Karin Rehman

I hold a PhD in Swedish with a specialisation in multilingualism and currently serve as a Lecturer and Director of Studies for the teacher education team specialising in Swedish as a Second Language.

Degrees and Qualifications

• PhD in Swedish with a specialisation in multilingualism, Linnaeus University, 2025
• Bachelor of Education and Upper Secondary School Teacher Degree, Stockholm University, 2006 

Professional Background

My professional experience includes roles as a Senior Advisor at the Swedish National Agency for Education, Upper secondary school teacher, and as typographer. As a teacher, I taught national programmes and the Language Introduction Programme, focusing on Swedish as a Second Language, Swedish, and Media and Communication. In my capacity as a Lead Teacher, I also facilitated collegial learning and led teacher networks.

Teaching

Within the teacher education programme for Swedish as a Second Language, I primarily teach didactic modules at the introductory, intermediate, and candidat levels, both within the programme and as standalone courses. I also contribute to commissioned education, including initiatives under the Swedish National Agency for Education's programmes "Collaboration for the Best School" and targeted efforts for newly arrived and multilingual children and students.

Research

My doctoral research was part of the project "Newly Arrived Students in Upper Secondary School – an Interdisciplinary Study on Language Development, Subject Language, and Social Inclusion." The dissertation enhances our understanding of language and subject content in texts that newly arrived adolescents read and write, specifically examining texts on source criticism in the history subject. Data were collected over two academic years through ethnographic fieldwork in the Language Introduction Programme.

The study analysed the verbal language used in clauses and clause complexes from a systemic functional linguistic perspective. Embedded clauses, circumstantial meanings at various levels, and relationships between clauses that specify, add to, and develop meaning emerged as central resources for expressing subject content. These elements often serve as steps towards managing nominalisations. The analyses also revealed that process meanings can span multiple identified process types and be defined within subordinate categories of the same process type, which is significant for metalinguistic discussions with students about process meanings.

Subject content was examined for epistemic complexity in words and word groups and how this complexity is condensed when words are combined into units often corresponding to clauses and clause complexes. The analysis method is based on two dimensions within Legitimation Code Theory: specialisation and semantics.

The results indicated that a limited selection of technical terms might suffice for students to begin conducting source-critical analyses using established criteria. The findings suggest that subject teaching can commence early in adolescents' second language development, potentially motivating students and providing more time for developing both academic language and subject knowledge. Moreover, the study's metalanguage can likely facilitate conversations between teachers of Swedish as a Second Language and history, as linguistic and subject-specific categories co-occur. This enables teachers to approach student texts from different perspectives while discussing the same elements. Additionally, students' texts can serve as resources in ongoing instruction. Since the content is familiar to students, attention can be directed towards language and its further development in written texts, both within Swedish as a Second Language and history instruction.

Following the dissertation project, my interest remains in how these findings can be utilised by teachers and in teacher education. I am also keen on exploring how students' entire linguistic repertoires can contribute to their continued learning.