Discourses about knowledge in relation to Language Introduction Students

Abstract

The aim of this article is to shed light on discourses about Language Introduction students and their knowledge, more specifically on discourses that emerge in the speech of teachers working in the Language Introduction program. The program is one of five Introductory programs at upper secondary school in Sweden and accepts newly arrived students aged from 16 to 19. Studies have shown that teachers’ perceptions, beliefs, and experiences can influence to shape their classroom practice, and therefore they are important for students’ schooling and thus also important to investigate. Foucault’s perspective on discourse theory and analysis was chosen to Illuminate how teachers talk about instruction in the program and the knowledge they attribute to their students. The material in the study consists of interviews with 24 teachers at four different upper secondary schools. In the analysis, the two discourses knowledge and multilingualism which are made visible contain statements about knowledge, students’ backgrounds, knowledge heterogeneity, previous schooling and language. The results show that multilingualism is perceived as a resource on the individual level, but that in a school context it becomes an obstacle. In this way, the students are positioned as deficient both in terms of knowledge and language, especially students with little or no previous schooling.