Background: The risks of developmental language disorder (DLD) for both educational progress and socio-emotional development are well documented, but little is known about how children and young people with DLD experience and describe their language and communication. The need to complement experimental and quantitative studies with qualitative…

This study investigates how shared understanding is established during a rarely researched instructional and interactional context, namely teacher-student interactions during between-desk instructions (BDIs). Specifically, the authors focus on instructional interactions initiated by students during project-based language teaching in an…

Children with a history of developmental language disorder (DLD) entering school are a challenge for classroom teachers. Teachers are often not very familiar with DLD, and language difficulties in school age children are often not obvious in context-supported everyday language. However, their language is still vulnerable. The teachers' way of…

This case study of an American professor's teaching experience in Sweden analyzes classroom communication using relational dialectics theory and cultural values theory. Tensions of hierarchy vs. equality and autonomy vs. connection were described through classroom processes such as greeting practices, dress, grading, attendance, gendered language…

In a significant book, Cameron suggested that we study metaphor as "prosaics" (i.e. as a feature of mundane talk). In this article, by means of a few brief examples, we point to instances of such talk in the setting of preschool. We also discuss some opportunities for learning that such talk could offer children, and what the…

In the wake of conversations about integrating macro- and micro-levels of linguistic analysis over the last 50 years, and following theoretical and methodological debates in the 1990s about investigating the dynamics of entire social systems, complexity theory is coming of age in educational linguistics. Central to the application of complexity…

Children of foreign origin are increasingly failing in mathematics in Swedish compulsory schools. This article analyses the didactics at a school proven very successful in teaching mathematics to all children including the 70% of children of foreign origin. The situation at the studied school is compared to research of the Swedish school system…

The focus of this article is on ten 5-year-old children and their teacher visiting a "Way of the water" exhibition (a large scale model showing the flow of water from the mountains to the sea) at a science centre and a later follow up discussion at a circle-time back at pre-school. The aims of the study were to analyse, describe and…

This study focuses on an attempt by a Swedish secondary school teacher to fashion a more participatory education situation by involving his students in deciding the rules for their group work. Five group sessions were video recorded and examined using a conversation-analytic approach. The findings show a complex interplay between democratic and…