Kielirajat ylittävää kielipolitiikkaa ja toimintaa kieliparipäiväkodissa
Keywords:
bilingualism, co-located kindergarten, language policyAbstract
Co-located kindergartens, schools, and campuses as well as bilingual education in Finnish and Swedish have been discussed lively over a decade. Co-located kindergartens and schools can create possibilities for co-operation and multilingualism. At the same time, co-locations can be seen as challenging from the
point of view of Swedish language. Despite the equal status as national languages, Finnish can be seen as de facto majority language. In my doctoral thesis, I examined the language policy of a co-located kindergarten as well as the possible effect that national steering documents have on kindergarten’s language policy. In addition, I examined the language use of the teachers. The results show actions that were based on both parallel monolingualism and more dynamic bilingualism. Thus, co-located kindergartens can be seen as a possibility for fruitful co-operation between the units if the co-operation is planned well and both languages and the context are taken into consideration.
