3 Superdiversity and Languages: Disrupting Monolingual Mindsets in Early Childhood Education and Care

Criss Jones Díaz

School of Education, Western Sydney University, Australia

Abstract

Despite extensive linguistic and cultural diversity in Australia, there are gaps in policy and curriculum that inform early multilingual education and validate children’s multiple linguistic repertoires, cultural practices and identity negotiation. These pedagogies exemplify departures from deficit-based views of multilingualism and cultural diversity embedded in monolingual mindsets, which inform much of educational policy in Australia (Clyne, 2008). This chapter draws on frameworks of cultural studies (Hall, 1996) and socio-critical theory (Bourdieu, 1990) to critically examine the findings from a study conducted in two multilingual Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings that aimed to extend children’s home languages (HLs). The findings reveal that, despite educators’ well-developed understandings of the importance of early multilingual education, there was pedagogical uncertainty about approaches to support children’s HLs in ECEC due to gaps in policy, curriculum and pedagogy. This has broader implications for languages education in ECEC in Australia.

Keywords

multilingualism, capital, field, habitus, identity, early childhood education and care.

Australia is undoubtedly one of the most super-diverse nations in the world, reflected in the 323 languages spoken (ABS, 2021). This is apparent in the mixing of cultural, linguistic, religious and social practices that operate within contexts of economic mobility, ethnicity, income, education and immigration across multiple identity locations, involving varied political, religious, linguistic, cultural and social allegiances (Jones Díaz, 2023; Vertovec, 2010). Young multilingual children growing up in super-diverse post-multicultural societies such as Australia often experience their identities and use of their languages across multiple locations, mediated by diverse social, cultural, educational and linguistic practices and landscapes. They encounter new possibilities and multiple experiences of identity negotiation, affirmation and connection, whereupon their identities are often fluid and multiple, often fluctuating, and contested, particularly in hegemonic and monolingual English-speaking educational contexts such as prior-to-school, school and community settings.

In highlighting the significance of multilingualism in young children and the implications for ECEC pedagogy, the following discussion provides an overview of the key theoretical frameworks pertaining to socio-critical theory (Bourdieu, 1990; 1991) and cultural studies (Hall, 1994; 1996) that inform the analysis of the findings discussed in this study.

Bourdieu’s key concepts of capital, field and habitus highlight how linguistic inequality is reproduced through the promotion of official languages in educational settings. These concepts permit an analysis of how monolingual pedagogical practices in ECEC settings prohibit children’s multilingual repertoires. Bourdieu’s notion of capital articulates how human resources, such as social, economic, cultural and symbolic capital, are accumulated, transferred and converted from one capital to another within different social, cultural and institutional contexts which may or may not yield social, political or economic power (Bourdieu, 1990; 1991).

Social and economic capital connect more broadly to societal distributions of economic and social resources. Economic capital includes the material wealth that converts into material goods such as property and resources (Bourdieu, 1991). However, for economic capital to become operational, a conversion process based on social capital is necessary, and this conversion also depends on the laws governing it (Bourdieu, 1993). Social capital is the access to social institutions, social relations and resources accessible to individuals due to group membership.

Cultural capital includes forms of advantage that some people accumulate through experiences, knowledge and taste, which, in certain social contexts or fields, are activated as sources of validity and recognition. Central to cultural capital are the resources affiliated with languages and literacies that represent meaning, which, when recognised in the field, becomes linguistic capital. For children’s HLs to be recognised as linguistic and cultural capital in ECEC settings, such forms of capital need to be legitimised by the field. Bourdieu’s notion of fields includes institutions such as education, health, media and law, as well as relationships, interactions and social contexts (Bourdieu, 1977). Specifically in relation to linguistic capital is Bourdieu’s linguistic market (fields) where “someone produces an utterance for receivers capable of assessing, evaluating it and setting a price on it” (Bourdieu, 1993, p. 79). Where the “official” language of any given country is afforded more value and prestige over other languages, this language has more symbolic power over other languages. Therefore, ECEC settings where the linguistic market affords greater value to the official language will render other languages as marginal, misrecognising their utility as linguistic capital.

Central to Bourdieu’s notions of capital and field is the concept of habitus, which enables individuals to act and respond in certain ways recognised by the field. This involves the durable and resilient incorporation of dispositions, practices and perceptions realised both spontaneously and generatively through social practice within social or cultural fields (Bourdieu, 1990). The concept of disposition is an integral component in Bourdieu’s habitus, highlighting how dispositions generate practices, perceptions and attitudes which are inculcated through socialisation practices in the early years. These practices affect the social, cultural and historical conditions within which they are acquired.

Hall’s (1994; 1996) theorisations of identity as transformative, negotiable and contestable provide insights into how multilingual children experience their languages and identities, arguing that identity is related to shared culture, belonging and solidarity, bounded by the resources of mutual histories, languages and cultural practices. Hall is also concerned with the positional and shifting aspects of identity, where processes of identity are never complete.

