Language as a medium for inclusion and exclusion: Supporting multilingualism in a Swedish minority language ECEC setting in Finland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58955/jecer.130135Avainsanat:
language, inclusion, ECEC, children's playAbstrakti
Language awareness and multilingualism in early childhood education has received much attention in recent years. The aim of this article is to shed light on challenges and tensions in supporting multilingualism in a minority language ECEC setting in Finland. Of special interest are situations where children not yet proficient in Swedish or Finnish are included or at risk of being excluded. The study was conducted in Southern Finland where many children attending Swedish ECEC come from bilingual Finnish-Swedish homes. The qualitative data consists of interviews with 74 teachers and staff working in 18 Swedish ECEC. Also, participant observations of children aged 3–5 interacting with peers were conducted. The results show that children are aware of language differences and use language as a means for inclusion and exclusion of peers during play. The high degree of freedom in children’s free play, without the participation of adults, makes it difficult for staff to create a common praxis or linguistic strategies. Furthermore, the results indicate that ECEC staff need more guidelines on how to actively support the children’s development of Swedish while supporting children’s bilingualism or multilingualism.
Lähdeviitteet
Act on Early Childhood Education and Care. (540/2018). https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2018/20180540
Alstad, G. T., & Mourão, S. (2021). Research into multilingual issues in ECEC contexts: Proposing a transdisciplinary research field. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 29(3), 319–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2021.1928845
Alstad, G. T., & Sopanen, P. (2021). Language orientations in early childhood education policy in Finland and Norway. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 7(1), 30–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2020.1862951
Bae, B. (2010). Realizing children’s right to participation in early childhood settings: some critical issues in a Norwegian context. Early Years, 30(3), 205–218. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2010.506598
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf & K. J. Sher (Eds.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol. 2. Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological (pp. 57–71). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13620-004
Bergroth, M., & Hansell, K. (2020a). Språkmedvetenhet inom småbarnspedagogik – pedagogernas reflektioner över begreppet. In Workplace communication III. VAKKI Symposium XL (Vol. 6, No. 7.2, p. 2020).
Bergroth, M., & Hansell, K. (2020b). Language-aware operational culture – Developing in-service training for early childhood education and care. Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 14(1), 85–102. https://doi.org/10.17011/apples/urn.202006043978
Boldermo, S. (2020). Fleeting moments: Young children’s negotiations of belonging and togetherness. International Journal of Early Years Education, 28(2), 136–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2020.1765089
Cabell, S. Q., Justice, L.M., McGinty, A.S., DeCoster, J., & Forstona. L.D. (2015). Teacher–child conversations in preschool classrooms: Contributions to children’s vocabulary development. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 30, 80–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2014.09.004
Cederborg, A-C. (2020). Young children's play: a matter of advanced strategies among peers. Early Child Development and Care 190(5), 778–790. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2018.1491561
Cekaite, A., & Evaldsson, A-C. (2017). Language policies in play: Learning ecologies in multilingual preschool interactions among peers and teachers. Multilingua, 36(4), 451–475. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2016-0020
Cobb-Moore, C., Danby, S., & Farrell, A. (2009). Young children as rule makers. Journal of Pragmatics 41(8), 1477–1492. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2007.04.013
Corsaro, W. (1979). ‘We're friends, right?’: Children's use of access rituals in a nursery school. Language in Society, 8(2-3), 315–336. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404500007570
Corsaro, W. (2000). Early childhood education, children's peer cultures, and the future of childhood. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 8(2), 89–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/13502930085208591
Cromdal, J. (2001). Can I be with?: Negotiating play entry in a bilingual school. Journal of Pragmatics 33, 515–543. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00131-9
Donner, P., Lundström, S., & Heikkilä, M. (2022). Exclusion and limitation through favouritism as a strategy in children’s play negotiations: A qualitative analysis of children’s multimodal play. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 20(4), 449–462. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X221083425
Edfelt, D., Jahn, C., Reuterswärd, M., & Sjölund, A. (2019). Tydliggörande pedagogik i förskolan. Natur & Kultur.
Emilson, A. (2008). Det önskvärda barnet: Fostran uttryckt i vardagliga kommunikationshandlingar mellan lärare och barn i förskolan [Doctoral thesis, University of Gothenburg]. Göteborg studies in educational sciences 268.
Erwin, E., Valentine, M., & Toumazou, M. (2022). The study of belonging in early childhood education: Complexities and possibilities. International Journal of Early Years Education, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2022.2128307
Eurostat Statistics. (2023). Early Childhood Education Statistics. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Early_childhood_education_statistics (accessed 09.05.2023).
Fanger, S. M., Frankel, L. A., & Hazen, N. (2012). Peer exclusion in preschool children's play: Naturalistic observations in a playground setting. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 58(2), 224–254. https://doi.org/10.1353/mpq.2012.0007
Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI). (2022). National core curriculum for early childhood education and care (Regulation OPH-700-2022). Finnish National Agency for Education.
Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (2019). The ethical principles of research withhuman participants and ethical review in the human sciences in Finland (TENK publications 3/2019). Finnish National Board on Research Integrity.
From, T., & Sahlström, F. (2017). Shared places, separate spaces: Constructing cultural spaces through two national languages in Finland. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 61(4), 465–478. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2016.1147074
Garcia, O. (2009) Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st Century. In T. Skutnabb-Kangas, R. Phillipson, A.K. Mohanty & M. Panda (Eds.), Social Justice Through Multilingual Education (pp.140–158). Multilingual Matters.
Garvis, S., Harju-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 Research in Early Childhood Education, 12(3), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.17206/apjrece.2018.12.3.1
Giæver, K., & Tkachenko, E. (2020). Mot en ny satsing på flerspråklighet – en analyse av språkpolitiske føringer i barnehagens styringsdokumenter. Nordic Studies in Education, 40(3), 249–267. https://doi.org/10.23865/nse.v40.2442
Hoyte, F., Torr, J., & Degotardi, S. (2014). The language of friendship: Genre in the conversations of preschool children. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 21(1), 20–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X13492941
Howe, N., & Leach, J. (2018). Children’s play and peer relations. In W. M. Bukowski, B. Laursen & K. H. Rubin (Eds.), Handbook of peer interactions, relationships, and groups (pp. 222–242). The Guilford Press.
Kangas, J., Harju-Luukkainen, H., Brotherus, A., Kuusisto, A., & Gearon, L. (2019). Playing to learn in Finland: Early childhood curricular and operational contexts. In S. Garvis & S. Phillipson (Eds.), Policification of early childhood education and care: Early childhood education in the 21st century Vol III (pp. 71–85). Routledge.
Kirsch, C. (2021). Practitioners’ language-supporting strategies in multilingual ECE institutions in Luxembourg. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 29(3), 336–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2021.1928721
Kultti, A. (2022). Teaching responsive to play and linguistic diversity in early childhood education: considerations on theoretical grounds. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 25(8), 3037–3045. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2021.2001426
Kultti, A. (2023). Flerspråkiga barns villkor i förskolan - lärande av och på ett andra språk. Liber.
Kumpulainen, K. (2018). A principled, personalised, trusting and child-centric ECEC system in Finland. In S. L. Kagan (Ed.), The early advantage 1: Early childhood systems that lead by example (pp. 72–98). Teachers College Press.
Langeloo, A., Mascareño Lara, M., Deunk, M. I., Klitzing, N. F., & Strijbos, J.-W. (2019). A systematic review of teacher–child interactions with multilingual young children. Review of Educational Research, 89(4), 536–568. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319855619
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.
