Third stream activities

Swedish cooperates with the surrounding community in multiple ways, including by organising study visits for students, participating in the media and organising contract education for municipalities and other non-academic organisations.

For more information, please contact: Hedda Söderlundh.

Research and exchanges

Researchers and teaching staff in Swedish work with many different actors outside the university, including the media, foreign higher education institutions, municipalities and public authorities.

In 2018, the subject’s teaching staff were invited to hold lectures in a range of contexts, e.g. to Föreningen ESS (language consultants) and a one-day conference on the route to work and authorisation for healthcare staff educated outside the EU/EEA, organised by the county administrative board and the Swedish Society of Medicine. On several occasions there were also requests for expertise on linguistic issues. For example, one of our lecturers is a member of the board of the Greek School in Stockholm and other is an expert on research issues related to the Swedish language for the Language Council of Sweden. The subject’s researchers also participate in activities to strengthen research linked to learning and education outside the university, such as at the multicultural centre in Fittja and within the Fredrika Bremer Association.

Contract education

Swedish regularly receives requests to provide contract education in, for example, working methods for language improvement. Below is a list of the courses that have been developed and held after the expansion of Swedish as a subject, which has occurred over the last five years:

  • Second-language development in the classroom for Sollentuna Municipality (2014).
  • Working methods for language improvement [for pupils who recently arrived from abroad] in the school areas of Haparanda, Gällivare, Kiruna and Lycksele (2018).
  • Intensive course in Swedish [for asylum-seeking doctors], a joint project between Södertörn University and the Swedish Society of Medicine, funded by the county council and the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs (2017 & 2018).
  • The module in “the language of public administration” that is offered on the 30-credit fast-track course for social scientists, is contract education offered by Södertörn University on behalf of the Swedish Public Employment Service. It is for people who have a foreign degree in, for example, economics or law (2018).
  • Courses in working methods for language improvement in pre-school and at upper-secondary school for Järfälla Municipality (2018).
  • The global classroom – an introductory course in Swedish as a second language, ordered by the National Agency for Education and developed by Swedish. Not yet offered (2018).