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Nordic language policies for higher education and their multi-layered motivations

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Abstract

Language policies have been drafted in Nordic higher education with the obvious, but unproblematised and unchallenged motivation caused by internationalisation. In this article, we analyse the various motivations for drafting language policies in Nordic higher education and the ideological implications of those motivations. We do this by approaching the question from multiple (macro, meso and micro) viewpoints, in order to make visible some of the undercurrents in higher education language policy. We are particularly interested in the explicit motivations for language policy change, and the explicit and implicit actors and action represented in our data. We will first discuss the background for internationalisation in Nordic higher education and then move on to our analysis of policy documents, survey data on the motivations for language policy drafting in Nordic higher education institutions. Our results indicate that internationalisation turns into a national question in the motivations. It also appears that the institutions are reactive (rather than active) in responding to perceived needs to draft a language policy.

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Notes

  1. We thank Anne Fabricius for making this point.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Anne Fabricius and John Airey as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the manuscript. Part of the research conducted for this article was funded by the Academy of Finland Grant No. 138287. The survey was conducted in a Nordplus funded Project LA-2010_1b-23999.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Taina Saarinen

  2. Language Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Peppi Taalas

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  1. Taina Saarinen
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Correspondence to Taina Saarinen.

Appendix: Universities and higher education institutions selected for closer analysis of language policy documentation

Appendix: Universities and higher education institutions selected for closer analysis of language policy documentation

Denmark

Københavns Universitet (University of Copenhagen) http://www.ku.dk/

University College Sjaelland http://ucsj.dk/

Finland

Aalto-yliopisto (Aalto University) http://www.aalto.fi/

Jyväskylän yliopisto (University of Jyväskylä) https://www.jyu.fi/

Seinäjoen ammattikorkeakoulu (Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences) http://www.seamk.fi/fi

Yrkeshögskolan Novia (Novia University of Applied Sciences) https://www.novia.fi/

Iceland

Háskóli Íslands (University of Iceland) http://www.hi.is/

Norway

Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus (Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences) http://www.hioa.no/

Norges miljø- og biovitenskapelige universitet (Norwegian University of Life Sciences) https://www.nmbu.no/

Sweden

Högskolan Dalarna (Dalarna University) http://www.du.se/

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) http://www.kth.se/

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Saarinen, T., Taalas, P. Nordic language policies for higher education and their multi-layered motivations. High Educ 73, 597–612 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9981-8

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