Sweden is often commended for the inclusion of home languages in the formal education system: both mother tongue instruction (where a pupil's home language is taught as an optional school subject) and study guidance (where a pupil is given content support in their home language or prior language of schooling) are offered. Still, while many…

Studies have found that bilinguals respond differently to personality measures in their two languages, indicating that bilinguals change their personality as they switch between their two languages and/or cultures. Across two experiments, we attempted to investigate the effect of language and culture separately on how bilingual speakers rate…

In this study, the notion of 'multilingual children' is differentiated by problematizing overgeneralizations or homogenizing of children with potentially different experiences of language(s). The aim is to generate knowledge of how minority language-speaking children use their language(s) outside the education system through teacher-parent…

The aim of this article is to examine contemporary conceptualizations of cultural and linguistic diversity in the Swedish policy for early childhood education and care (ECEC). The analysis draws on in-depth interviews with high-level policy actors and the analysis of documentary material. Using the concepts of interculturality and hybridity as…

The aim of this study is to investigate multilingual students' identity constructions in their participation in different digital literacy practices. Theoretically, we depart from a translanguaging perspective and a social understanding of literacy from the field of New Literacy Studies. The data was constructed through qualitative interviews with…

This paper draws on an intervention study focussing on translanguaging pedagogies. The study was carried out in 2020-2022 in collaboration with principals and teachers at one school located in a socioeconomic disadvantaged area in Sweden. Drawing on teachers' logbooks, the aim was to investigate in what ways the theoretical concept of…

In this qualitative study, we draw on theory and practice in relation to the concepts of "fixity" and "fluidity" in language education (i.e. the simultaneity of bounded, named languages; and the need to transcend language boundaries). We use data from focus group interviews to investigate the entangled ideological dilemmas…

This paper examines how unplanned vocabulary work arises out of students' talk. Furthermore, we show how the teacher and students jointly contribute towards the ensuing teaching trajectories, whereby the vocabulary items are turned into 'teachables', i.e. interactionally emergent objects of explicit teaching. In doing so, we also explore what…

The aim of this article is to generate knowledge about an MTT classroom in a Swedish elementary school and how 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,…

This article aims to explore and clarify how students' use of first and second languages in a translanguaging science classroom (TSC) may affect the continuity of learning in science. In a TSC, participants can use all available language resources, in all meaning-making situations. An ethnographic data collection and research design is used to…

This article investigates to what extent spaces created in the language introduction programme (LIP) in Upper Secondary School in Sweden close or open up for students' varied linguistic resources, to create an understanding of the implementational spaces of the educational environments that the school represents, and of the ideological…

According to the national framing of the Swedish preschool system, educators are expected to act as mediators of the dominant language while simultaneously promoting multilingualism. Previous research shows that educators display an insecurity as well as a lack of knowledge of how to implement this dual undertaking. This article examines…

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…

The present study examines the siblings' contribution to shaping the language practices and language environment of immigrant families. The data consist of interviews, observations, and video recordings of everyday family interactions and sibling play in five Iranian families residing in Sweden. Detailed interaction analyses show that siblings…

This study adopts a conversation analytic approach to present a close analysis of the sequential organisation of a parent-child homework activity in a Swedish-English bi-national family. Families formed within migration contexts are increasingly common in an ever-globalised world, but current research has not fully investigated how parent-child…