Forthcoming: Teacher education for working in linguistically diverse classrooms: Nordic perspectives

Anne Reath Warren (ed), Jonas Yassin Iversen (ed), Boglárka Straszer (ed)

Synopsis

This volume presents studies on aspects of teacher education that prepare teachers for working in linguistically diverse classrooms and schools in five Nordic countries; Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. This twin focus (teacher education in linguistically diverse contexts; and Nordic perspectives) makes the volume unique in its field, and contributes to international discussions on how teacher education can prepare preservice and in-service teachers for working with linguistically diverse student groups.

The volume includes contributions on:

  • Teacher education policies

  • Teacher educators’ perspectives on teacher education

  • Pre-service teacher perspectives on teacher education.

The ways in which teacher education prepares educators for working with newcomers and multilingual students has attracted considerable attention in recent years. This reflects the increasingly linguistically diverse nature of classrooms that teachers around the world meet, that is in turn, a direct result of intensified globalisation and transnational migration. Clearly, teacher education is crucial for successful implementation of educational provisions for multilingual students. Teacher knowledge, gained partly through teacher education, plays a central role in creating educational environments where multilingual students can thrive.

This volume focuses specifically on teacher education in a Nordic context, a region traditionally associated with progressive approaches in education based on principles of inclusivity, social justice and equal opportunity. In the twenty-first century, most Nordic countries have experienced increasing levels of migration. While neither multilingualism nor transnational migration are new phenomena in the region, geographical and social factors, as well as the ways humans communicate have helped make multilingualism more visible in the twenty-first century. Schools in the Nordic countries have had to act quickly and think flexibly to meet the needs of an increasingly linguistically and culturally heterogenous group of students. The ability of the Nordic countries to provide these students with “inclusive, equal education and a fair chance to start a new life” constitutes in some ways the ultimate test of the “Nordic model” of education. Investigating how this challenge is addressed in different forms of teacher education is the topic to which this volume turns its attention.

Chapters

  • Setting the scene
    Teacher education for linguistically diverse classrooms in the Nordic region
    Anne Reath Warren, Jonas Yassin Iversen, Boglárka Straszer
  • Working with multilingual students in Iceland
    Exploring educational experiences of newly graduated teachers
    Hermína Gunnþórsdóttir, Edda Óskarsdóttir
  • Study guidance in the mother tongue
    Legitimate knowledge and the emergence of a profession in Swedish schools
    Jenny Rosén, Åsa Wedin
  • Preparing pre- and in-service teachers in Iceland to work in multilingual classrooms
    Hafdís Guðjónsdóttir, Jónína Vala Kristinsdóttir, Gunnhildur Óskarsdóttir, Samúel Lefever
  • Multilingualism in Danish pre-service teachers’ writing assignments
    Between theory and practice
    Winnie Østergaard, Anna-Vera Meidell Sigsgaard, Thomas Roed Heiden, Lone Wulff, Christine Worm
  • Norwegian pre-service teachers’ orientations, knowledge and skills regarding multilingualism
    Jonas Yassin Iversen, Wenche Elisabeth Thomassen, Sandra Fylkeses
  • “You have to choose your words wisely”
    Finnish pre-service teachers’ understandings of, and support for, multilingual students’ academic language development
    Jenni Alisaari, Leena Maria Heikkola, Raisa Harju-Autti
  • Mapping pre-service subject teachers’ preparedness for linguistically diverse classrooms in Finland
    Leena Maria Heikkola, Elisa Repo, Niina Kekki
  • Changing teachers’ monolingual habitus
    Ingrid Piller

Biographies

Anne Reath Warren, University of Uppsala

Anne Reath Warren is an Associate Professor in Education with a focus on multilingualism and newcomers' learning, at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. In her PhD, a linguistic ethnographic study, she investigated the development of multilingual literacies through mother tongue instruction and multilingual tutoring in in Sweden and community language schools in Australia. She now works with professional development for mother tongue teachers, tutors and municipalities, to improve learning conditions for multilingual and newcomer students.

Jonas Yassin Iversen, University of Inland Norway

Jonas Yassin Iversen is an Associate Professor in Education with a focus on multilingualism and heritage language education, at the University of Inland Norway. In his PhD, an interview study with pre-service teachers, he investigated the participants’ language biographies, language ideologies and language practices during their first field placement in schools. He is currently researching heritage language education within and beyond mainstream education.

Boglárka Straszer, Dalarna University

Boglárka Straszer is Professor of Swedish as a Second Language and Head of the School of Language, Literatures and Learning at Dalarna University, Sweden. Her research interests include the sociology of language; multilingualism; linguistic ethnography; translanguaging; language attitudes and identity; linguistic schoolscaping; and education in various immigrant and minority language settings. She is the Vice-Chair of ASLA, the Swedish branch of the international association of applied linguistics, AILA, and the founder and leader of the research network NatMin, the Swedish Research Network for National and Other Minority languages.

book cover

Published

December 12, 2024
LaTeX source on GitHub

Online ISSN

2747-9927

Print ISSN

2747-9919
Cite as
Reath Warren, Anne, Iversen, Jonas Yassin & Straszer, Boglárka (eds.). Forthcoming. Teacher education for working in linguistically diverse classrooms: Nordic perspectives. (Current Issues in Bilingualism). Berlin: Language Science Press.

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.