Observing Linguistic Practices in Multilingual Preschools. Insights from a Participative Research Project

This paper focuses on the role of language(s) and multilingualism in preschools in the multilingual region Carinthia, Austria. It is situated in the wider framework of a participative research project in which students of a vocational school for elementary education (aged 16-17) receive an introduction to ethnography and do fieldwork during their internships at preschools. Theoretically, we combine critical sociolinguistic and educational theories on language and power (Blackledge/Creese 2010; Tusting 2020). In these theories, language is understood as “ideology and practice” (Heller 2007), and as a socially and institutionally situated practice which can (re)produce, negotiate, shift or irritate powerful relations between speakers. Empirically, we draw on our, the researchers’, ethnographic fieldnotes at school, and on the fieldnotes, photos and audios the students, our co-researchers, made in the preschools.

In our presentation, we will answer the following questions:
- Which forms of linguistic interactions do the students choose for their descriptions and which linguistic and pedagogical norms become visible in their texts?
- Which practices of natio-ethno-religio-gender-lingual differentiation and which social hierarchizations at preschools are visible in the students' protocols?

- What conclusions can be drawn for observing learning in the context of pedagogical professionalisation and what role do language(s) and
multilingualism play in this?

Blackledge, Adrian; Creese, Angela (2010): Multilingualism: a critical perspective. London: Continuum.
Heller, M. (Ed.). (2007). Bilingualism: A social approach. Palgrave Macmillan.
Tusting, Karin (2020): The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography. Milton Park: Routledge