This article focuses on aesthetic and didactic aspects of literary multilingualism and the interaction between these aspects in two contemporary dual-language picturebooks with Sámi motifs and characters. Lilli, áddjá, ja guovssahas/Lilli, farfar och norrskenet (Lilly, Grandpa and the Northern Lights, 2020), written by Elin Marakatt and illustrated by Anita Midbjer, and Gájuoh muv! Gïjrra Almien jah Enoken luvnnie/Rädda mig: Vår hos Almmie och Enok (Save me: Spring at Almmie and Enok’s, 2021), written by Sophia Rehnfjell and illustrated by Inga-Wiktoria Påve, are intended for 3–7-year-olds and combine a Sámi language and Swedish. The analyses show the aesthetic and didactic interplay between verbal and visual elements. The insertion of North Sámi words in an otherwise Swedish text can highlight culture, traditional beliefs, and history, and the Ume Sámi glossaries can be used to talk about the illustrations and learn words pertaining to reindeer husbandry and life in Sápmi. The vocabulary has a didactic function, while the literary text and the illustrations tell stories about the Sámi peoples, thus being both aesthetic and didactic. Literary multilingualism is teamed with didactics and Sámi aesthetics to support language acquisition, to depict and to make visible Sámi culture and Sámi peoples to in-group as well as out-group readers.

This study analyses the interspecies relationship between Sally Jones, a gorilla, and her human companion, the Chief, in three novels by Jakob Wegelius, focusing on this dynamic relationship and how it reframes the narrative. The research explores three main questions: the modes of interspecies communication, the core elements of their companionship and how their mutual dependency subverts notions of human supremacy. The theoretical framework integrates perspectives from human-animal studies, including Donovan’s critique of speciesist ideologies that separate human and animal communication (2017), Haraway’s concepts of mutual dependence (2003) and contact zones (2008) in interspecies relations and Derrida's carnofallogocentrism, which interrogates anthropocentric hierarchies (2002). Methodologically, the study employs close reading of the texts paying attention to details in the texts, based on the research questions, theories and previous research, analyzing verbal and non-verbal communication between Sally and the Chief, as well as their interdependent relationship. Findings reveal that their companionship is rooted in mutual respect and understanding, transcending human-animal hierarchies. This relationship critiques notions of human supremacy, as the Chief and Sally navigate their lives as equals, disrupting conventional ideas of ownership and superiority, as well as species and societal boundaries and fostering empathy for ‘the Other’. The study contributes to the broader discourse on interspecies relationships, showing how narratives can shape ethical understandings of human-animal relations and potentially reshape perceptions of human-animal relationships in children’s literature.

This study is part of a larger action research (AR) project aimed at improving students’ engagement with fiction and reading skills in Swedish and Swedish as a second language. In this paper, a theoretical framework of value creation in social learning spaces is used to critically explore teachers’ professional learning and experienced value in AR in literature teaching. In total, 15 teachers from primary, secondary and upper secondary schools participated. Data included written teacher reflections and recorded focus group conversations. Reflections were collected at the start and end of the project. Focus group conversations were carried out once a month for three terms. The findings reveal that value was created through collaborative engagement of teachers and researchers, expanding teachers’ professional knowledge on challenges, practice-informed adaptation of teaching and collective learning and shared knowledge. The study emphasises value creation in educational AR through sustained teacher-researcher collaboration, mutual engagement, agency and knowledge co-production. It highlights the role of long-term partnerships and calls for future research to challenge consensus, to include both quantitative and qualitative measures of learning and knowledge, and to engage with scientific texts as well as systematically explore professional learning throughout.

There are five national minorities in Sweden of which the indigenous Sámi is one. Historically, the Sámi peoples have been oppressed by the Swedish authorities. In this chapter, the representations of Sámi children in five children’s films are examined through close reading. The films span a period of almost 60 years: Sampo Lappelill (‘Sampo the Little Lapp Boy’ 1949), Bortom dag och natt (‘Beyond Day and Night’ 1988), Misa mi (‘Misa Mine’ 2003), Siv Sleeps Astray (2016), and Cloudboy (2017). Three themes emerge, namely nature and the nature child, animals and children in close connection, and growth through traditional knowledge and/or magic. The animals project the protagonists’ relationship with their mothers or trigger the protagonists to explore their fantasy or heritage. Puppies, bear cubs, and wolf cubs represent childhood, while growth includes being old enough to go to school, to learn from the older generations, to stand up for what is right and for oneself, or to find one’s own voice. The representations of Sámi children range from representations through the Swedish gaze, tinged with Romantic ideas, or ethnic prejudice, to contemporary, rather vague representations. The growing Sámi film industry provides opportunities for the Sámi to tell their own stories.