Lee, L., Williams, A., Lao, C., Lagunas, N., & Langner, C.A. (2021). The role of home language in children's friendship choice and peer acceptance. Journal of Applied Development, 76, 10123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101323
Lengyel, D. (2012). Early childhood education in multilingual settings. In Z. Bekerman & T. Geisen (Eds.), International handbook of migration, minorities and education (pp. 169–185). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1466-3_12
Lundström, S., Donner, P., & Heikkilä, M. (2022). Children excluding other children from play through passive resistance. Journal of Early Childhood Education Research, 11(2), 223–242. https://journal.fi/jecer/article/view/119865
Mansikka, J-E., & Lundkvist, M. (2019). Barns perspektiv och delaktighet som ideologisk orientering för småbarnspedagogiken i Finland. Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk & kritikk, 5, 111–129. https://doi.org/10.23865/ntpk.v5.1367
Mansikka, J-E., & Lundkvist, M. (2022). Children’s right to participation in early childhood education and care: An analysis in Finnish policy documents. International Journal of Children's Rights, 30(1), 232–257. https://doi.org/10.1163/15718182-30010009
McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & Theobald, M. (2015). Becoming bilingual: Children's insights about making friends in bilingual settings. International Journal of Early Childhood, 47(3), 385–402. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-015-0148-7
Nordström, A., Sairanen, H., Byman, J., Renlund, J., & Sintonen, S. (2022). Widening text worlds in Finnish early childhood education. In H. Harju-Luukkainen, J. Kangas & S. Garvis (Eds.), Finnish early childhood education and care: A Multi-theoretical perspective on research and practice (pp. 41–53). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95512-0_4
Official Statistics Finland (OSF) (2022). Population Structure 2021. Retrieved from www.stat.fi/til/vaerak/2021/vaerak_2021_2022-03-31_en.pdf
Peleman, B., Van Der Wildt, A., & Vandenbroeck, M. (2022). Home language use with children, dialogue with multilingual parents and professional development in ECEC. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 61, 70–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2022.05.007
Pursi, A. (2019). Play in adult-child interaction: Institutional multi-party interaction and pedagogical practice in a toddler classroom. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 21, 136–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lcsi.2019.02.014
Ree, M., & Emilson, A. (2019). Participation in communities in ECEC expressed in child–educator interactions. Early Child Development and Care, 190(14), 2229–2240. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2019.1566230
Repo, L. (2015). Bullying and its prevention in early childhood education [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Helsinki]. Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, Department of Teacher Education, Research Report 367.
Romøren, A. S. H., Garmann, N. G., & Tkachenko, E. (2023). Present but silent? The use of languages other than Norwegian in mainstream ECEC. Nordisk barnehageforskning, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.23865/nbf.v19.310
Rosell, Y. (2022). Brudd og sosial ekskludering i ulike barnefellesskap. Nordisk barnehageforskning, 19(2), 51–70. https://doi.org/10.23865/nbf.v19.245
Rönnlund, M. (2015). Skolgården som socialt rum. Nordic Studies in Education, 33, 200–216.
Sierens, S., & Van Avermat, P. (2014). Language diversity in education: Evolving from multilingual education to functional multilingual learning. In D. Little, C. Leung & P. Van Avermat (Eds.), Managing diversity in education: Languages, policies, pedagogies (pp. 204–222). Multilingual matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781783090815-014
Skoglund, R. I. (2020). Beyond bullying: Understanding children’s exploration of inclusion and exclusion processes in kindergarten. In M. Hedegaard & E. Eriksen Ødegaard (Eds.), Children’s exploration and cultural formation. International perspectives on early childhood education and development, vol 29 (pp. 29–45). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36271-3_3
Skånfors, L. (2013). Children’s everyday social life in preschool [Doctoral Dissertation, Karlstad University]. Karlstad University Studies, 2013:32.
Statsrådet. (2022). Språkpolitiskt program – statsrådets principbeslut [Language Policy Programme Government Resolution] (Statsrådets publikationer 2022: 52). Statsrådet. https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/164218 (accessed 18.05.2023).
Säljö, R. (2014). Lärande i praktiken. Ett sociokulturellt perspektiv. Studentlitteratur.
Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. MIT Press.
Zheng, Z., Degotardi, S., & Djon, E. (2021). Supporting multilingual development in early childhood education: A scoping review. International Journal of Educational Research, 110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2021.101894
Zilliacus, H., Paulsrud, B., & Holm, G. (2017). Essentializing vs. non-essentializing students’ cultural identities: Curricular discourses in Finland and in Sweden. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 12(2), 166–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/17447143.2017.1311335
Zimmerman, F.J., Gilkerson, J., Richards, J.A., & Christakis, D. A. (2009). Teaching by listening: The importance of adult-child conversations to language development. Pediatrics, 124(1), 342–349. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2008-2267
Öhman, M. (2019). Hissad och dissad - om relationsarbete i förskolan. Liber AB.
