In this symposium, we take an interest in interactional conditions in the classroom in relation to everyday literacy practices in school. More precisely, we investigate in detail (?)the complexity of conditions for participation in different reading and writing practices in schools. Our point of departure is that this relationship could be understood in various ways. Firstly, it could be considered as a question of different ways that classroom communication becomes resources in collective text work, and, secondly, it could be viewed from the opposite direction as a question of how different kinds of texts become resources for shaping classroom interaction. A third option in understanding interactional conditions foregrounds how textual and interactional resources network in a process of mutual ongoing transformation. The overall aim of this symposium is therefore to highlight, from different methodological perspectives, the dynamic interplay between texts and interaction in teachers’ and students’ everyday social practices in classrooms.

There is a broad societal consensus of the importance that young people acquire substantial reading and writing competencies through the educational system to be able to participate actively in working life as well as in democratic life asadults. It is argued that most spheres in society today are literacy-based, and that individuals who have not gained sufficient literacy competences are at risk of being socially, economically, and politically marginalized. This consensus is expressed in national and international educational policy texts, for instance in the curriculum and syllabus of compulsory school in different countries and in OECD’spolicy document on Definition and Selection of Key Competencies (2005). The attention that international reading tests as PISA and PIRLS receive in research and mass media could also be seen as an expression of this societal consensus.

Thus it seems urgent for educational research to address issues concerning conditions for learning literacy competencies in school. All four studies in this symposium contribute to the research field of New Literacy Studies (Street, 1984; Barton, 2007) as they explore interactional conditions through analysing different aspects of literacy events in different schools’ literacy practices. Accordingly, literacy practices are understood as heterogeneous and plural phenomena, which are socially, culturally and historically situated. A common point of departure in the different contributions is a multimodal perspective that recognizes the broad range of different kinds of texts that come to play as traditional school literacies are partly transformed and challenged when new forms of media work their way into the classroom (Lankshear & Knobel, 2011).

The four studies are part of largerresearch projects with different aims and theoretical and methodological framings. However, all studies have in common that they are ethnographically designed and analyse literacy events of collective writing or reading in order to understand the interplay between different textual and interactional resources. The different angles that are covered in the four contributions are 1) The interaction of teacher and pupils in situations of reading aloud 2) The interaction between teacher and pupils when collectively writing a story, 3) How pupils’ listening and reading become intertwined with other material resources when reading digital talking books, and 4) How different texts as material structures take part in the organization of learning in interaction. Through analysis of literacy events from different literacy practices, situated in two countries, Sweden and Finland, and in different socio-economic contexts, the symposium is a contribution to a deeper understanding of how interactional conditions constitute different literacy practices in Nordic schools. The contributions in the panel inform contemporary discussions about literacy as a key competencein the 21st-century.

Barton, D. (2007). Literacy: An introduction to the ecology of written language (2. uppl.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Lankshear & Knobel (2001). New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Social Learning. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press, 2011. OECD. (2005). The definition and selection of key competencies: Executive summary. Retrieved 15-01-27, from http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/47/61/ 35070367.pdf. Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Press.