Browsing by Subject "förhållningssätt"

The material that has been analyzed for this study consists of video recordings from Natur & Språk’s [Nature & Language’s] multilingual summer camps. The aim was to study the children’s interactions and conversations at the camps, focusing on their stances towards other languages. A further aim was to study the results in relation to the National Core Curriculum for Basic Education 2014. The research questions focus on how the children in their conversations express their stances and positions towards other languages, and how this can be related to the views on language stated in the national core curriculum. The respondents were between 8 and13 years old and spoke either Swedish or Finnish while some were bilingual. The video recordings of the conversations between the children were transcribed and analyzed through thematic analysis. The transcripts were additionally analyzed through a sociolinguistic perspective by studying the children’s stance. The theoretical framework of this study was based upon stance. As a result of the analysis, four main categories were found that represented the children’s varied ways of expressing their stances towards other languages, as well as other people’s language choices and backgrounds. The children categorized themselves and others in relation to languages and/or language groups. They showed expectations regarding their own and/or other’s competence. They expressed comments or whishes about language choice and showed orientation towards language learning. These results demonstrate that multilingual practices with language encounters create opportunities for children to challenge themselves and develop their language awareness, their stances and interests in other languages. In relation to this, parallels were drawn to the views on language stated in the National Core Curriculum, with its aims concerning language awareness and cultural diversity. Therefor this study can contribute with insight in regard to the potential that multilingual practices and activities have to offer in different educational contexts. This study is written in collaboration with the project Natur & Språk [Nature & Language], a collaboration between the Finnish Society for Nature and Environment, the Finnish Nature League and the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki.