Abstract Summary
This poster reports on a multi-year, multi-institution project that explored the potential of informal science education to engage dual language learners (DLLs) and their families in multilingual early childhood educational contexts.
Abstract :
Since the turn of the millennium there has been a rapid increase in the U.S. in the number of young children who are growing up with two or more languages, including many preschoolers who are (children of) refugees (Park, Zong, & Batalova 2018). Such diversity presents challenges and opportunities for early childhood educators, especially when multiple languages and cultures are represented in one classroom, as is common in communities that host families from multiple countries. This poster reports on a multi-year, multi-institution project that explored the potential of informal science education to engage dual language learners (DLLs) and their families in multilingual early childhood educational (ECE) contexts. A university-based applied linguist partnered with museum-based informal science educators and center-based early childhood educators to study science and children’s museum programs and practices for DLLs, their families, and the community organizations and early childhood professionals who serve them. The project included three interconnected activities: (1) a national needs assessment involving an online survey of science and children’s museums; (2) online and in-person meetings of teams from seven museums engaged in innovative work with DLLs and families; and (3) an ethnographic and discourse-analytic study of programs and practices used by a science center to support of access, participation, and learning for preschool DLLs and their families in a Midwestern city experiencing a recent and rapid increase in linguistic diversity, including refugees from all over the world. Science learning experiences that are hands-on, multi-modal, and not heavily dependent on language were found to be engaging and successful for preschool DLLs, their families, and their ECE teachers. However, findings show that informal science educators need to pay more attention to the centrality of language to science and science learning for all young children.
