The paper presents some general facts about Bulgarian, which is spoken by over 8 million people all over the world and is the official language of the Republic of Bulgaria. It is shown that language diversity within the country has been relatively constant and modest over the last 90 years (with a clear dominance of Bulgarian). The focus of the…

This study analyses practices regarding home languages in a nursery school from a multilingual district in Germany, and the language policies and discourses that become visible in these. First, the context is outlined of Early Childhood Education and Care for multilingual children in Germany; then, the concepts of practices, discourses and…

This paper will introduce the subject of language policies and practices in early childhood education across European migration societies and formulate theoretical and methodological questions. It links perspectives from applied linguistics, most explicitly sociolinguistics, and educational research on language (education) policies and practices,…

Whereas early childhood professionals can play a pivotal role in fostering young children's home language development, little is known about what determines the kind of multilingual parenting advice they offer families. The objective of this study was to deconstruct the processes culminating in two types of such recommendations: "advice…

This mixed-methods study examines the language ideologies of 28 preschool educators in their first month transitioning from English-only to dual language education (DLE). Using the language ideology survey developed by [Fitzsimmons-Doolan, S. (2011). "Language ideology dimensions of politically active Arizona voters: an exploratory…

Corsican is a Romance language that belongs to the Italo-Romance group. Corsican has been recognised since 1974 as a regional language in France by the Ministry of National Education. The language is officially recognised by the French Constitution as belonging to the heritage of France. Over the past 25 years, several laws, decrees, regulations,…

This paper analyses how teachers and toddlers enact participation frames in bidialectal early education in Limburg, the Netherlands. Teachers' language choice is often context-bound as they use the national language, Dutch, for instruction and the regional language, Limburgish, for playful or social-emotional situations with individual children.…

Although Switzerland is a plurilingual country, most early education and care (ECEC) institutions are monolingual. Yet, new institutions have recently established English as a second language of instruction, addressing economically advantaged families. Despite the growing body of international research on language policy and practice in…

Two consequentially related education policy topics in the United States are kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs) and the growing number of students who are "English learners" (ELs). In this study, I compared the content of, and home language use policies for six state KEAs, all of which were comprised of items from the GOLD®…

According to the national framing of the Swedish preschool system, educators are expected to act as mediators of the dominant language while simultaneously promoting multilingualism. Previous research shows that educators display an insecurity as well as a lack of knowledge of how to implement this dual undertaking. This article examines…

Uganda's "early exit" language policy positions African languages ambiguously in public education provision. Runyoro-Rutooro and Runyankore-Rukiga are spoken in Western Uganda in public spaces where translanguaging happens as a matter of course. These languages are heard at pre-primary and lower primary levels but are superseded by…

Language is commonly positioned as an economic resource. Recent debates have argued that policy interpretations of language as economic resource can potentially undermine language positioning and reduce understanding of the cognitive, cultural and social benefits of language learning. In monolingual policy contexts, such a positioning means that…

Language policy in German-speaking Swiss kindergartens recently has been subject to change. While dialect traditionally was spoken to kindergartners, the use of High German has been established to promote the integration of migrant children and equality of opportunity. In this contribution, we look at how kindergarten teachers translate the new…

Indigenous people in North America and around the world are in dire circumstances with respect to language maintenance and cultural continuation. However, Indigenous communities are also taking back increasing control of the education of their children. In so doing, they are frequently exploring culture-based education and language immersion…

According to Victor Hugo (1802-1885), "He who opens a school door, closes a prison". This powerful statement demonstrates the importance of school in the development of a nation and the lives of individuals. It has been proven that the language used in early childhood education has an impact on the cognitive development and learning…