This chapter addresses vocationally adjusted language courses in Swedish for adult immigrants. We focus on individualisation, which is stipulated in the curriculum and other syllabus documents, and argue that individually adapted feedback could be considered a tool (out of several potential tools) for “doing” individualisation in a pedagogical practice. We discuss different understandings of individualisation in policy documents and research literature, and define individualisation as an educational practice in teaching, carried through in dialogue. In an empirical study, we apply the definition by analysing feedback sequences in video recordings from two vocational courses (designed for outdoor maintenance workers and medical doctors, respectively) using the linguistic method of interaction analysis. We demonstrate (1) how individualisation in terms of feedback is managed in interaction involving teacher and students, and (2) the vocational and linguistic skills that materialise as important for the individual students in these feedback sequences. Our results demonstrate that feedback is a functional educational tool for individualisation, providing learning opportunities for both language acquisition and professional knowledge. However, this requires authentic assignments that are designed to promote opportunities for more developed dialogues. Another conclusion is that a professional experienced teacher who can provide feedback on both professional skills and language use is particularly important. 

In this article we investigate spoken professional interaction at construction sites in Sweden, where workers from Poland, Ukraine and Estonia are temporarily employed as carpenters, ground workers and kitchen installers. We study how the workers use resources associated with different languages and how these resources are mobilized along with embodied resources for meaning-making. The analysis aims at investigating what social space the workers construct by going between or beyond different linguistic structures, as defined in the theory of translanguaging. The study is based on Linguistic Ethnography and Conversation Analysis is used for close analysis. We focus on instances of translanguaging, such as Swedish-sounding institutionalized keywords, practices of receptive multilingualism and the search for communicative overlaps in repertoires. The findings from busy construction sites show that the stratifying aspect gives some workers a voice in the organization, while others remain silent. Hence, it is primarily professionals functioning as team leaders, who talk to different occupational categories and use resources associated with different languages. The data provide an opportunity to investigate the theory of translanguaging and its transformative power in relation to professional settings that are linguistically diverse, but also strictly hierarchical.

Analysing student interaction at an international university in Sweden, this article investigates how the transnational strategy of using English as a medium of instruction can be (re)constructed by students in a local context. The analysis focuses on students’ expectations—or norms—for when it is appropriate to use English, and shows that English medium-instruction does not necessarily mean that students speak English all the time. The local language Swedish is used in connection to teaching and students establish local norms for when, how and with whom it is appropriate—or inappropriate—to speak English. A conclusion is that although language choice at the international university is influenced by global factors, it is still firmly a local construction.

As part of the internationalization of higher education, more and more European university courses are being taught in English. Exchanges between universities have grown, and students from different parts of the world now often study together. What does this international environment look like in linguistic terms? Do students and teaching staff speak only the course language English, or are other languages also used, and if so, in what situations and contexts? These questions are discussed on the basis of an ethnographic study of an English-medium university course in Sweden. Extended examples of interaction show that participants adapt their use of languages to place-bound needs and conditions, giving rise to local norms. The national language Swedish holds a special position, as the first language of the majority and the lecturer. The course language English is dominant as a de facto lingua franca, but local social and linguistic needs and conditions leave room for other languages as well. Overall, course participants orient to three competing principles of language use: (a) English as a lingua franca, (b) the speaker's orientation to her or his own language and (c) the special position of Swedish, as the first language of the majority and the lecturer.

In Swedish language planning the position of English vis-à-vis Swedish is attracting attention. This is due to the concern that the growing use of English in certain domains may result in Swedish loosing ground. Surveys have shown that English is frequently used in fields with extensive international collaboration, such as higher education, business and politics. Yet, knowledge about actual language use and patterns of language choice in international contexts is poor and studies on how the involved parties themselves understand the situation are lacking. This paper draws on data from an ongoing PhD project on the use of Swedish in English medium university education and discusses students’ language choice patterns in two English medium lectures in Sweden: the one taken from a faculty of social sciences and the other from a faculty of science and technology. Findings show that the use of Swedish differs between the two lectures and that the usage can be characterized as spontaneous. Interestingly, students speak Swedish in a number of study activities associated with the lectures. Even though Swedish is seldom heard in class, it dominates in study activities outside class. The number of exchange students in combination with students’ and teachers’ attitudes impact on language choices. Existing local language plans, however, do not seem to influence actual language use.

Nowadays, most universities have policies for internationalization, and in such policies, attention is increasingly given to internationalization as an aspect of students’ learning. However, there have so far been limited efforts to study how such student-centered internationalization can be carried out in practice. This article explores linkages between policy and practice, and it reports on a case study of how local policy goals of internationalization are carried out at the classroom level in a university in Sweden. Through fine-grained analyses of classroom interactions, it is demonstrated how a teacher and his students put policy goals into practice and what aspects stimulate them to do so. More generally, the results contribute to knowledge of how internationalization of higher education can be encouraged and practiced in local learning settings in the form of social actions and how it is carried out in a certain context at a certain time.

