Å skape rom for flerspråklighet: En studie av diskursive vilkår for barnehagens språklige praksis med flerspråklige barn

The study investigates discursive conditions for kindergarten teachers’ linguistic practices with multilingual children. The purpose of the study is to gain greater insight into how understandings of multilingualism in kindergartens create space for kindergarten teachers’ multilingual practice and for collaboration with the children’s parents. Linguistic practice is understood as pedagogical language practice related to the role of kindergarten teachers in a kindergarten context.

A common feature of kindergartens is that they consider multilingualism to be a resource. However, the prevailing view of multilingualism is rather different. In Norwegian kindergartens, one understands multilingualism primarily as a duality consisting of mother tongue and Norwegian, while the view of multilingualism in German kindergartens is more dynamic and linked to a view of language as a communicative resource. The analysis shows how different views on multilingualism are constructed at both institutional and individual levels, and how they are both linked to and question the view of resources as a framework. It becomes clear how kindergarten teachers’ views on multilingualism are linked to their own linguistic practice on the one hand, and understandings of the children’s linguistic practice on the other. When it comes to parental collaboration, the data material points in particular to contradictions between the kindergarten’s and the parents’ views on multilingualism, and how they influence the understanding of each other’s language choices and practices. The findings are used to discuss how the discourses on multilingualism at micro and macro levels are interrelated, and how they create space and frameworks for the kindergarten teachers’ linguistic practice and for collaboration with the children’s parents.

The study is a qualitative ethnographic case study of the linguistic practices in two kindergartens, one in Norway and one in Germany.

The study’s data material consists of relevant kindergarten steering documents, pictures of the kindergartens’ ‘semiotic landscape’ (of signs and symbols), field notes on the kindergarten teachers’ linguistic practice and interviews with kindergarten teachers and parents. With the help of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concepts of utterance, genre of speech, voice, discourse and ideology, the linguistic practice of kindergarten teachers and parents is studied as the nexus of discourses on multilingualism related to kindergarten as an institution. The kindergarten teachers’ linguistic practice, their views and the parents’ views on multilingualism are further linked to macro-level discourses.

Pesch, A. M. (2018). “Å skape rom for flerspråklighet: En studie av diskursive vilkår for barnehagens språklige praksis med flerspråklige barn”. Akademisk avhandling. Universitetet i Tromsø.