Language, identity and social behaviour : a sociocultural approach to the study of the concept "will" on the effectiveness of the "how's" and "why's" of bilingualism

Abstract: The study is theoretically and empirically a multidisciplinary survey of the problems surrounding the issues of bilingualism in multicultural multiracial communities. The main purpose is to explore the influence of the synergy effects of the socio-cultural forces both on the quality and the outcome of minority language education in Sweden. The overall design of the study is qualitative in approach and is rooted in three overlapping categories namely serendipitous research, curriculum-centred research and hypothesis - testing research. The developed conceptual model is tested by using three techniques, i.e., observation  in-depth interview and essay-type tests.Twenty eight Iranian students of different age groups integrated in the Swedish school system and thirty five home-language teachers were subjects to this study. In order to investigate the long-term effects of the macro-dimension level factors of the majority population in Sweden on the micro-dimension level factors of the minority, the subjects were observed and interviewed in their working contexts for three subsequent years. Essay test  were administered to twenty upper-secondary Iranian students towards the end of the third year of observation. In line with the research approach, the analysis of qualitative data is presented in a multi-level procedure.The theory behind and the methods used in the study led to an investigation of factors affecting not only the process and the achieved results of the minority/immigrant instructional programmes but also the minority individual's conception of the reality and his/her macro-cosmic and micro-cosmic perceptions. The results obtained by the analyses of the data confirm the identification of the interdependency of language, co-existence an equilibrium with the ecosystem. Mini-culture or communicative culture which emerged as a product of the synergy effects of different socio-cultural systems, is a reliable predictor for immigrant/minority individual's degree of integration in or isolation from the majority community. They may be categorised as total dissociates or the contrapoise, partial dissociates or the unipoise and those who have maintained their equilibrium with their ecosystem or the unipoise.