Swedish only? Nation, economy and multiculturalism in Swedish communal schools

Abstract

The project is financed by the Swedish Research Council. There are two researchers involved in the project Tünde Puskás and Prof. emeritus Rune Johansson and the project consists of two parts. Rune Johansson studies the construction and re-formulation of languages policies at the national, societal level. Tünde Puskás focuses on how language policies are implemented at the municipal level within the sphere of education.
Thus the project aims at exploring
1. how Swedish language policies interact with major ideological debates on uniformity and diversity
2. how local school politicians and school leaders interpret, challenge and appropriate societal language planning principles and how they relate to the usage of Swedish and other languages in municipal schools.
The project fits well in the internationally expanding academic field ethnography of language policy. Studies within this tradition aim to link micro-level educational practices with macro-level language policies and discourses on language use through illuminating the connections between macro and micro levels of analysis. The ethnography of language policy in the context of this project allows us to illuminate the different layers of language policies. This approach requires broad definition of language policies. Language policy is thus conceptualised as the totality of language beliefs (ideologies, societal norms, values and individual perceptions) and language management (rules, laws, regulations and actions undertaken to influence or modify language practices).

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