The aim of this article is to explore how socially and culturally shaped resources for meaning-making are used in a translanguaging science classroom and how these interact to promote multilingual students’ participation and understanding of science. The data consist of video- and audio-recorded science lessons in a Swedish compulsory school (Grades 4–6). The analysis, rooted in translanguaging and sociocultural perspectives on learning, views learning as dialogic processes within social contexts and is framed within social semiotic theory, both regarding systemic functional linguistics and social semiotic perspectives on multimodality. Multimodal interaction analysis is used to clarify the use of semiotic resources by students, the science teacher and the mother-tongue teacher, as well as their various functions in meaning-making processes. Findings show how the participants’ linguistic repertoires contribute to semiotic resources in the dialogic conversations and how each expression provides a unique aspect of the subject content, which together shape a comprehensive whole. By combining and integrating different modalities, such as gestures, drawings, and objects with verbal resources, continuity is fostered in the science activities. However, the study also underlines the importance of verbal language resources for students’ opportunities to develop a broader and deeper knowledge in science subjects.

This presentation is part of the project Spaces for Multilingualism (Swedish Research Council, 2021-04155). The project aims to generate knowledge about the pedagogical potentials and limitations of multilingual practices in mathematics and science education. Specifically, it explores how multilingual approaches and activities can support teaching and learning in school years 4–9. The project, conducted by an interdisciplinary research team, integrates theories from didactics, sociology, and linguistics, including translanguaging. It spans four years, beginning with an initial exploration of existing pedagogical practices in four culturally and linguistically diverse schools. This phase is followed by two years of pedagogical interventions aimed at investigating how multilingual resources can be leveraged to enhance teaching and learning. The project aims to contribute new and nuanced insights into the complexities of teaching and learning in multilingual classrooms, particularly in mathematics and science, within mainstream compulsory schools where students have diverse language backgrounds. This presentation highlights preliminary findings from interviews with students and teachers, collaborative workshops, classroom observations, and pedagogical interventions, with a focus on how teachers and students use multilingual meaning-making resources in science education.

The aim of this study is to gain a deeper insight into how various socially shaped and culturally and disciplinary given resources for meaning making are used and can be used in a translanguaging science classroom, and how these resources interact and complement each other based on how they are used, and the meaning potential that each resource constitutes. The research questions are: What semiotic resources do students and teachers employ as they engage in science? What do the various resources contribute to in the learning processes, and what are – or might be – their limitations? In the paper, data previously used to explore multilingually students´ authentic use of their first and second languages in a translanguaging science classroom, from a sociocultural perspective are reanalysed using multimodal interaction analysis, which is a powerful tool for examining multilingual students’ use of multiple modalities, including gesture, facial expression, and drawing in science practices.By extension, this can create knowledge about how teaching can be designed so that a wide range of semiotic resources are incorporated, both verbal and non-verbal, in multilingual science classrooms to create increased opportunities for active participation for all students.

This paper sets out to describe a research project and to present and discuss some of its pre- liminary findings from an initial explorative phase. The project is conducted in collaboration with mathematics and science teachers in four mainstream compulsory schools with strong linguistic diver- sity within a geographic frame of a predominantly urban region in Sweden. The overall aim of the study is to generate knowledge about pedagogical potentials and limitations of multilingual practices in mathematics and science education. In this paper we draw on interviews with teachers, as well as workshops in which teachers and researchers collaborated, to explore the various meaning-making re- sources teachers express they draw on for teaching mathematics in multilingual settings, and their per- ceptions and experiences of teaching mathematics in multilingual settings. The preliminary findings indicate that the teachers draw on different meaning-making resources, with emphasis on resources that can be related to language responsive teaching. It seems easier for the teachers to reason about language responsive mathematics teaching than multilingual mathematics teaching. The teachers rea- son more about the value of a multilingual approach and less of concrete multilingual methods and strategies for teaching mathematics to multilingual students. They express positive views about multi- lingualism as a resource for learning mathematics at the same time as they show a hesitancy towards it, demonstrating an ambivalence.

This paper is a part of the project Spaces for multilingualism (Swedish Research Council, 2021-04155). The aim of the project 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. 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, in four culturally and linguistically diverse schools. The explorative phase is followed by a two-year period of pedagogical interventions.The presentation will focus on the exploratory phase of the study and the preliminary findings from interviews with students and teachers, workshops where teachers and researchers worked together, and classroom observations, and focus on teachers’ and students’ use of meaning-making resources in science education, and how students’ prior experiences and communicative repertoires are acknowledged as resources in multilingual classroom activities.

Syftet med denna studie är att utforska hur språkliga strategier kan integreras i NTA[1]-undervisningen för att främja alla elevers deltagande och lärande i naturvetenskap. Genom en interventionsstudie inspirerad av etnografiska metoder har vi identifierat, implementerat och utvärderat pedagogiska strategier för att främja elevinteraktion, språklig stöttning och användning av multimodala resurser, inklusive visuellt stöd och digitala verktyg, samt användning av flerspråkiga resurser. En central aspekt var att omformulera elevernas vardagliga språk till ett mer ämnesspecifikt språkbruk, samt att skapa en tydlig lektionsstruktur.

Studien visar att språkligt inkluderande undervisning bidrar till en mer tillgänglig och inkluderande lärmiljö. Användningen av multimodala resurser och elevers tidigare erfarenheter bidrar till att kontextualisera undervisningen, vilket ökar elevers engagemang och deltagande. Vidare observerades en ökad förmåga hos eleverna att använda ämnesspecifika ord och begrepp. De metaspråkliga samtalen i klassrummet gav eleverna möjlighet att diskutera och förstå dessa begrepp på en djupare nivå. Trots dessa framgångar finns det fortfarande behov av att utveckla metoder för att integrera elevernas förstaspråk som en resurs i undervisningen, vilket skulle kunna stärka deras förståelse och deltagande ytterligare.

Sammanfattningsvis ger denna studie viktiga insikter i hur språkutvecklande undervisning kan implementeras inom NTA-undervisningen. Resultaten kan fungera som vägledning för framtida forskning och pedagogisk utveckling och bidra till att vidareutveckla undervisningsmetoder som stödjer alla elevers möjligheter till lärande och deltagande i naturvetenskap.

 [1] NTA (Naturvetenskap och teknik för alla) är ett skolutvecklingsprogram inom naturvetenskap, teknik och matematik med undervisningsmaterial, lärarhandledning och kompetensutveckling.

I flerspråkiga NO-klassrum står lärare inför utmaningen att anpassa undervisningen för alla elever, oavsett språklig bakgrund. Naturvetenskapliga ämnen kan vara särskilt utmanande eftersom de kräver både en god språklig förståelse och förmågan attanvända ämnesspecifika ord och begrepp. Denna studie adresserar dessa utman-ingar genom att utforska strategier för att göra NTA-undervisningen mer tillgänglig för alla elever genom språkutvecklande metoder som främjar elevinteraktion, språklig stöttning och användning av multimodala resurser, inklusive visuellt stöd och digitala verktyg, samt integrering av flerspråkiga resurser. En central aspekt är också omformuleringen av elevernas vardagliga språk till ett mer ämnesspecifikt språkbruk samt skapandet av en tydlig lektionsstruktur.Studien genomfördes som en interventionsstudie där en forskare och en NTA-samordnare observerade och utvecklade klassrumspraktiken i samarbete med en lärare. Fokus låg på att identifiera och implementera pedagogiska strategier som kan öka elevernas deltagande och förståelse. De utvecklade strategierna inkluderade: (a) användning av interaktion och dialoger i klassrummet för att uppmuntra elever att uttrycka sig och utveckla sina språkliga förmågor, (b) inkludering av visuellt stöd, såsom bilder, symboler, diagram och digitala verktyg, samt (c) användning av elevernas förstaspråk som en resurs för att stärka deras lärande och deltagande.Resultaten visar att de språkutvecklande strategierna har haft en positiv inverkan på elevernas engagemang och deltagande i NTA-undervisningen. Genom en tydlig och mer medveten lektionsstruktur och omformulering av elevernas vardagliga uttryck till ett mer ämnesspecifikt språk, har elevernas deltagande och användning av ämnes-specifika ord och begrepp ökat. Läraren har också blivit mer medveten om vikten av att använda visuellt stöd och skapa en undervisning som är kontextualiserad och utgår från elevernas tidigare erfarenheter.Denna studie ger viktiga insikter och verktyg för att utveckla undervisningen i naturvetenskap och belyser vikten av att fortsätta anpassa pedagogiken för att möta alla elevers behov.

Today many classrooms in Sweden are multilingual, characterized by a diversity of linguistic, cultural and epistemological resources available for teaching and learning. Handling this diversity puts certain demands on teachers in order to provide all students equal learning opportunities in a context where the language of instruction is Swedish. As a response to this, local school development projects based on multilingualism as a resource have been initiated. This study focuses on two such projects with the aim to deepen the knowledge about how translanguaging teaching practices can be developed. To make visible what characterizes as well as enable and constrain translanguaging teaching practices under development, the theory of practice architectures is used. Three different practices are identified The Multilingual, The Ambivalent multilingual and The Monolingual teaching practice. The practices are formed by differing cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political arrangements. Above all, cultural-discursive arrangements such as norms and ideas affect the differences between the three practices. Existing norms and ideas affect how material and economic resources, mostly identic in all three practices, are used. Furthermore, monolinguistic norms seem to form hierarchical relations. Thus, we argue to develop translanguaging practices multilingual norms are important to develop.

This paper sets out to describe a research project and to present and discuss some of its preliminary findings from an initial explorative phase. The project is conducted in collaboration with mathematics and science teachers in four mainstream compulsory schools with strong linguistic diversity within a geographic frame of a predominantly urban region in Sweden. The overall aim of the study is to generate knowledge about pedagogical potentials and limitations of multilingual practices in mathematics and science education. In this paper we draw on interviews with teachers, as well as workshops in which teachers and researchers collaborated, to explore the various meaning-making resources teachers express they draw on for teaching mathematics in multilingual settings, and their perceptions and experiences of teaching mathematics in multilingual settings. The preliminary findings indicate that the teachers draw on different meaning-making resources, with an emphasize on resources that can be related to language responsive teaching. It seems easier for the teachers to reason about language responsive mathematics teaching than multilingual mathematics teaching. The teachers reason about the value of a multilingual approach and more less of concrete multilingual methods and strategies for teaching mathematics to multilingual students. They express positive views about multilingualism as a resource for learning mathematics at the same time as they show a hesitancy towards it, demonstrating an ambivalence towards it.

Cet article vise à décrire un projet de recherche et à présenter et discuter certains de ses résultats préliminaires issus d'une phase exploratoire initiale. Le projet est mené en collaboration avec des professeurs de mathématiques et de sciences dans quatre écoles obligatoires ordinaires présentant une forte diversité linguistique dans le cadre géographique d'une région majoritairement urbaine de Suède. L'objectif général de l'étude est de générer des connaissances sur les potentiels pédagogiques et les limites des pratiques multilingues dans l'enseignement des mathématiques et des sciences. Dans cet article, nous nous appuyons sur des entretiens avec des enseignants, ainsi que sur des ateliers dans lesquels enseignants et chercheurs ont collaboré, pour explorer les diverses ressources créatrices de sens sur lesquelles les enseignants déclarent s'appuyer pour enseigner les mathématiques dans des contextes multilingues, ainsi que leurs perceptions et expériences d'enseignement. mathématiques dans un contexte multilingue. Les résultats préliminaires indiquent que les enseignants s'appuient sur différentes ressources de création de sens, en mettant l'accent sur les ressources qui peuvent être liées à un enseignement sensible à la langue. Il semble plus facile pour les enseignants de raisonner sur un enseignement des mathématiques sensible à la langue que sur un enseignement des mathématiques multilingue. Les enseignants raisonnent sur la valeur d'une approche multilingue et plus encore sur les méthodes et stratégies multilingues concrètes pour enseigner les mathématiques à des élèves multilingues. Ils expriment des opinions positives sur le multilinguisme en tant que ressource pour l'apprentissage des mathématiques, tout en manifestant une hésitation à son égard, démontrant une ambivalence à son égard.

The project Spaces for multilingualism is founded by the Swedish Research Council (2022-2026). The purpose of the interdisciplinary project 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. 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 four culturally and linguistically diverse schools. This explorative phase is followed by a two-year 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. 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 in mainstream compulsory schools in which the students have a variety of language backgrounds. The presentation will focus on the explorative phase of the study and the preliminary results from interviews with students and teachers as well as workshops in which teachers and researchers collaborated. We will also present the ongoing preparations for the interventional phase of the study.