Literacy and Agency: The Case of Young Adults who Came to Sweden as Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Minors

Wedin, Åsa

doi:10.1080/00313831.2019.1595710

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Agency is here understood in a dialogic perspective (Ahearn 2001;Dufva and Aro 2015) in accordance with Ahearn's definition as 'the socioculturally mediated capacity to act' (p. 112; see also Vitanova et al 2015), meaning that agency is treated as dynamic, fluid and developed in social interaction. Understanding voice, identity and agency as relating strongly to power allows for an analysis of the interdependent and complex nature of interactions between individuals and communities (Wedin 2019(Wedin , 2020.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Positioning of the recently arrived student: a discourse analysis of Sweden’s Language Introduction Programme

Wedin

2021

Journal of Multicultural Discourses

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This article explores how recently arrived students are positioned and position themselves in the Language Introduction Programme in upper secondary school in Sweden using a combination of position theory with nexus analysis. The material used consists of official national documents and local school documents, observations, interviews and photographs. Circulating discourses are analysed through discourses in place, historical bodies and interaction order. The analysis revealed ambiguous and conflicting discourses at the school, where students in the Language Introduction Programme are positioned both as having rights and as being deficient, lacking what is here termed Swedishness. While principals place the responsibility on students themselves to use Swedish in social situations, official documents emphasise the duty of the principals to ensure that education is relevant. Students' voices do not appear to be important, and their agency is mainly restricted to their own learning. The identities that were made possible relied on their mastery of Swedish. Conflicting discourses circulate regarding the rights of students and their weaknesses and responsibilities. The combination of these two factors may mean that students run the risk of being positioned as having few opportunities to be successful at school.

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Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Positioning of the recently arrived student: a discourse analysis of Sweden’s Language Introduction Programme

Wedin

2021

Journal of Multicultural Discourses

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“…Agency is strongly related to issues of power, which allows for an analysis of those who miss out on the opportunities offered and how these opportunities may be restored. Sociocultural theory directs our focus toward the complex interactions between both individuals and communities and between human cognition and experiences, and following Holland et al (1998), a focus on agency allows for an analysis of the interdependent nature of agency (see also Wedin, 2019).…”

Section: Students' Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Student Agency in Science Learning:Multimodal and Multilingual Strategies and Practices among Recently Arrived Students in Upper Secondary Schools in Sweden

Wedin¹,

Aho²

2019

iejee

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The aim of this article is to develop knowledge about recently arrived students' agency in learning science in upper secondary school in Sweden. The material was created through observations of science lessons and stimulated-recall interviews with four students. Findings showed that the multimodal and multilingual practices students were involved in, and the diverse strategies they used in these lessons, were enabled by their access to multilingual teaching material, including varied digital resources. Students were invited to use varied languages, but this does not, however, mean that the other languages were appreciated, and there is a danger in relying entirely on students' own capacity to translate and understand. Our main conclusion is that students' own agency becomes a prerequisite for learning in these classrooms, but that too much responsibility is put on the students to understand and learn the content and to develop required language skills. With the focus on vocabulary in the teaching, the risqué is high that students do not develop other linguistic skills that they will need in their further studies. Although the agency of these students was visible regarding strategies for their studies, their agency was mainly restricted to learning the prescribed theme in prescribed time.

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“…This means that agency is treated as being fluid and dynamic and developed in social action. Thus, voice and agency are understood as relating to issues of power, which allows for an analysis of aspects of power in the interdependent and complex nature of interactions between individuals, institutions and communities (Wedin, 2019(Wedin, , 2020.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Teacher professionality at a time of mobility:

Wedin

2021

Apples

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This study aims to investigate how the educational and linguistic backgrounds of teachers affect how they are positioned and how they position themselves in relation to their profession in a language introduction programme at upper secondary school in Sweden. Material from two years of study at one school was used to conduct a nexus analysis. The material comprised policy documents at the national and local levels; interviews with principals and teachers; and classroom and school environment observations. Conflicting discourses appear in the analysis in terms of teacher competence and teacher roles. Those teachers who had the relevant professional competence, as according to national documents, felt that their knowledge was not acknowledged and that they were not listened to. Official documents state that principals are responsible for fulfilling stipulated demands; however, they do not always have the necessary knowledge as this is not a requirement for their position. Thus, an ambiguous picture appears where teachers who are positioned as competent at the national level are positioned only to teach their own subject and are not given voice on issues relating to general teacher competence and organisation of education at the local level. This article highlights the importance of knowledge and understanding relating to L2 student learning at the management level.

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Literacy and Agency: The Case of Young Adults who Came to Sweden as Unaccompanied Asylum-seeking Minors

Cited by 4 publications

References 17 publications

Positioning of the recently arrived student: a discourse analysis of Sweden’s Language Introduction Programme

Positioning of the recently arrived student: a discourse analysis of Sweden’s Language Introduction Programme

Student Agency in Science Learning:Multimodal and Multilingual Strategies and Practices among Recently Arrived Students in Upper Secondary Schools in Sweden

Teacher professionality at a time of mobility:

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