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Previous research has highlighted the limitations encountered in representing the dynamism of language use and contacts. Here, linguistic landscapes from five towns in Northern Sweden are the point of departure for investigating novel perspectives through the geovisualization of multilingualism, with the ultimate aim of understanding how languages in our surroundings help construct public spaces. As an outcome, a web GIS application, based on 6865 thematically analyzed photographs, was developed as an interactive resource for visualizing and sharing the data and enabling new modes of analysis and new research questions. The article describes the data collection and curation processes, app development using GIS software and software-as-a-service, the eventual app design and interaction, and the update and maintenance plans, as well as discussing challenges and considerations related to temporalities, spatialities, and technicalities. The web GIS has potential applications in spatial analysis, research communication, and education.

This article explores processes of place-making through the study of the linguistic landscape of a small-size town in Northern Sweden. The analysis of signs is used as a tool for examining the role and visibility of actors in the landscape. For this purpose, we examine who the authors are, what forms of multilingualism can be observed, and who has agency in the place-making of the public space. Our documentation consists of photos and fieldnotes from observations, encounters, and conversations with people during ethnographic fieldwork in 2019. Using a mixed-methods approach, all signs were first analysed quantitatively according to the categories of authors and function. Regression analysis was used to explore correlations between the categories. Secondly, multilingual signs were analysed qualitatively regarding their function and purpose in relation to their contexts. Our results illustrate a city centre with a strong presence of the Swedish language. Multilingual signs target specific groups and are intended for information, advertisement, rules and regulations; moreover, our findings indicate that the opportunities for private actors to influence the linguistic landscape are limited. The form of multilingualism in this context—visible multilingualism present mainly through English—is different from the one we can see in the socio-demographic data.

Documenting and analyzing how multilingualism materializes around us gives insights in the use, hierarchies and inclusions of languages in society. The visualization of these insights, however, is often challenging as characteris- tics of languages, their flows, movements etc. demand contextualization and clar- ifications that can be difficult to render on a visualization model such as a map. This paper discusses the challenges of visualization and the potentials of digital maps in Linguistic Landscape Studies. We suggest to include and integrate vari- ous layers of qualitative and quantitative data in order to strive for rendering the dynamism of language use.

This article focuses on the methodology developed in a mixed-method study situated in sparsely populated areas in Sweden within a project that aims at investigating the role of language in place-making and in relation to various groups. These areas have a rich history of multilingualism as well as a more recent influx of multilingualism - the former usually in the form of Indigenous Sámi language and national minority languages; the latter being for example tourism from many parts of the world or refugees.

The article discusses a mixed-methods approach that includes textual and numerical data, as well as qualitative and quantitative analysis. Register data is both used to select sites for investigation and for the interpretation of the data.

The article further focuses on coding and categorizing signs for linguistic code, status, space and function as well as some on methodological issues and challenges that have occurred along the process.

In this article, we describe the research and societal needs as well as ongoing efforts to shape Swedish as a Second Language (L2) infrastructure. Our aim is to develop an electronic research infrastructure that would stimulate empiric research into learners' language development by preparing data and developing language technology methods and algorithms that can successfully deal with deviations in the learner language.

The chief aim of my thesis is to study and analyse how the multiculturalism of schools is reflected in research and reports in Sweden and in the way in which teachers talk about multicultural issues at school.

Part of the work is done in the form of reflecting talks with two groups of teachers in two different schools on issues and situations taken from their own everyday experience. The talks are conducted over two years. One partial aim is therefore to study whether this working method can help teachers to develop their strategies with regard to multicultural issues at school. I describe how the talks develop over two years in an ethnically heterogeneous group of teachers in one of the schools, some areas related to multicultural issues in the school that the teachers find problematic, and how the talks to some extent influence the teachers’ choice of strategies in the school’s practice.

Part of the work is an analysis of a talk from each group of teachers and their conceptions of “the immigrant pupil” and her/his parents are focused on. The analytical tool of interpretive repertoires is used to visualise patterns of common points of departure and values in the talks. Also part of the work is an analysis of how research and reports reflect the discourse on multicultural issues from 1980 to 2005. I emphasise some themes and how these change over time.

Through the study, parts of the content of the discourse about the multicultural Swedish education are made visible. The discourse contains expressions of a focus on shortcomings and problems that are regarded as linked to pupils, parents and to some extent to teachers with foreign backgrounds. The discourse also contains expressions of seeing differences, chiefly between groups of pupils with foreign and ethnic Swedish backgrounds respectively. By focusing on differences and shortcomings a boundary is at the same time set up between “us” and “them”. The composition of teachers in Swedish schools is relatively homogeneous as regards ethnicity. When, in addition, it is many times teachers that have the responsibility and power to define what are seen as problems and to find solutions in schools’ practice, the problems and solutions are often defined from a majority perspective. It is also from a majority perspective that decisions are made about to what extent, to what degree and in what way minority perspectives should be represented in these contexts. It is a matter of who has the power to define themselves and the others and the others’ shortcomings.

 Överallt och ingenstans - mångkulturella och antirasistiska frågor i svensk skola är en kunskapsöversikt som tar sin utgångspunkt i svensk invandringshistoria, skolpolitik, styrdokument samt forskning och projekt för att belysa vad vi i idag vet och i viss mån också vad som hittills gjorts inom området mångkultur i skolan. Författarna belyser de mångkulturella och antirasistiska frågorna utifrån ett kritiskt mångkulturellt teoretiskt perspektiv och den bild som växer fram är komplex. Några av översiktens viktigaste resultat är att goda integrationspolitiska intentioner länge funnits med på den politiska agendan men att det lika länge har funnits försvårande omständigheter för realisering av målen. Författarna uppmärksammar också att skolan under lång tid tilldelats nyckelrollen för att realisera samhälleliga integrationsmål samtidigt som resultaten i översikten visar att det finns en uttalad osäkerhet kring hur detta ska genomföras. Lärare lämnas relativt ensamma i arbetet mot rasism och främlingsfientlighet. Ett annat och framträdande resultat är att komplicerade frågor kring rasism, identitet och kultur har fokuserats i långt mindre omfattning än språkfrågan som länge har dominerat rapporter och projekt inom det mångkulturella området.