Avhandlingen handlar om hur svenska används i den muntliga interaktionen i sex engelskspråkiga universitetskurser i Sverige. Kurserna följs av både svenska och utländska studenter och engelska är det gemensamma språket i undervisningen. Undersökningen utgår från studenternas språkbruk och syftet är att beskriva och förstå särskilt studenters muntliga användande av svenska i den typ av språkmiljö som uppstår då engelska är undervisningsspråk.

Språkbruket undersöks från tre infallsvinklar: den talade svenskans användning, svenskans funktioner i interaktionen samt deltagarnas attityder till dels svenska och engelska, dels valet av språk. Analysen utgår från observationer och inspelningar av naturligt förekommande samtal i undervisning inom ämnesområdena företagsekonomi, teknik och datavetenskap samt från intervjuer med studenter och lärare. Näranalyser av den talade svenskan kombineras med etnografisk kunskap om kursernas bredare sociala sammanhang, och i teori och metod kombineras forskningsfälten sociolingvistik och etnografi.

Resultatet visar att svenska förekommer i alla undersökta kurser. Svenska används främst utanför helklassundervisningen i samtal där utländska studenter inte deltar. Språket talas både i samtal som rör studieämnet och i privata samtal. Att kurserna är nominellt engelskspråkiga betyder alltså inte att engelska är det enda språk som används i samband med undervisningen, också svenskan har en mer eller mindre framträdande plats. I avhandlingen förklaras attityder och språkvalsmönster med att kurserna till sin karaktär är nationella – i motsats till internationella – och att majoriteten studenter och lärare har erfarenhet och rutiner från svenskspråkiga utbildningar. De gamla rutinerna förs över till de nominellt engelska kurserna och ger svenskan en särställning och lokal prestige i miljöerna.

This chapter presents a study of the linguistic milieu that is generated when students from different parts of the world meet and interact in international university settings. The study is conducted in nominally English-medium courses at a Swedish university, and focuses on how students use Swedish and other non-authorised languages in addition to English. The multilingual characteristics of the milieu are exemplified and discussed, and it is demonstrated that the language of the surrounding society holds a special position. In the era of globalisation, universities are part of internationalisation processes, but yet situated in a local context marked by a certain history and specific linguistic resources.

In this chapter, five studies of language practice in Swedish higher education are compared and discussed with focus on how the policy of English-medium teaching is assumed to relate to practices ‘on the ground’. It is demonstrated that the earlier studies take a normative approach towards policy and practice, in the sense that practice is assumed to coincide with policy, while the later studies approach policy and practice from a dynamic point of view, assuming that other languages may be used in addition to the policy-prescribed medium. The underlying approach has implications for the studies’ design and focus, but also for their results concerning the use of Swedish and English in higher education in Sweden.

This article presents a qualitative, empirical study of two educational programmes for immigrants that integrate languageinstruction and vocational training. In the context of migration, social inclusion is often conceptualised as access to socialcapital. Proficiency in the national language is considered key for employment and fast integration into working life hasbecome a primary goal in Swedish migration policies. This article examines the two programmes from the perspectiveof inclusion into an (imagined) future professional community of practice (CoP), focusing specifically on the participants’possibilities to invest in a professional linguistic repertoire. The article is dedicated to empirical analyses and positive factors,recognising the need for research. Data consists of interviews with students and teachers, observations, and videorecordings of course activities. Organisational aspects of the courses, such as the teachers’ backgrounds and the courses’proximity to future CoPs, as well as relational aspects of the learning environments, are considered essential for the participants’inclusion in a future professional CoP. Analyses of the programmes’ content demonstrate that participants areassumed to lack context‐specific, vocational knowledge, including professionally related vocabulary. The article contributesto knowledge on how inclusion can be managed in practice in educational settings for adult immigrants and promotesan understanding of how vocationally adapted courses can assist immigrants in becoming members of a future professionalCoP.

In this article we investigate the linguistic working life of manual workers who commute from Estonia for installation work at a large construction site in Sweden. Language use is analysed from the perspective of nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon 2004), including the installers’ historical body, interaction order and discourses in place. The findings show that the workers have extensive experience of construction work in several countries and that they carry out their work without knowledge of Swedish. They are part of a professional Estonian team but work mainly alone and get all necessary instructions from their team leader in Estonian. The team leader coordinates their work but also functions as a language broker in the interactional order, using English as a lingua franca. Installation work is considered “language marginal”, and the dominating discourse in place assigns a higher value to the workers’ craftmanship, flexibility and efficiency than their competence in a specific language. The fact that work is carried out in a country where Swedish is the main language does not have any practical significance, neither for access to work nor for carrying out the work. Based on these findings, we conclude that the wide-spread metaphor “Swedish language as key to the labour market” relies upon a simplified understanding of language and labour market. 

