- Using ethnographic methods, the author investigated children’s interactions in a linguistically diverse kindergarten.
- 17 of the 31 children were English language learners and had limited English language proficiency.
- Language proficiency or not impacted on the way the children interacted with their peers.
- For some children, language was used in a functional manner, to enable or close off communication between peers. For example, one child played independently when his understanding of English language was a barrier to communication.
- Some other children used language as the basis of group membership – to include and exclude their peers in play; some children excluded peers who did not speak the same language as them.
- The author suggests that linguistically diverse schools can encourage harmonious communities by recognising and valuing the rich language resources of their students.
- Diverse school settings can promote the use of community languages in a manner that equally values different minority languages.
Publication
Barley, R. (2017). Language, identity and peer interactions at a linguistically diverse school. In M. A. Theobald (Ed.), Friendship and peer culture in multilingual settings (pp. 89-111). Emerald Group Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-466120160000021006