perceive they need on an everyday basis. At the same time, the shortcomings pointed out in audits and reports that look at procedures to adapt teaching to individual needs correspond with the findings of the observation and interview data in the present study. There is a clear need for improvement both in this area and in the teaching of the alphabet, which does not have a prominent place in current policy documents and which appears to be taught separately.
Currently, knowledge about the early literacy development of adult second language learners is not a formal requirement in teacher education, and only one of the 24 teachers in this study claims to have such knowledge. Usually, the acquisition of knowledge about early literacy development is included in the training of primary school student teachers and is foremostly in the teaching of first language learners. This study, however, shows the need for increased knowledge about initial literacy development for adults as part of the professional development of SFI teachers.
This presentation focuses on the Language Introduction Programme (LIP) in upper secondary school in Sweden, a programme for recently arrived students who have not yet qualified for mainstream programmes. The aim is to draw attention to structural ambivalence that may affect students’ educational rights. The study is based on content analysis of official documents regarding teacher roles and has a critical theoretical base, with a focus on agency. Documents were analyzed through a layered model of critical discourse analysis, where national documents were related to course plans from education for teachers and principals. This enables a discussion about coherence and contradictions regarding the LIP when it comes to the quality of the education in relation to teachers’ and principals’ agency, qualifications, and professional roles. One conclusion is that the continuity between layers is weak, and that the qualifications that are stipulated for teachers at the national level do not comply with demands for those who are responsible for the education and its quality at the LIP. There is thus a discontinuity which may explain some problems with the LIP identified in previous research and reports.
Genom den snabba utvecklingen av informationsteknologier och deras olika modaliteter har den textrepertoar som barn möter i sin vardag kommit att kraftigt expanderas. Behovet av att sålla, tolka och förstå budskap och innehåll i olika slags texter har kanske aldrig varit större. I detta paper kommer resultat från ett mindre klassrumsbaserat projekt att redovisas. Projektet genomfördes i ett flerspråkigt sammanhang i årskurs två. Initialt inventerades vilka texter barnen möter och är intresserade av på sin fritid. Utifrån denna inventering stimulerade vi sedan en textproduktion runt karaktärerna i dessa företrädesvis populärkulturella texter. I vårt bidrag diskuterar vi resultatet ur barns och lärares perspektiv samt i relation till nuvarande nationella styrdokument och Barnkonventionen. I presentationen fokuseras vidare aspekter gällande den möjliga lärandepotentialen i texter hämtade från barns sociala världar samt villkor för barns medborgarskap i relation till kodning, funktionell användning, meningsskapande och kritisk granskning av texter.