The project SLoT, Språk, Lärande och Teater (Language, Learning and Theater) is a research project that aims to generate knowledge about languaging and learning in institutional settings of education that are marked by diversity.

SLoT also aims to create discussion arenas where practical competences and theory in the areas of languaging and learning meet. This will be accomplished in part through the work being done in the think tank DoIT, Delaktighet och Inkluderings Tankesmedja (Participation and Inclusion Think Tank), focusing on recurring dialogues between the societal sectors of education, research and culture, and in part on theoretical analyses of their policies and everyday practices.

The long-term goal of SLoT is to contribute towards understandings related to diversity in society at large, and in institutional areas like schools, work spaces etc. in particular. Here we focus in part on the collaborative work of cultural and educational institutions, who are since 2014 exploring democratically oriented ways of creating an acceptance regarding the complexity of the human condition and contemporary society, including the needs of every pupil and citizen.

Theoretically, the project SLoT builds upon and explores a third position that goes beyond dominating and dichotomizing positions related to

  • language (for instance, monolingualism – bi/multilingualism),
  • language learning methods (for instance, methodologies that are based upon top-bottom – bottom-up conceptualizations), and
  • the organization of language learning itself in terms of identity positions (for instance, inclusion/integration/mainstreaming – segregation/special arrangements).

The project currently focuses on the following key dimensions:

  • the study of paradoxes in policies and policy documents, such as school curricula and course syllabi (the documents in focus relate to the collaborative work between the educational and cultural institutions)
  • the study of everyday life in institutional settings like schools, cultural settings and work spaces
  • the methods and tools that are deployed by professionals for supporting language development and learning of all pupils in cooperation with the performing arts.

The project SLoT involves the participation of professionals from Örebro Regional Theater, the municipal Culture School in Hällefors and researchers from the research group CCD (Communication, Culture and Diversity, www.ju.se/ccd) at the School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University. The collaboration between CCD and Örebro Regional Theater (since 2012) and especially the think tank DoIT (since 2016) is of particular relevance to the project SLoT.

For more information, please contact Elisabet Sandblom, Anette Almgren White or Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta.