Multilingual students strategies for participation in language contexts : Students tell about language, language development and language competence in a school practice

In order to increase knowledge and understanding of school as language practice,a life story approach is used to study multilingual pupils’ narratives abouttheir nine years in compulsory school. Texts with the heading My SchoolYears are interpreted. Experiences of being outside and initially lacking accessto the linguistic contexts in school as well as approaches to linguistic competenceor incompetence emerge from the analysis. The pupils’ overall languagepotential is invisible. Other findings are efforts toward what can be describedas linguistic uniformity, school and education and development of the pupils’social and cultural capital and linguistic competence