Polly Björk-Willén

Children’s voices – Differentiating a child perspective from a child’s perspective

Abstract Objective: The aim of this paper was to discuss differences between having a child perspective and taking the child’s perspective based on the problem being investigated. Methods: Conceptual paper based on narrative review. Results: The child’s perspective in research concerning children that need additional support are important. The difference between having a child perspective and taking the child’s perspective in conjunction with the need to know children’s opinions has been discussed in the literature. From an ideological perspective the difference between the two perspectives seems self-evident, but the perspectives might be better seen as different ends on a continuum solely from an adult’s view of children to solely the perspective of children themselves. Depending on the research question, the design of the study may benefit from taking either perspective. In this article, we discuss the difference between the perspectives based on the problem being investigated, children’s capacity to express opinions, environmental adaptations and the degree of interpretation needed to understand children’s opinions. Conclusion: The examples provided indicate that children’s opinions can be regarded in most research, although to different degrees.

Peer group interactions in multilingual educational settings: Co-constructing social order and norms for language use

The present study explores peer group interactions in early multilingual educational settings, specifically focusing on children’s language-related episodes. Highlighting the multifaceted work of these interactional practices, it demonstrates in detail how children’s corrective actions, targeting, assessing and criticizing of the other’s language use were utilized in building the peer group identities and relations, while simultaneously indexing local norms for conduct and language use. Designed as outright disagreements with the prior speaker, corrections highlighted the contrast between the recipient’s error and the speaker’s remedy and entailed (a) the disagreement with the prior speaker (e.g. linguistic polarity marker ‘no’), (b) the explicit identification of the trouble source (‘this is not x’) and (c) the instruction as to the correct replacement (‘this is x’). Similarly, word searches in the peer group were resolved so as to index the asymmetry in knowledge between the peers. In the production of corrections, the children displayed and recognized the relevance of appropriate use of the lingua franca (e.g. Swedish) as part of their situated production of local social order. Language expertise was an issue for negotiations and redefinitions in multilingual peer group’s interactions and was one of the factors organizing social relations in multilingual educational settings.

Being doggy : Disputes embedded in preschoolers' family role-play

Purposes – The overall aim of the chapter is to explore childrens acting and disputing within a family role-play and highlight how different roles are argued upon and negotiated by the participants, both verbally and nonverbally. Methodology – The chapter is drawn from a single play episode between five 6-year-old girls at a Swedish preschool. The analytical framework of the study is influenced by ethnomethodological work on social action focusing in particular on participants’ methodical ways of accomplishing and making sense of social activities. Findings – The analyses show that the girls use a range of verbal and nonverbal resources to argue and accomplish the social order of the play (i) using past tense to display the factual past event status, and present tense to bid for upcoming events, (ii) building a mutual pretend understanding of places and objects that were used to configure nearness as well as distance in the girls’ interaction and relationship. Finally, the analyses clearly show that the significance of a pretend role is situated and depends on the social context in which it is negotiated. Practical implications – To get acquainted with detailed analyses of childrens pretend play can be useful for preschool teachers’ understanding of how children build relationships within the play, and hopefully awaken their interest to study childrens play in depth in everyday practice. Value of chapter – The present chapter contributes to a wider understanding of how social relationships are argued and negotiated by preschool girls within pretend family role-play.

Dilemmatic aspects of language policies in a trilingual preschool group

Abstract This article explores dilemmatic aspects of language policies in a preschool group in which three languages (Swedish, Romani and Arabic) are spoken on an everyday basis. The article highlights the interplay between policy decisions on the societal level, the teachers’ interpretations of these policies, as well as language practices on the micro level. The preschool group is seen as a complex context for negotiating language policies and expectations regarding language use. The theoretical framework builds on Billig’s work on ideological and everyday dilemmas that we argue are detectable at both levels of the analysis. The analysis of the ethnographic material shows that the explicit language policy formulated in the Swedish preschool curriculum leads, in practice, to ideological, pedagogical and everyday dilemmas. Moreover, an unwillingness to set rules for children’s language choice combined with the central position of free play in Swedish preschool practice has led to a situation in which children fall short of their potential to develop bilingual competence.

The Preschool Entrance Hall: A Bilingual Transit Zone for Preschoolers

This chapter explores everyday talk among parents, children and preschool teachers that takes place in Swedish preschool entrance halls. The data is drawn from a project that studies the daily talk and interaction between parents and teachers in Swedish preschools where most families have a language background other than Swedish, while most teachers are monolingual Swedish speakers. The participants’ talk and social interaction has been video recorded in two preschools during the drop-off and pick-up time, and transcribed using conversation analytic methods. The theoretical framework of the study is influenced by theories on language socialization and by ethnomethodological work on social actions; focusing on the participants’ methods of accomplishing and making sense of social activities. The chapter highlights the children’s commuting between home and the preschool where the preschool entrance hall works as a ‘transit zone’ for the children’s talk to be interactively transformed from their mother tongue(s) into Swedish and vice versa. Besides the parents code-switching and physically handing over the child, the analyses show how ‘transformation objects’ like indoor shoes and mittens work as concrete signals for the child to handle the transit and to develop pragmatic skills about language use.