In Sweden, curricula and syllabi for education are politically determined after public consultations. Thus, these educational documents are discursive trade-offs reflecting research, traditions in the educational system, and political ideologies. This study maps the discourses in the syllabus for Sami as L1 mother tongue for preschool class – Year 9, and mother tongue instruction in media debate 2016–2022. It problematises the educational implications of the language ideologies and tensions in the material. While Sami is accorded the status as mother tongue, it does not have the same status as Swedish or even Modern languages. Mother tongue instruction is promoted as the foundation for learning other languages, and multilingualism as an asset for Sweden as a country, and for the individual. The quality of mother tongue instruction is criticised by Sami and other minorities, as well as by those perceiving mother tongue instruction as a threat to assimilation.

This article highlights the interpictorality in two YA books by the Swedish writer and illustrator Anna Höglund, Om detta talar man endast med kaniner [This Is Something You Only Talk About with Rabbits] (2013) and Att vara jag [To Be Me] (2015). The analysis of the visual intertextuality between pieces of artwork by Peter Tillberg, Frida Kahlo, Lena Cronqvist, Richard Bergh and René Magritte and five pictures from Höglund’s books thematises school, body and identity. The discursive positioning in the artworks and in Höglund’s pictures directs the readers in their decoding of Höglund’s text, offers possibilities in their interpretations and challenges the adolescent readers to make connections across different formats, such as text and image, and between different images.

This study focuses on challenging representations of Sámi characters and cultures in Swedish literary works for young readers: “Bamse möter Stallo” (Bamsy Meets Stállu, 2021), a cartoon intended for pre-literate and young readers, Lilli, Lávre och Saivofolket (Lilli, Lávre and the Sáivu People, 2021), a picturebook, and När vi var samer (When We Were Sámi, 2021), a graphic novel accessible for teenagers. The aim is to map how the Sámi characters and cultures are presented and represented, and by and for whom, using critical race theory. The research questions are: 1) How do verbal and visual elements in the analysed works contribute to the representations of the Sámi characters and cultures? 2) How might the critical race theory framework be relevant in the Swedish-Sámi context? The findings show how authors and illustrators use symmetrical, enhancing, complementary, or counterpointing interplay to pinpoint preconceived notions of Sáminess, inform the readers about historical and contemporary racism, challenge underlying perceptions that privilege Swedishness, and to tell stories and counter stories about Sápmi, the Sámi peoples, and Sámi cultures.

According to Thor and Karlsudd (2020), “[e]nvironmental awareness can be defined as people reflecting on their surroundings and on the role they play” (n. pag.). In the public climate debate, children and young people have not always had a voice. However, in children’s literature, the environment and environmentalism have been themes for many years (e.g., Wagner-Lawlor, 1996; Widhe, 2019). In Swedish children’s literature, quite often, these stories are set in Sápmi and have Arctic characters, as in Inga Borg’s Plupp series (Kokkola, 2016; Widhe, 2019; Graeske, 2020). By analyzing four Swedish picture books – Inga Borg’s Plupp och renarna [Plupp and the reindeer] (1955), Erica Stridsman’s Fjällkompisar: Sagan om Kläppi [Mountain friends: The story of Kläppi] (2018), Elin Marakatt’s Lilli, farfar och norrskenet [Lilli, grandfather and the northern lights], and Sophia Rehnfjell’s Gájuoh muv!: gïjrra Almien jah Enoken luvnnie / Rädda mig: vår hos Almmie och Enok [Save me: spring at Almmie and Enok’s] (2022) – we endeavor to pinpoint how these picture books approach the subject of environmental awareness, with a bearing on the intended readership and the educational potential. The starting point for the analysis is Arctic pedagogy, which pays attention to ways of learning. The learning processes identified by Laiti and Frangou (2019) as central to Arctic pedagogy are predominantly the social skills of imitation, shared attention, and empathy. The analyzed picture books, with their potential for developing these social skills, may be discussed as a culturally responsible lens through which environmental awareness can be promoted.

This study highlights and discusses power aspects within discourses discerned in articulations on triadic mentoring in degree projects in teacher education in Sweden. Each mentoring triad consisted of a pre-service teacher, a professional teacher acting as co-mentor, and a university mentor. As teacher education is to be based on a scientific foundation and proven experience, a symmetrical and complementary approach was to be implemented. Data from interviews, logbooks, and observations of mentoring were analysed discursively using CDA. Two main discourses were distinguished: The hegemony of science, and A gateway to the profession and science: The potential third space. The study shows that the academic paradigm tends to overshadow the symmetrical and complementary approach, but that the third space, the metaphorical meeting outside of the participants’ comfort zone, potentially balances up the mentoring triads through the pre-service teachers’ ownership of the process.