Möjligheter till kunskap om och förståelse för de svenska nationella minoritetsspråken

Opportunities for developing knowledge and understanding of Swedish national minority languages. An analysis of tasks and linguistic examples in upper secondary school textbooks in Swedish. The aim of this article is to examine how tasks and linguistic examples in upper secondary school textbooks in Swedish may contribute to students’ knowledge about, understanding of and empathy towards the Swedish national minority languages and the minority language situation. The study adopts a postcolonial perspective and regards tasks and linguistic examples as paratexts that may influence how content is understood. The results show that various types of tasks are present, which may contribute to students’ knowledge, understanding and empathy in different ways. Another finding is that the minority languages are primarily represented through everyday phrases and loanwords from them used in Swedish. However, differences in representations are noticeable, both between textbooks and between languages. The results have pedagogical implications, as different opportunities for developing knowledge and understanding of the national minority languages and the language situation are offered.