A growing body of research suggests that children's understanding of mathematical language is critical for their mathematical abilities. Most of this work has been restricted to single language learners (i.e., SLLs), and used dual language learners (i.e., DLLs) as an exclusion criterion, raising questions about the generalizability of these…

In response to the increasing linguistic diversity in educational settings resulting from migration waves into the Global North, this study delves into the beliefs of secondary teachers regarding multilingualism within predominantly monolingual policy schools in Flanders, Belgium. Despite the recognized benefits of multilingual pedagogies,…

Dutch-medium schools in Brussels traditionally cater to a Dutch-speaking minority, but they have recently seen a massive influx of pupils with a limited competence in Dutch. In order to face the resulting pedagogical and ideological challenges, many of these schools have intensified their efforts to remain Dutch enclaves in a predominantly…

This paper explores the connection between nurses' multilingual beliefs and their advice on multilingual parenting to families with young children. Data was gathered through video-stimulated reflection dialogues with 11 nurses employed at infant welfare clinics in Belgium. Our analysis disclosed two salient counter topics regarding participants'…

While much research has focused on how Western schools contain or silence the increasing multilingualism of their pupils, this paper investigates how a Dutch-medium school in Brussels has decided to take a different approach by branding itself as multilingual. Based on sociolinguistic-ethnographic fieldwork, it will show that teachers invested in…

Although children may productively use concrete nouns after limited exposure, complete mastery of adult-like patterns of noun usage can take up to 14 years. We evaluated whether a transition from universal to language-specific naming is part of the refinement in later lexical development, and we compared how this refinement plays out in…

This study explores language choice patterns during group work of bilingual pupils (Turkish-Dutch) in two mainstream primary schools in Flanders (Belgium). In each school, a group of four children performed eight different tasks, related to different subjects of the curriculum. During task performance, they were exceptionally invited to use their…

We propose that attraction errors in agreement production (e.g., the key to the cabinets are missing) are related to two components of executive control: working memory and inhibitory control. We tested 138 children aged 10 to 12, an age when children are expected to produce high rates of errors. To increase the potential of individual variation…

Bilinguals are often not fully monolingual-like in either language. With respect to the lexicon, recent research demonstrates that their naming patterns for common household objects tend to converge on a common pattern for the two languages. The present study investigates the developmental trajectory of naming of common household objects in…

The present study explored the relation between language control and nonverbal cognitive control in different bilingual populations. We compared monolinguals, Dutch-French unbalanced bilinguals, balanced bilinguals, and interpreters on the Simon task (Simon & Rudell, 1967) and the Attention Network Test (ANT; Fan, McCandliss, Sommer, Raz,…

This article aims to deepen our understanding of the dynamic interaction between language policies, school characteristics and teachers' beliefs about monolingualism. The study takes place in Flanders (Belgium), a region characterized by educational policies which are based on a stringent monolingual ideology. Based on a survey of 775 teachers…

A growing body of empirical studies indicates the educational benefits of bilingualism. Despite this tendency, bilingual minority students are being pressured by school authorities to shed their mother tongues. We conducted qualitative interviews with Turkish-bilingual and native-monolingual students in Flemish (Belgium) secondary schools to…

In the present study, language development of Dutch children with a cochlear implant (CI) in a bilingual educational setting and Flemish children with a CI in a dominantly monolingual educational setting is compared. In addition, we compared the development of spoken language with the development of sign language in Dutch children. Eighteen…