Språkliga gemenskaper och minoritetsspråkiga barn i svensk förskola

Sammanfattning: The aim of this dissertation is to contribute with knowledge about how speech communities are formed and maintained in Swedish preschools when minority language children participate. The dissertation is based on two empirical studies that are linked together by an ethnographical communication model. Case study I explores how newly arrived children communicate when they are newcomers in a Swedish preschool context. The empirical material consists of video recordings from observations of newly arrived children´s interactions with peers in preschool. Case study II studies a Finnish language revitalization program in Swedish preschools for children of Finnish minority descent. The empirical material consists of field notes from observations of the language revitalization program, transcripts from interviews with preschool teachers and bilingual practitioners, as well as documents with relation to the revitalization program.The dissertation gives a wider perspective on how speech communities are formed and maintained in Swedish preschools when minority language children participate. The speech communities are formed and maintained through routine speech situations which are dictated by monolingual Swedish language norms for how to communicate. In specific speech events, however, participants perform multilingual speech acts. Multilingualism is not seen as an incorporated part of the preschool's speech community, because multilingualism requires language-proficient preschool teachers, a specific kind of organization as well as preschool teachers who actively promote the languages. The result also shows that minority language children’s possibilities to develop language depends on which language they speak in the preschools’ speech communities. Children’s right to an equivalent education in preschool is discussed. The dissertation shows how language support can be made possible by means of focused, attentive language collaboration.