Positioning of the recently arrived student: a discourse analysis of Sweden’s Language Introduction Programme

ABSTRACT This article explores how recently arrived students are positioned and position themselves in the Language Introduction Programme in upper secondary school in Sweden using a combination of position theory with nexus analysis. The material used consists of official national documents and local school documents, observations, interviews and photographs. Circulating discourses are analysed through discourses in place, historical bodies and interaction order. The analysis revealed ambiguous and conflicting discourses at the school, where students in the Language Introduction Programme are positioned both as having rights and as being deficient, lacking what is here termed Swedishness. While principals place the responsibility on students themselves to use Swedish in social situations, official documents emphasise the duty of the principals to ensure that education is relevant. Students’ voices do not appear to be important, and their agency is mainly restricted to their own learning. The identities that were made possible relied on their mastery of Swedish. Conflicting discourses circulate regarding the rights of students and their weaknesses and responsibilities. The combination of these two factors may mean that students run the risk of being positioned as having few opportunities to be successful at school.