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Syftet med studien är att fördjupa förståelsen kring hur den nordiska synen på flerspråkighet som resurs träder fram i personalens beskrivningar av goda praktiker i samband med stöttande av flerspråkiga barns språk i Finland. Särskilt granskas om och hur barnens egna modersmål uppfattas av den småbarnspedagogiska personalen som stöd för lärande i undervisningssituationer. Materialet härrör sig från en nationell kartläggning hösten 2021 och i den här delstudien analyseras svaren den öppna enkätsfrågan «Vilka goda praktiker har ni för att utveckla språket hos barn med invandrarbakgrund?». Speciell vikt läggs vid kvalitativ analys av de 137 svar där andra språk utöver verksamhetsspråket nämns. Analysen visar att barnens modersmål som stöd i undervisningssituationerna inte ännu verkar realiseras i form av kognitivt utvecklande pedagogiska aktiviteter. Andra språk tas upp i samverkan med föräldrarna och i samarbete med andra professionella nätverk. I verksamheten kommer språken fram via olika materialresurser eller så att barnen själva får undervisa ord och fraser på sina modersmål till andra barn eller personalen.

This study sought to explore the ideological and implementational spaces for mainstreaming multilingual pedagogies (MPs) in initial teacher education (ITE) policies and curricula across the European Union. The concept of linguistically sensitive teaching (LST) was used as a lens to examine inclusive, equity-centred MPs in ITE. A multi-sited comparative case study was conducted to collect data in nine locations. As a result, a general trend of ideological spaces was observed for MPs in language-in-education policies at the European and (sub)national levels. However, this ideological space was not always implemented in ITE. As a second result, explicit mentions of MPs and LST were identified in the ITE curricula of seven sites, and in each of the nine cases, a potential space for implementation was observed. As a third result we found that the greatest potential for opening implementational spaces for MPs lies in courses that aim to develop general pedagogical and sociolinguistic knowledge as well as professional beliefs in future teachers. In conclusion, we contend that the linguistic ecology and the organisational structure of education systems (decentralisation) are factors that help explain the successful mainstreaming of MPs in ITE institutions.

Distance education due to Covid-19 put the teachers' linguistically sensitive teaching to the test. In this study, teachers' experiences of distance education with a focus on linguistically sensitive teaching and relationships are examined. The data consists of 10 teacher interviews working in the Swedish-medium teacher education in Finland. The interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Teachers experienced challenges in making their distance education linguistically sensitive, due to individual external and individual internal reasons. The results established a need to strengthen teachers' ability of linguistically sensitive teaching for future distance education, and the importance of creating good relationships in contact teaching before unexpected situations arise.

The aim of this article is to examine local enactment of new curriculum policy, paying special attention to combining the language of instruction in the school (Finnish) and the immersion language (Swedish) in an early total one-way Swedish immersion programme in Finland at a programmatic level. The study combines ethnography with educational language policy by focusing on coordinative and communicative discourses surrounding local immersion curriculum. The participatory observation data consist of 36 hours of audio-recorded curriculum working group meetings with immersion teachers and researchers. The findings showed that the curriculum task assigned to municipalities and cities providing immersion education was extensive. They also revealed how discursively oriented policy research on immersion education opens up new ways to develop immersion education. The actual curriculum decisions implied that the Swedish portion of the immersion programme is multilingual and rich in connections between multiple languages, contesting the common belief of monolingual practices in immersion instruction.

Language aware schools need to be supported by language aware teacher education. In this study we analysed teacher socialisation among class teachers in Swedish immersion in Finland by qualitative ...

This study examines how practitioners of minority-medium Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Finland reflect on language awareness (LA) in their professional learning communities (PLCs). The study is conducted within in-service training for ECEC practitioners and it also highlights how these practitioner reflections can be of use and support developing future in-service training within the action research framework. The data include nine group discussions on a reflection task, with 41 primary participants and 165 secondary participants from each primary participant’s respective PLC. As a starting point, the researcher-trainers identified six language-policy themes on LA in national policy documents. These were presented for practitioners, who then discussed them both in their respective PLCs and within the in-service training. The in-service discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed for qualitative-content analysis. During the analysis, the focus was on the dynamics of minority-majority positions, with the following themes emerging: i) Language contacts; ii) bilingual children and multi-layered identity; and iii) developing multilingual pedagogies. The results showed that the same insights often were treated both as strengths and weaknesses, and that a need exists for support so that practitioners can implement language-aware educational policy into their operational cultures.

