This thesis presents an investigation of the complexities of the immediate, ideological, educational, and societal contexts for literacy development among North Sámi learners between the ages of 9 and 15 who live in Northern Finland, Norway and Sweden in the central regions of Sápmi. Further, this thesis focuses on one area of literacy, namely writing. It examines these children’s writing, its phases and peculiarities, writing strategies, and the nature of transitions that these multilingual writers experience in switching between North Sámi, English and their respective national majority language. The main body of the collected materials consists of computer mediated pupil texts that the author gathered at 10 schools that arranged compulsory schooling in Central Sápmi during the school year 2012-2013. The texts were collected using keytroke logging methodology that not only records the final written product but also keeps track of changes and other writing activity during the writing session. Other materials collected and analyzed in this study include questionnaires addressed to the pupils, their parents, and to their language teachers. The materials also include detailed interviews with with 24 teachers from the participating schools. This study consists of six individual papers that focus at 1) research methodological aspects that concern studying Indigenous populations, 2) language attitudes, ideologies and available language arenas that have an impact on biliteracy emergence in North Sámi speaking Sápmi, or 3) the qualities and characteristics of multilingual pupil's writing and texts. The implications of the six individual papers are analyzed with respect to language revitalization and biliteracy emergence using the Hornbergian Continua of Biliteracy as the overarching theoretical framework. North Sámi, English and the national majority languages in the respective countries are constantly present in the lives of Sámi learners. Young Sámi learners grow up to be multilingual citizens of the global north through this extensive exposure to many languages and cultures from multiple sources such as popular culture, literature, media, community, tourism, and school. In their writing, multilingual Sámi learners show a wide spectrum of strategies and knowledge that carries over from one language to another. Nevertheless, most young Sámi learners cannot draw on equally many points on their Continua of Biliteracy in all their languages. Due to factors such as scarcity of adequate teaching materials, lack of popular culture and media content in Sámi languages, and language compartmentalizing language ideologies, the scales on the continua of biliteracy are in severe imbalance for many Sámi learners. Many Sámi learners risk losing their indigenous heritage language because the non-indigenous languages are prevalent in school as well as out of school contexts. / Literacy in Sápmi: multilingualism, revitalization and literacy development in the global north (Vetenskapsrådet 2011-6153)

Nearly 25,000 graduating high school students across California have earned state recognition for achieving proficiency in multiple languages in 2014. This exploratory, mixed-methods study investigated the early implementation of the State Seal of Biliteracy (SSB) in California. Sixty-two district personnel were surveyed, three SSB directors were interviewed, and a document review was conducted. Overall, the study revealed four themes that influence the implementation of the SSB at the district level: Intentional Creation of an Ecology of Biliteracy, Developing Notions for Biliteracy Scripts and Assessment, Privileging Sequential Biliteracy Development—Scarcity of Biliteracy Pathways, and Individual and Collective Agency for Biliteracy. Hornberger’s (2003) continua of biliteracy was used as a theoretical framework to analyze this study’s findings.

This thesis aims to learn about opportunities for and challenges to the development of multilingual literacies in three forms of education in Sweden and Australia that teach or draw on immigrant languages.  In Sweden mother tongue instruction and multilingual study guidance are in focus and in Australia, a community language school. Taking an ecological approach to the research sites, the thesis investigates how language ideologies, organization of the form of education and language practices impact on the development of multilingual literacies. A range of linguistic ethnographic data including 75 lesson observations, 48 interviews, field notes and photographs has been analyzed against the theoretical backdrop of the continua of biliteracy (Hornberger, 1989; Hornberger &amp; Skilton-Sylvester, 2000), heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981) and emerging theories of translanguaging (García &amp; Li, 2014) to investigate the questions. The thesis ties together the results of four interlocking case studies investigating the above-mentioned forms of education. Study I analyses the syllabus for mother tongue instruction in Sweden and finds that while aligning with the overall values of the curriculum for the compulsory school, a hidden curriculum constrains implementation. In Study II, multilingual practices during multilingual study guidance in Sweden are analysed, and demonstrate how translanguaging helps recently arrived students reach the learning goals of subjects in the Swedish curriculum. In study III, systematic analysis of indexicals reveals contrasting language narratives about language and language development in and around a Vietnamese community language school in Australia. Study IV focuses on mother tongue instruction in Sweden and through analysis of audio-recordings of lessons, interviews and field notes, finds three dimensions of linguistic diversity infuse the subject.  Opportunities for the development of multilingual literacies are created when there is equal access to spaces for developing literacies in different immigrant languages, within which language ideologies that recognize and build on the heteroglossic diversity of students’ linguistic repertoires dynamically inform the organization of education and classroom practices. Challenges are created when monoglossic ideologies restrict access to or ignore linguistic diversity and when there is a lack of dynamic engagement with implementation and organization. Basing organization, and classroom strategies around the linguistic reality of the students and the genres they need, benefits the development of multilingual literacies in both settings and can help students become resourceful language users (Pennycook, 2012b, 2014). / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>