Factors facilitating and obstructing a school development project

ABSTRACT

This study describes and critically discusses a development project designed to create and enact a local language policy at a Swedish multilingual school, its context, content and implementation dimensions. The collaborative construction of a school language policy is a complex process, with tensions that need to be resolved. By describing the processes involved in the language policy project we examine the factors that facilitated and obstructed the enactment of the language policy. The data include 25 interviews with school headteachers and staff members, 15 observations of teachers and school-age educare teachers, field notes, and audio recordings of research circles. Drawing on insights from the enactment framework, the analysis reveals three important themes with respect to the enactment processes: continuity, cohesion, and inclusion. Factors such as communication and leadership, but also external factors, were found to influence outcomes of the project, illuminating an interwoven web of contexts and facets for understanding the enactment of the language policy. These factors influencing outcomes of the project will be discussed in the light of implications for the enactment of the school language policy project.

KEYWORDS:

• Language policy
• school development
• enactment perspective

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Umea School of Education, Umea university [Dnr FS 2.1.6‐282‐15].

Notes on contributors

Ulla Damber

Ulla Damber is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Mid Sweden University. She is Associate Professor in Education.  Her research interests have been directed towards primary school students and preschool children´s literacy development. Damber has also written about Critical Literacy for a Swedish audience, mainly through her engagement in an in-service teacher training campaign, conducted by the Swedish National Agency for Education. Children’s encounters with literature and multilingual learners’ literacy development, in relation to school development, are present research interests. She is presently engaged also in research regarding adult education and school development. 

Carina Hermansson

Carina Hermansson is Associate Professor at the University of Umeå, Sweden. Her research focuses different aspects of languages and literacy with specific interest in young students’ writing, reading and multimodal composing in classrooms. She is presently engaged in research regarding the relation between language, literacy and democracy.

Birgit Andersson

Birgit Andersson is Assistant Professor in Pedagogical Work, retired but affiliated as a part-time teacher at the University of Umeå, Sweden. Her research interests have been educational policy, reforms and issues concerning school-age educare with focus on professional development, and how to support children´s language and literacy development in educare centres. She has also been trusted as an expert in the field of school-age educare / leisure time centers by the Swedish National Agency for Education and the Swedish Schools Inspectorate.

Mareike Jendis

Mareike Jendis is Senior Lecturer in German Literature at Umeå University. Her teacher education includes Spanish and German as a Foreign Language. At present she works in teacher education programs for preschool, primary school and upper secondary school. Her research interests are children´s literature and literature didactics. She has also been involved in a school development project aimed at developing a language policy for a multilingual school.