Methodology

The study was conducted across two ECEC settings in super-diverse urban regions in Sydney, Australia. These settings included a Spanish bilingual long-day care preschool (LDC/PS) and a preschool (PS) for children aged 4 to 5 years. At the LDC/PS, most of the children were from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, and many of the educators were proficient in Spanish. At the PS, a Mandarin-speaking educator was employed to support and extend the children’s Mandarin. Data collection practices included semi-structured interviews, participant observation and field notes to ascertain the level of multilingual support afforded to the children attending these settings.

The interviews were conducted with four educators and four parents from each setting to investigate their perspectives on how children’s HLs were valued and supported at the settings. Eight children (one from each parent) were observed throughout the study. As this chapter focuses on qualitative data from parents’ and educators’ perspectives, information about the quantitative findings is not included (Escudero et al., 2020).

The research questions centred on: (1) validation and support to children’s HLs at the setting, (2) opportunities afforded to children to use their HLs at the setting, (3) parents’ perspectives and experiences of their children’s maintenance and use of HLs in the setting, and (4) the pedagogical practices and policies implemented at the settings that support extension of children’s HLs.

The data were analysed using NVivo software to organise the coded data into node categories, common themes and sub-themes (Hughes & Jones, 2003). Informed by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Mullet, 2018), relevant quotes from the interview data were categorised into major themes and linked to categories that align with the research questions that underpin this study. CDA is useful in educational research as it assists in examining pedagogical relationships and the impact of educators’ perspectives on their practice (Llewellyn, 2009). In this study, it was relevant, as it assisted in documenting the major themes discussed below. Ethics approval for this research was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the researchers’ university (Approval No. H12055). Pseudonyms are used for all participants’ names in this chapter.

Analysis and Discussion

For the parents in this study, the support provided to their children’s HL was highly positive, which articulated the links between early multilingual education and identity. However, there were differing views between the parents and educators regarding the role of intentional teaching of the HL. Nevertheless, both educators and parents acknowledged the significant role of multilingual educators, given the multilingual expertise they contributed to the ECEC setting. This study highlights the role of educators in providing leadership and advocacy for the provision of HL and multilingual support. The use of existing curriculum frameworks was also considered crucial in the absence of a policy and curriculum that inform early multilingual education.

Cultural Identity is Expressed Through Language

The parents articulated the interrelationships between HLs and identity construction through multiple and hybrid ways of belonging across diverse cultural, social, linguistic and familial landscapes. Below, Leanne reflects on their children’s use of Spanish to solidify connections to heritage, family roots and identity.

I got … family back in Argentina and … and … [my son can] fully communicate with anyone in Argentina… without any trouble whatsoever … there is a whole cultural and social thing that relates to being bilingual. (Leanne: LDC/PS)

Leanne emphasises the relationship between the cultural and social use of language. Bourdieu’s analysis of social capital (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992) highlights the connections between social and linguistic capital. For Leanne, social capital is a useful tool for the exchange of other forms of capital, such as linguistic capital, as she views the relationship between the “cultural” and the “social” as highly relevant to her child’s bilingualism. HL retention and the family’s social capital enable the accumulation of linguistic capital in HL maintenance, leading to strong links to culture.

Following Hall’s (1996) framework of belonging, solidarity and collectivity through which identity construction and transformation are integral to HL retention, Catarina’s comment below eloquently expresses this connection:

For me [the HL] is our language of love. Our heritage, family roots and identity are expressed through language. (Catarina: LDC/PS)

Parental Perspectives of Multilingual ECEC Programs

While parents were highly supportive of multilingual support for their children, there were differing views regarding the implementation at the pedagogical level. Below, Leanne acknowledges that often teachers and staff are not well-equipped to integrate multilingual education in her child’s setting:

I would like to see … more … activities … around … the HL language. I know that they do cooking … reading and they have these extra-curricular activities … more of it is in English, … but maybe adding a [focus] where kids start to apply … numbers and letters in the HL and they start learning … literacy as well as they do in English. (LDC/PS)

In contrast to Leanne’s views, Celia, the educator from the bilingual preschool, described her setting’s informal approach:

We are not a language academy. Our target is to provide care for the children, that the children feel safe, happy, and the HL is something that we do all the time, and they learn from it. It is not that we provide language class for an hour a day like other places. (LDC/PS)

Celia’s comments highlight a possible binary between education and care, emphasising that the aim of her service is to provide “care” rather than being “a language academy”. Below, she emphasises that HL support a way of delivering “care” in the HL, rather than as a specific language program with learning objectives and linguistic outcomes:

We are not aware of how much they are learning, because we don’t quantify, … It is not our target. (LDC/PS)

Celia’s comments perhaps reflect a misunderstanding of intentional teaching and a misconception of languages education in ECEC. Intentional teaching refers to deliberate, purposeful and thoughtful approaches that scaffold children’s learning, as described in the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia v2 (AGDE, 2022), (hereafter referred to as EYLFA v2). Multilingual educators achieve this by incorporating intentional strategies across various learning experiences that extend children’s multilingual repertoires through a planned approach of documenting and evaluating children’s languages learning (Jones Díaz et al., 2024). Given the absence of a multilingual pedagogical framework in ECEC, Celia’s setting adopts an informal approach in which the HL is used as a linguistic and cultural expression rather than as a deliberate pedagogical intent. Her reference to “It is not our target” implies that there is no specific programming or planning in place that would inform explicit strategies to extend children’s HLs.

