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Abstract

This study examines how racialization is manifested in language-related discourses surrounding the school subject Swedish as a Second Language and the institutional category Swedish as a Second Language students. The aim of the study is to analyse how these dominant language discourses are expressed in primary school teachers’ and pupils’ reasoning about language de velopment in Swedish, and how their reasoning reflects and relates to ideas about race. The study is guided by two research questions (1) How do teachers construct Swedish as a Second Language and the category Swedish as a Second Language students when discussion opportunities and challenges, and which racialized language ideologies underpin these con structions? (2) How do multilingual students categorized as Swedish as a Second Language students construct their linguistic identities, and which racialized language ideologies emerge in their account? The empirical material consists of semi-structured interviews with six compulsory schoolteach ers and six students categorized as Swedish as a Second Language students. The empirical ma terial is analysed through critical discourse analysis based on Fairclough’s (1992) three-dimen sional model in combination with a raciolinguistic perspective (Flores & Rosa, 2015/2027). The findings show that Swedish as a Second Language is frequently constructed as a less de manding subject of Swedish and that Swedish as a Second Language students are frequently positioned through deficit-oriented perspectives. Multilingualism is at times acknowledged as a resource, however, this recognition is constrained by a hegemonic monolingual norm in which Swedish functions as the primary measure for linguistic legitimacy. Students’ narratives reveal experiences of burden of proof and internalized notions of raciolinguistic norms alongside strat egies of resistance and identity negotiation. Overall, the study demonstrated that linguistic cat egorization in school is intertwined with racialization shaping students’ educational conditions.