This study focuses on teachers in schools with large numbers of new arrival immigrant pupils in a provincial school district in mid-Sweden. Drawing from focus group interviews and examples from the teachers' lessons, we examined the views of the teachers regarding the challenges experienced in responding to the pedagogical needs of new arrival…

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…

In the almost two decades that have passed since the Swedish parliament declared that Sweden is a multicultural society, debates about immigrants, about multiculturalism and about different ways of being a citizen have raged. So far there has been no stepping away from the declaration. In the rhetorical arena multiculturalism is still a word with…

During the last decade, Sweden has witnessed a significant increase in public attention concerning the following interrelated linguistic phenomena: (a) a linguistic style labelled "Rinkeby Swedish," (b) specific "Rinkeby Swedish words" that have been perceived as disparaging in Swedish public debate, and (c) a specific young…

Within the current global refugee crisis this paper emphasises the fundamental role of education in facilitating the integration of young new arrivals. It argues that a humanitarian problem of such scale requires a commensurate humanitarian response in the form of socially-just educational policies and practices in resettlement contexts within…

Students' perceived learning in physical education (PE) is an important yet neglected area of research. Increased knowledge about students' perceived learning can provide teachers with useful information to promote meaningful learning experiences in PE. Moreover, perceived learning can potentially be an alternative measurement to school grades…

This article reveals how test-based performativity pressures interfere with the pedagogical approaches preferred by teachers of second-language learners. Our findings derive from ethnographic research conducted in two non-mainstream high schools: one in a US city and other one in a Swedish city. Both schools serve immigrant students who speak…

Education is often seen as the most important mobility channel for children of immigrants. To what extent is this true? In this article, we look at successful second generation Turkish professionals in Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands. What kind of pathways did they take to become a professional? Based on the large quantitative…

We examine if the OECD survey of adult skills, PIAAC, can provide information about the relative quality of education and training in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. We find that the average population scores are inappropriate while the mean scores of natives well approximate the skills of individuals that had the chance to attend the…

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…

The aim of this article is to analyse the ways in which migration plays out in adult students' narratives about their occupational choice and future, focusing on three individual narratives of adult students with various experiences of migration to Sweden. Drawing on Sara Ahmed's conception of orientation, our results show how the adult students'…

This article is aimed to demonstrate how language policy at the local school level may create space for translanguaging. Focus is on a Mother Tongue (MT) classroom for Somali in a primary school in Sweden by way of an analysis of layers of language policy, with focus on spatial aspects. The empirical material consists of policy documents,…

The aim of the present study is to attain new knowledge about interculturalism, ethnicity, and multilingualism in the upper secondary school context in conjunction with pedagogical work with students who are newly arrived in the country. The empirical material for the study was collected in the upper secondary context in Sweden and consists of…

Sweden's Art and Music Schools (SAMS) have assumed some responsibility for facilitating refugee children's social inclusion. This article investigates how the inclusion of refugee children in SAMS is introduced by leaders as well as how the theme is constructed and addressed as a topic in policy documents (related to the national policy process…

This article investigates the rules of schooling which might be new to recently immigrated adolescents with few prior experiences of school-based learning. The purpose was to study how the 'external grammar' (Gee 2005)--i.e. the thoughts, beliefs, values, actions and social interactions--associated with a classroom was negotiated in a language…