Decisive factors for language teaching in Sweden

This paper aims to examine why language teaching holds a prominent position within the Swedish school system. This statement applies to foreign languages as well as to home languages (or immigrant languages) and Swedish as a second language for immigrant children and adults. The Swedish educational system (comprising the social milieu and the school milieu) is here conceived as incorporating some specific constituent features that have led to the implementation of a generous language policy. This assumption turns out to be particularly obvious in the case of immigrant education. In fact, the analysis of the Swedish educational system illuminates different stakes at several levels - commercial/economic, social, political/ ideological, historical, linguistic, educational and cultural - for language teaching as a whole.