BethAnne Paulsrud, Jenny Rosén, Boglárka Straszer and Åsa Wedin have recently published a book on translanguaging in Swedish educational contexts.
The term translanguaging is useful for analysing how linguistic resources are used in a variety of contexts. Translanguaging as a pedagogy challenges traditional educational approaches and ways of working, instead promoting new strategies in which students' linguistic repertoires are recognized and used in learning processes. Translanguaging in practice therefore means that in the classroom, multilingualism is considered the norm for individuals’ ways of being in and using languages.
The authors of this anthology explore translanguaging in Swedish educational contexts from preschool to higher education, in relation to Swedish educational policy and current pedagogical conditions. The aim is to study and make visible language ideologies as well as theoretical and pedagogical perspectives on translanguaging. This includes examining spaces for translanguaging, as well as translanguaging as a resource for student development and learning, in relation to digital media, as meaning-making practices, and as a norm and ideology. The book thus addresses questions that many teachers ask about translanguaging and what the theoretical and ideological implications may be.
The volume is of interest to teacher students, working teachers and others with an interest in multilingualism and education, not least researchers.
