School walls are covered with signs, posters, and artwork, but who are these messages aimed at, who created them, and how do they reflect school democratic values? This autumn, researchers and pupils across Sweden will explore these questions in a citizen science project called ‘Voices of the Walls: linguistic and visual messages in schools’.
In the project ‘Voices of the Walls’ pupils are helping researchers to investigate how democratic values in schools are connected to the linguistic and visual messages found within the school environment. Through the creation of new knowledge, the project aims to address a worrying trend highlighted in this year’s Swedish Youth Barometer, which revealed that young people’s trust in democracy is declining.
”To strengthen young people’s confidence in democracy and public institutions, we must enhance their sense of participation in schools, where they meet and spend time every day. Schools are responsible for giving pupils a voice in their learning and developing skills related to democracy, norms, values, and rights. We aim to investigate how this mission aligns with the messages found on the school’s walls,” says David Borgström, Project Manager at Public & Science Sweden.
Hundreds of Swedish pupils helping researchers
In Connection to European Researchers’ Night in Sweden, ForskarFredag, from 1 September to 15 October, around twenty school classes from primary and lower secondary schools are photographing and analysing signs, posters, drawings, graffiti, and other messages found on the walls of their schools. Participating schools span the entire country, from north to south and east to west, covering both urban and rural areas. The study is led by Charlotte Engblom, a lecturer in didactics specialising in the Swedish language and associate professor at Uppsala University, and Mona Blåsjö, Professor of Swedish at Stockholm University.
“The research area is known as schoolscapes, inspired by the English word ‘landscape’. It views the school as a landscape filled with linguistic and visual messages that surround and influence both pupils and teachers, which can be studied by analysing signs, images, and art. This kind of research hasn’t been conducted on such a large scale in Sweden, making it a unique and exciting project,” says Mona Blåsjö.
”I am keen to explore the current linguistic landscape within schools. Which messages are considered important enough to be displayed on printed signs, and which are spontaneously created by teachers and pupils? How do images and text interact? Which languages are present in the school environment, and in what contexts? These are some of the questions we hope to answer with the help of the pupils,” explains Charlotte Engblom.
New perspectives – for both researchers and pupils
The project aims not only to generate new scientific knowledge but also to raise awareness among pupils and staff about how school messages connect to the school’s mission and the rights and responsibilities schools should uphold.
“The beauty of citizen science is that it’s mutually beneficial. Pupils’ perspectives are valuable to researchers, and through their participation, pupils gain new insights and ways of thinking that enable them to contribute to shaping the school’s linguistic and visual landscape – something that, in the long run, can make schools more open, equal, and inclusive places,” says David Borgström.
The mass experiment ‘Voices of the Walls’ is part of the annual ForskarFredag science festival, European Researchers’ Night in Sweden, and is a collaboration between researchers in Language and Educational Sciences at Stockholm University and Uppsala University, and the non-profit association Public & Science.
Would you like to know more about the project? Read more here.
Or contact: David Borgström at [email protected]
