This chapter explores teacher and library collaboration, enhancing K-5 second language pupils’ literacy development. Aspects of this partnership are highlighted through qualitative analysis of the librarian´s narrative of how the collaboration evolved. Apart from high achievement levels in reading the pupils experienced personal growth, home-school-library relations were positively affected and the literacy practices met with new ideas as multimodal approaches to encounter and interpret literature were implemented as a result of the collaboration. 

In the article on the basis of the psycholinguistic experimental data obtained in 2009-2010 from Russian and Swedish students, we consider internal features of several complex values (“Harmony”, “Freedom”, “Democracy”, “Tolerance” and “Patriotism”) and analyze their external systemic organization, taking into account both specificity of the two cultures and gender specifics. We argue that value concepts are hierarchically organized, forming different generalization levels from the simple to the more complex ones with intricate overlapping among different complex values within the system. This research is a stage in a complex experimental work aimed at comparing Russian and Swedish values (the project on Swedish Institute grant). 

The main purpose of this study was to examine classroom, teacher and student factors distinguishing grade three classes performing at higher levels than expected in relation to SES and language factors, from classes performing below their potential with regard to the same factors.  Data on a standardized reading comprehension test, student and teacher questionnaires covering teacher, classroom and student characteristics were collected. The participants were 1092 grade three classes and their class teachers, from Stockholm, Sweden. By use of regression and a twin-matching procedure, one group of 94 under-achieving classes and another group of 94 over-achieving classes were formed for comparisons. Data about extended voluntary reading, classroom climate, teacher experience and the use of authentic literature were seen to be the main four indictors discriminating between over and under-achieving classes beyond the impact of socio-economic status and language background.

The autonomous and the ideological model of literacy, and their tentative effects on teachers' practices as well as on research will be discussed in this article, thus emphasizing the need for teaching children not only to read the word, but also the world. Cases where the possibility of implementing critical awareness from the very start of children ́s literacy trajectory is neglected will be discussed with reference to the Four Resources Model for literacy. The need of holistic perspectives in order to reject deficit discourses will be explicated. Finally the role of teacher education will be briefly illuminated. In the concluding comments the need for both practitioners and researchers to pay attention to the ideological model for literacy is stated.

The purpose of this study was to develop a method comparing Russian and Swedish value systems with the overarching aim to increase the understanding in intercultural communication. Value systems, as organized systems of nationally specific social concepts, are viewed as part of the cognitive, mental representations determining the behaviour of both individuals and communities. In comparative studies of value systems concepts in the national languages are often translated into English. Our Russian-Swedish project has indicated that similar national concepts, when translated into English, expose significant differences in their connotations. For example, when comparing the Swedish and Russian translations of ‘security’, much of the nationally specific contents are lost, thus, making data invalid. To overcome this problem, methods were developed to obtain comparable data, by use of experimental design, employing Russian and Swedish university students as informants. In our presentation we will explicate how simple value concepts coinciding for the two cultures were obtained and how differences in similar concepts were identified. We will describe the overall structure of the multilayer value systems of both countries, where similarities and differences related to gender and ethnicity, are made visible. The methodology, results and presumptive usages of these methods will be presented.