Man blir lite osäker på om man gör rätt» – En studie om pedagogers arbete med flerspråkighet i förskolan

The article presents and discusses how kindergarten educators talk about work involving children’s native languages and what is focused on in the conversations between the educators. The article’s starting point is that multilingualism is regarded as a competence and an approach, and that kindergarten educators play an important role in providing children with the opportunity to develop their own multilingualism.

Research questions: How do educators talk about work involving children’s native languages, and what do they focus on in these conversations?

Four topics emerged from the analysis of the conversations and the results are presented under the headings: ‘Highlighting different languages - right or wrong?’, ‘Making different cultures visible - which ones?’, ‘Using materials and activities - how?’ and ‘Getting help from others - easy or difficult?’. Focus was placed on work that involved the children’s multilingualism, while dilemmas and uncertainties surrounding this work emerged. The study shows complex work where educators, in addition to language-based challenges, must consider issues such as equality, politics and cultural expression. 

The article’s results are based on an analysis of conversations held in three work groups at three different Swedish kindergartens, and in a focus group where all work groups were involved. The informants were two pedagogical staff members and six kindergarten teachers. The children they were responsible for were between one and five years old and spoke a total of 15 different native languages. The conversations were video recorded and analysed using a qualitative content analysis. 

Fredriksson, M. & Lindgren Eneflo, E. (2019). “«Man blir lite osäker på om man gör rätt» – En studie om pedagogers arbete med flerspråkighet i förskolan”. Tidsskrift for nordisk barnehageforskning, 18(6):1–15.