Rhetoric and Reality: Heritage Language Ecologies in a Multilingual Swedish School

• In Event: 16.056 - Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: 16.056-15 - Ecologies and Identities in Second Language/Multilingual Research

Abstract

Globalization and recent immigration flows are drastically changing the linguistic and educational landscape of Sweden. This paper centers on how heritage language teachers and students position themselves and are positioned in relation to political discourse and changing policies regarding heritage language instruction at an elementary school in one of the country's largest cities. As in much of Europe, radical anti-immigrant sentiment is increasing vertiginously in Sweden, and my research situates heritage language teachers’ and students’ practices and perspectives within this broader political context.

Author

• Liv Thorstensson Davila, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign