Jenny Rosén and Åsa Wedin
School of Education and Humanities,
Dalarna University, Falun, Sweden
Abstract
Due to migration, Swedish pre-schools are linguistically and
culturally diverse settings where approximately one in five
children is bi-/multilingual. Hence, pre-school teachers work in a
diverse landscape in which they are expected to support the
multilingual and multicultural development of the children.
The
aim of this article is to analyze the discourses of diversity in
Swedish pre-school teacher training and, more specifically, how
students are positioned and position themselves in relation to
such discourses. The article takes its point of departure in an
ethnographic four-year project that studied a group of students
recruited to the pre-school teacher training by a municipality
because of their migration background. The material analyzed
consists of interviews and observations during the four years that
the students participated in the program. Using the framework of
nexus analysis, it reveals an ambivalence in attitudes in relation to
diversity and in the positioning of certain students as other. Due
to their historical bodies, the students are expected to add value
to the pre-school teacher training program, but at the same time,
they are expected to perform like everyone else in the program,
reproducing a discourse of diversity as a positive asset.
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