The graduate school CuEEd-LL - Culturally Empowering Education through Language and Literature is a national research school that aims to strengthen Swedish teacher education by studying and developing culturally empowering education through language and literature.

A girl with an umbrella.

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CuEEd-LL is funded by The Swedish Research Council and led by Jönköping University in collaboration with the University of Gothenburg, Malmö University and Stockholm University.

The overarching purpose of the graduate school is to:

  • strengthen Swedish teacher education by studying and developing culturally empowering education through language and literature
  • to support equitable, high-quality education and participation in a globalised and digitised world.

CuEEd-LL Research Themes

Regardless of their school placements, disciplines and teaching levels, all teachers must be competent in using language and literature to develop communicative practices and create inclusive environments in heterogenous educational contexts. CuEEd-LL’s research themes are informed by the fields of Southern Multilingualism and Diversities, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, and Decoloniality. These fields view language and literature as critical for shaping and articulating cultures and (inter)cultural understanding. With these fields as a point of departure, CuEEd-LL research aims at illuminating how language- and literature-based pedagogical interventions can culturally empower pupils and help them understand and confidently participate in complex and diverse cultural contexts.

Communication is a meaning-making enterprise that builds on the entanglement of resources from singular/multiple language modalities and embodiments: reading, writing, signing, seeing, listening, speaking, etc. Literature is also understood as communicative and an aesthetic and multilingual expression in different genres and media, that gives voice to human experiences and emotions. According to the current steering documents (in Sweden), practising language teachers shall adopt a holistic view of language and literature.

The following lists possible examples of research themes that can be explored within CuEEd-LL:

  • Language and literature in school and other educational contexts, and in teacher education;
  • Culture through language and literature in different teacher education programmes;
  • Opportunities and challenges of using language and literature in school and other educational contexts, and in teacher education;
  • Historical and contemporary perspectives on multilingualism, literacy and literature;
  • Reading and writing processes in children and adults;
  • The impact of digital processes on communication, culture, and diversity in different fields of education.