This paper targets the aim of 'strengthening the students' multilingualism' in a second language subject in Sweden, "Swedish as a second language" (SSL), which represents a relatively rare L2 design internationally. The study investigates how "ideological space" for multilingualism with regard to this aim opens…

Through the study of pedagogic discourse and practice in "introductory classes" (ICs) aimed at new migrant students at a linguistically diverse primary school in Sweden, we discuss pedagogic principles and power dynamics, drawing on Bernstein's conceptual frame. Our ethnographic data consist of teacher interviews and observational…

This article explores language use and investment among Somali-speaking children and adolescents in Sweden, through group interviews and survey data. Our findings indicate that there are incentives to invest in Somali language learning considering the reported language use patterns and the expressed positive attitudes towards Somali mother tongue…

This study emerged from the abrupt shift to online distance teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic and reports of "Mother Tongue Instruction" (MTI) in Sweden, where online distance teaching was initially introduced in MTI only. In Sweden, MTI is offered to students whose parents/caregivers speak languages other than Swedish on a daily…

This study investigates if participation in mother tongue instruction (henceforth MTI) impacts the biliteracy proficiency of young bilinguals, drawing on examples from Somali-Swedish bilinguals and Somali MTI in a Swedish school context. In the study, biliteracy was operationalized as reading proficiency and vocabulary knowledge in two languages,…

Drawing from an ethnographic project on the subject of "Swedish as a second language" (SSL) in three linguistically diverse upper secondary schools, the aim of this study was to investigate how three SSL teachers, one from each school, discursively constructed SSL, and whether and how they legitimated their role as SSL teachers, in…