Arbetskraftspendlingen inom EU är särskilt stor inom byggsektorn med språkliga effekter både för den som söker arbete utomlands och för platsen för mottagandet. I den här artikeln analyseras kedjor av arbetsdirektiv på två byggarbetsplatser i Sverige där det arbetar svenska, polska respektive ukrainska hantverkare. Vi visar hur kedjorna bidrar till en organisation där alla inte behöver tala med alla och beskriver hur lagbasar för utländska team av arbetare får en nyckelroll genom dels sin flerspråkighet, dels kedjeformatet. Materialet består av etnografiska observationer och videoinspelade samtal från två flerspråkiga arbetsplatser av olika storlek, vilket möjliggör jämförelser av hur arbetet organiseras. I artikeln analyseras först enskilda kedjor med hjälp av samtalsanalys, sedan den övergripande institutionella ordning för språkval som framträder när mönstret återkommer över tid och rum. Intressant nog är den institutionella ordningen för språkval lika för byggarbetsplatserna, trots olikheter i storlek, temporalitet och spatialitet. 

In this case study we investigate the role of transnational networks and language brokering in labour migration within the European Union. By describing the working days of Estonians hired by a city maintenance company in Sweden, we demonstrate how language skills and network ties of a manager enable work migration in the local context. Most of the recruited workers belong to the manager's circle of family and friends. The manager is thus both capitalising on his social relationships and reinforcing a social support network in the receiving country for the individuals involved. The article promotes our understanding of the interface between migration, multilingualism, and language brokering in the understudied blue-collar workplaces and dissects the social and economic values of linguistic resources in work migration across the Baltic Sea. The data consist of ethnographic observations of daily work routines, video recordings of interaction, and interviews.

Den här texten handlar om ett högskolepedagogiskt samarbete som syftat till att skapa en ämnesintegrerad introduktion i akademiskt skrivande för polisstudenter vid Södertörns högskola. I texten beskrivs hur samarbetet har sett ut och vad som har fått introduktionen att leva kvar i programmet. Vi diskuterar utmaningar som uppstått och avslutar med några råd till den som vill genomföra liknande satsningar och samarbeten.

Lärare i högre utbildning behöver kontinuerligt reflektera över den egna pedagogiska verksamheten och studenternas lärande, gärna i dialog med kollegor. Ämnesmiljön och det pedagogiska ledarskapet lyfts fram som en nyckel till att detta ska komma till stånd (Scheja & Laksov, 2020). Studierektorer, programsamordnare och kursansvariga kan vara exempel på ledare som inte innehar ett formellt ledarskap som chefer, men som i praktiken leder det pedagogiska utvecklingsarbetet. De är inte sällan kollegialt valda som “främste bland likar” (Bremer, 2015:127) och har arbetsuppgifter med karaktär av akademiskt hushållsarbete (Babcock et al., 2017; Kalm, 2019), men utan formellt ansvar för arbetsmiljö eller lönesättning. Studier av hur dessa ser på sitt uppdrag och sin samordnande funktion är fortfarande få i svensk kontext (se dock t.ex. Elmgren m.fl., 2000). 

I presentationen diskuteras rollen som ämnessamordnare och programsamordnare vid Södertörns högskola, utifrån ett insamlat material på högskolepedagogiska kurser i Pedagogiskt ledarskap. Hur ser samordnarna på sitt uppdrag och hur relaterar det till faktisk arbetsordning och existerande institutionella ramar? Materialet består av 23 kursdeltagares självreflexioner över sin roll som pedagogiska ledare, som de gjort i form av illustrationer över dels uppskattade arbetsuppgifter, dels hur de är som pedagogiska ledare – eller superhjältar – med styrkor och svagheter på skalor som de själva identifierat. Materialet har anonymiserats och analyserats utifrån återkommande teman, men också utifrån ytterligheter i beskrivningarna för att fånga komplexitet i uppdraget.  

Resultatet visar en komplex roll, med samordnare som inte själva betraktar sig som ledare, utan snarare “facilitator” eller “doer”. Många rapporterar att de ansvarar för arbetsuppgifter som inte synliggörs i arbetsordningen och att de har en alltför liten nedsättning i tid för de uppgifter som ska utföras. Vid presentationen diskuterar vi hur denna frånvaro av insikt om betydelsen av pedagogiskt ledarskap på institutionell nivå kan knytas till ramar och förväntningar i miljön, men också hur identiteten om samordnare snarare än ledare kan påverka möjligheten till pedagogisk utveckling och förändring.  

Referenser 

Babcock, L. m.fl. (2017). Gender Differences in Accepting and Receiving Requests for Tasks with Low Promotability. American Economic Review, 107(3): 714–747.  

Bolander Laksov, K. & Scheja, M. (2020). Akademiskt Lärarskap. SULF:s skriftserie. 

Bremer, K. (2015). Kollegialitet. I: SOU 2015:92. Utvecklad ledning av universitet och högskolor. S. 125–147

Elmgren, M., Hedin, A. & Thelander, K. (2000). Och plötsligt var jag studierektor. En belysning av studierektorsrollen och dess utvecklingsmöjligheter. Enheten för utveckling och utvärdering, rapport 20. Uppsala universitet. 

Kalm, S. (2019). Om akademiskt hushållsarbete och dess fördelning. Sociologisk Forskning, 56(1): 5–26.