Språkpolicy vid svenskspråkiga daghem i Finland : tvåspråkiga barns handlingar och agens

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine communicative actions of nine Swedish-Finnish bilingual children enrolled in Swedish-medium early childhood education and care in Finland. We discuss the interplay between declared monolingual language policy, and the ideology of supporting the language background of the bilingual child. As a result we found a dual practiced language policy. With the agency and actions of bilingual children we could identify both monolingual policy being practiced, but also a bilingual policy being constructed at the same time. Neither of the practiced dual policies seemed to be explicitly resisted either by the children or the pedagogical practitioners. The communicative actions of the nine children showed that they are individuals and they all constructed their bilingual policies in varied ways, some of the children even, quite clearly, preferring the monolingual policy in their communicative actions.