Facts

Contact person:
Pia Nygård Larsson
Financer:
  • Swedish Research Council
Responsible at MaU:
Pia Nygård Larsson
Project members at MaU:
Affiliated:
  • International Advisory Board
Time frame:
01 July 2022 - 30 June 2026
Faculty/department:
Research environment :
Research subject:

About the project

The purpose of the project “Spaces for multilingualism” is to generate knowledge about the pedagogical potentials and limitations of multilingual practices in mathematics and science education. We specifically aim to explore and problematise how multilingual approaches and activities may promote mathematics and science teaching and learning in school years 4–9, and contribute to the development of students´ disciplinary literacy.

The qualitative project is conducted by an interdisciplinary research team that integrates theories from educational research in didactics, sociology and linguistics, including translanguaging theories. The project’s four-year period comprises initial exploration of existing pedagogical practices, mainly through workshops with teachers, classroom observations and interviews with students and teachers, in culturally and linguistically diverse schools. This phase is followed by a period of pedagogical interventions, in which teachers and researchers together design, carry out and analyse classroom interventions.

The interventions involve exploring the pedagogical potentials and limitations for promoting multilingual resources for teaching and learning. Further, students’ identities as engaged learners of mathematics and science are explored. The project addresses significant knowledge gaps in research and responds to urgent educational needs. Our ambition is for the project to contribute with new and multifaceted knowledge on the complexity of teaching and learning in multilingual mathematics and science classrooms.