Constructing success and hope among migrant students and families. A mother tongue teacher's didactic narratives

Abstract

Focusing on the narrations of Omid – a Mother Tongue (MT) teacher of Arabic in a Swedish primary school – we analyze discursive constructions of Sweden, multilingualism and MT instruction in interview data and fieldnotes from parenting courses aimed at migrant parents. Omid constructed a performed role model – based in success stories – and a shared transnational identity with the function, we argue, of presenting an exemplum, and building trust and hope among parents in forced migration. This was evident in narrated alignment with the parents and claimed professional membership. The didactic narrations encompassed ideological space for multilingualism, and, we argue, both addressed and defused discourses on MT as a hindrance to integration through recurrent praise of Sweden and Swedish language learning.