This article examines the possibilities and challenges in turning a top-down action research project led by high-level public authorities into a shared and collaborative, multi-site and multi-professional bottom-up action research project. For this purpose, the article explores the initial stages of a European level action research project called ‘Linguistically Sensitive Teaching in All Classrooms’ that aimed to help teacher education systems better acknowledge linguistically diverse student populations in seven European countries. The analysis of the data sought to identify how to promote linguistically sensitive initial teacher education by incorporating reflection tasks into existing courses, and how to transform a top-down research project into a shared and collaborative bottom-up action project. The primary data consisted of 19 video-recorded online research meetings. Qualitative analysis was used to identify ‘critical moments’ in the data; these included a moment of major insight where transformation of project related ideas took place. The findings showed that linguistically sensitive teaching as a phenomenon is complex and the related terminology challenging to translate between languages and contexts. Furthermore, a European level action research requires negotiating a joint understanding of the roles of the participants and the individual perceptions of project ownership in each context. This suggests that a deeper understanding of the processes of participation and the partnerships involved in the action research may be as valuable as the actual reflection tools developed in the project in securing a systematic change towards linguistically sensitive teacher education.

This article scrutinizes the concept of “success” in family language policy (henceforth FLP). Situated in three large-scale ethnographic projects, we center on the lived experiences of a parent in ...

Finland is officially a bilingual country but it is in practice multilingual. In the current study, we examined how mothers and fathers of mixed-language families linguistically identified themselves and others, and how ideological discourses and concepts historically and socially situated in Finland circulated through the parents’ talk. The parents of three families in which at least Finnish, Swedish and English were used on a daily basis were interviewed. A discourse nexus approach showed that the concept of ‘mother tongue(s)’ played a central role and that although all family members were in practice multilingual, there was a strong tendency across the couples to identify themselves and others as monolingual. Bilingualism was identified with Finnish-Swedish rather than other languages and a native discourse expressed bilingual identity as granted by birth rather than acquired later. The discourses could be traced back to official language registration procedures, the educational system in Finland, as well as to parents’ own lived experiences. The study illustrates the intricate relationships between language ideologies and how linguistic identities are created and performed among parents, and it pinpoints the need for further studies on how linguistic identities are passed on to and experienced by children along their life trajectories. peerReviewed

This article explores the discourses surrounding the act of writing Section 10 Bilingual education in the new Finnish national core curriculum, which will be implemented in 2016. This section will set the parameters for programs that integrate language and content learning, where a minimum of two languages are used for instruction in content subjects. The main research questions discussed in this article are how and why certain discourses are expressed, or left unexpressed, in the final draft version of the curriculum. The data for qualitative analysis consists of participatory observations and minutes of meetings in the working group assembled for writing the draft.

The current study examines bilingual children as language policy agents in the interplay between official language policy and education policy at three Swedish-medium preschools in Finland. For this purpose we monitored nine Finnish-Swedish bilingual children aged 3 to 5 years for 18 months. The preschools were located in three different parts of Finland, in milieux with varying degrees of language dominance. The children were video recorded during their normal daytime routines in early childhood education and care. Three types of communicative situations were analyzed: an educator-led small group activity, free play with friends, and an activity in which one child was playing alone. Representative dialogs were selected to illustrate the children’s agency in constructing and enacting bilingual and/or monolingual language policies. Our analysis shows, firstly, that official national language policies can be enacted in different ways depending on the wider practice structures of the site; and, secondly, that each bilingual child has a unique agency and an active role in the construction of not only the monolingual policy but also a bilingual policy within the frames of early childhood education and care.

Educational partnerships occur at the intersection of early childhood education and care (ECEC), families, and the surrounding community, and have been shown to play a significant role in student success rates in education. There is, however, a gap in research on the role and potential of ‘partnership’ in the case of bilingual families with children enrolled in monolingual minority language ECEC. This study aimed to fill this void by examining parental and practitioner discourses on partnership and on obligations, desires, abilities, and competencies involved in acting on a bilingual childhood in the context of monolingual minority ECEC. Parents in nine Finnish–Swedish bilingual families and six pedagogical practitioners at three Swedish-medium minority language ECEC units in Finland were interviewed. We applied ethnographic discourse analysis – nexus analysis – on the interview data and found that the family languages (Finnish and Swedish) did not seem to be given equal importance; Swedish, the minority language in Finland and the language of the ECEC, was foregrounded at the expense of Finnish. The study suggests that partnership is a useful concept and a tool to understand the possibilities and challenges involved in promoting bilingualism in ECEC, especially in the context of a minority language ECEC. peerReviewed