Adjusting to linguistic diversity in a primary school through relational agency and expertise: a mother-tongue teacher team’s perspective

Abstract This paper explores the role of collaborative teacher agency in facilitating translingual adjustments a linguistically diverse primary school Sweden. We focus on three multicompetent language teachers, who taught minoritized languages marginalized Mother Tongue (MT) subject, Modern Languages, and offered Multilingual Study Mentoring. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, including interviews fieldnotes everyday MT practices preparations for an annual musical performance, we investigated how teachers adjusted to students’ multilingual repertoires through relational distributed expertise (Edwards, A. 2011. Building common knowledge at boundaries between professional practices: Relational systems expertise. International Journal Educational Research 50(1). 33–39). These affected provisions beyond what was required , based linguistic competencies parental involvement. Didactic also afforded migrant students literary experiences that starkly contrasted with limited literacy content beginner courses Swedish. “responsive actions” 33–39, p. 39) thus impacted opportunities development, expanded registers, verbal art, inclusion. Through these actions, reformulated as asset, find ethics care (Watkins, M. Teachers’ tears affective geography classroom. Emotion, Space Society 4(3). 137–143) closely intertwined this agency. The findings contribute new settings relevance other national contexts.