Role and Expertise of Multilingual Educators

In recognising the specific expertise that multilingual educators bring to ECEC, the director, Molly (below), highlights their role of incorporating the HLs into the curriculum as a bridge to learning.

[The children] seem … a lot more confident [and] … more involved in the program. We are getting insight into their thinking that we never had before. You know Lindi (the bilingual educator) is sharing with Kiera and me and we’re going wow, imagine that they were thinking that! You know, so it’s been quite … a … revelation … . (PS)

In the extract below, Kiera, the educator, highlights the importance of having multilingual educators catering for languages at the preschool.

… having Lindi here … [has] … provided a bridge between us and Ellie … (one of the children) She’s interested in the classroom, the bird’s nest, … drawing, and then says enough words that we can relate [them] to a previous experience. (PS)

Both Molly and Kiera highlight the cultural and linguistic expertise that multilingual educators bring to their setting. This underscores the significance of establishing safe linguistic and cultural spaces for multilingual children that enable the accumulation of social, linguistic and cultural capital.

Leadership and Advocacy

At the preschool setting, leadership and advocacy for HL and multilingual support were considered key to inclusion and quality. In the extract below, Kiera reflects on her role as an advocate in supporting HLs for multilingual children and their families:

I think in terms of critical reflection, our job … [is to] advocate for HL maintenance … without bilingual education … these children wouldn’t have [been] connected and supported emotionally and linguistically. (PS)

Kiera’s emphasis on the importance of advocacy for multilingual education highlights the need for greater investment in HL support and the interconnections between cultural and symbolic capital. Contingent upon educators’ embodiment of cultural and symbolic capital is their professional knowledge of pedagogy, which enables them to be influential advocates for the accumulation of linguistic capital in the languages represented in their setting. Ultimately, through their advocacy and leadership, multilingualism becomes embedded in the curriculum, where linguistic capital is converted into symbolic capital for multilingual educators, families and their children, thereby facilitating sustained support for children’s HLs.

The Absence of an Early Multilingual Education Curriculum

Fundamental to the EYLFA v2 are notions of identity that connect children to family, community, culture and place. Below, Molly points to the EYLFA v2 in the absence of a national ECEC multilingual policy in guiding her understanding of the relationship between multilingualism and identity.

I think the EYLFA … prompted me to do more for [multilingual] children … and I can see the progress that each child has made … . These children don’t really belong, and they’re not really becoming, and they’re not really being who they are … Without bilingual teachers, without the research, without my new knowledge … those children would still be feeling somewhat disconnected. (PS)

While the ELYFA v2 does not explicitly focus on languages learning, there is some reference to the importance of children’s HLs, cultural practices and identities. However, the absence of specific curriculum guidelines for languages education in ECEC limits its utility in providing a clear pedagogical intent that supports and extends children’s languages learning. As EYLFA v2 is not a language curriculum, it can provide some justification for educators to deconstruct normative English-only pedagogies, making it possible to validate and support children’s HLs in a context without broader curriculum frameworks for early multilingual education in Australia.

Conclusion

In settings where multilingualism is validated, multilingual educators can effectively build and sustain relationships with children and families through their cultural and linguistic expertise, thereby affording opportunities for children to accumulate linguistic, cultural and social capital. This permits the activation of their multilingual linguistic habitus as evidenced in the two settings discussed in this chapter. For the parents in this study, the support provided to their children’s HL support was highly positive, which articulated the links between early multilingual education and identity. Highlighted is the role of educators in providing leadership and advocacy for the provision of HL and multilingual support. However, the findings reveal some ambiguity regarding intentional pedagogy that supports children’s HLs in ECEC due to gaps in policy, curriculum and pedagogy. This has broader implications for languages education in ECEC in Australia.

Author Note

Criss Jones Díaz https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9075-1427

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Criss Jones Díaz. Email: c.jonesdiaz@westernsydney.edu.au.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the educators, parents and children who took part in the study. I also thank Dr Beatriz Cardona, who assisted in the data analysis, and Dr Gloria Pina Escobar and Dr Wei Liu for their assistance in data collection.

SDG Alignment

Goal 4: Quality education

Goal 10: Reduced inequalities

Cite This Chapter

Jones Díaz, C. (2026). Superdiversity and languages: Disrupting monolingual mindsets in early childhood education and care. In L. Naidoo, S. Gannon, C. Woodrow, C. H. Díaz, V. Lopez, & J. F. Salazar (Eds.), Sur-Sur Southern knowledges: Education, sustainability and social transformation. Western Open Books. https://doi.org/10.61588/HGMT4758

Attribution

Except where otherwise noted, this work by Criss Jones Díaz is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Research Integrity Statement

Ethics approval was granted for this research by the Human Research Ethics Committee of Western Sydney University (approval number: H12055). Pseudonyms are used for all of the participants’ names in this article, and informed consent was obtained from all participants.

The author declares no known competing financial or non-financial interests that could have influenced the content of this publication.

References