Session Information
31 SES 02 A, Language Attitudes and Learning: From primary school to higher education
Symposium
Contribution
This paper focuses on teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism and multilingual students in Swedish primary schools. In the present study the concept of teachers’ beliefs refers to the teachers’ understanding of and pedagogical thinking about a specific phenomenon. No differentiation is made whether the participants know or believe something, as ‘in the mind of the teachers these concepts are not held distinctively separate’ (Borg, 2006, p.33). Moreover, the present broad application of the concept of teachers’ beliefs as well includes what others would call attitudes or opinions. Forty teachers, employed at three different primary schools participated in the study that applied the qualitative Q method (Watts & Stenner, 2012) with its quantitative data analysis features. Q is regarded a fitting approach for the study of beliefs (Ernest, 2001), as they are not observable and my not be entirely consciously accessible (Rokeach, 1968). The material used provided the participants with all the necessary language to describe their beliefs by rang-ordering two sets of statements; one regarding the understanding of the phenomenon and the other concerning suggested pedagogical responses in relation to current multilingualism in education. Applying inverted factor analysis and abductive interpretation, three sets of teachers’ beliefs emerged and descriptions represent the teachers’ complex views about multilingualism in the classroom. Overall, teachers’ beliefs are rather welcoming towards multilingualism and multilingual students and recent concepts with growing acceptance in literature, such as translanguaging, are well accepted. However, sceptical views or conceptual misunderstandings, often based on monolingual ideologies are present and are likely to pose challenges for the implementation of pluralistic policies. This study contributes to an open debate about benefits and challenges of current multilingualism in education.
References
Borg, S. (2006). Teacher cognition and language education: Research and practice. London: Continuum. Ernest, J. M. (2001). An alternate approach to studying beliefs about developmentally appropriate practices. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2(3), 337–353. Rokeach, M. (1968). Beliefs, attitudes, and values: A theory of organization and change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Watts, S., & Stenner, P. (2012). Doing Q methodological research: Theory, method and interpretation. Los Angeles: Sage.
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