A Descriptive Study of Early Childhood Education Steering Documents in Finland, Sweden and Australia around Language Immersion Programmes

The study analyses and compares what steering documents state about kindergarten language teaching in Sweden, Finland and Australia. The aim is to provide a descriptive summary of language specialisation programmes in the three countries. The research question is: What do the national curricula tell us about language teaching in Sweden, Finland and Australia?  

The results show that the steering documents contain few details about the language specialisation programmes. The researchers emphasise that the content of these programmes must be discussed, and that clear plans and guidelines must be established on how to support bilingual and multilingual development in kindergartens. 

Steering documents from Sweden, Finland and Australia were collected and analysed by the research group. In the analysis, the researchers searched for all descriptions of language specialisation programmes. The three countries were selected for the study based on the researchers’ cultural proximity to and knowledge of them. 

Garvis, S., Harj-Luukkainen, H. & Flynn, T. (2018). “A Descriptive Study of Early Childhood Education Steering Documents in Finland, Sweden and Australia around Language Immersion Programmes”. Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research, 12(3):1-22.