Research review of multilingual educational language policy in Switzerland and Sweden

• People move to other countries due to various reasons. Often, international migration has the consequence of living in new linguistic and cultural surroundings. In Sweden for example, almost 20% of the pupils have another mother tongue than Swedish (Skolverket, 2014). In Switzerland recent surveys show that almost 25% of all pupils in primary school speak another language at home than the local school language (Giudici, 2014). As Daryai-Hansen et al. (2015, p. 110) notes, “the idea of plurilingual competence is well accepted in research on language education and promoted in language policies, it is not established in education in general”. This article reviews research results on multilingual educational policy documents on a macro-level (national/regional) in Sweden and Switzerland. These countries are selected because of their similarity regarding immigration rates shown above but differences in terms of political and linguistic conditions. The results of this article contribute to the understanding of different treatments of similar multicultural and multilinguistic issues in educational settings. Two research question have been formulated in order to achieve the aim of this article: 1. What results of research on Swedish and Swiss multilingual educational policy documents, such as curricula and syllabi, can be found? 2. Are the research results in line with the multilingual educational policy documents currently used in these two countries? To compile the literature for the review, a comprehensive search for relevant articles was conducted via EBSCOhost, ProQuest and swissbib. The articles were selected in a multiple step process. To summarize the results of this review, it is important to note that the two countries have integrated the several languages of their pupils in a different way. While the Swiss system occurs to be more holistic, the Swedish curriculum presents separate options to foster a multilingual and multicultural well-being and equity for all pupils, regardless their linguistic background.

Nyckelord

meta-analysis

language policy and planning

Sweden

Switzerland

multilingualism

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)