Commentary on the special issue “Language policies and practices in early childhood education: perspectives across European Migration Societies”. Agency in language policies and practices: a response to multilingual early childhood education and care

ABSTRACT

This commentary discusses the theoretical and methodological issues highlighted by the special issue ‘Language Policies and Practices in Early Childhood Education: Perspectives across European Migration Societies’. A systematic review of the seven contributions in this special issue makes evident the concept of agency. Consequently, this commentary introduces agency in language policy and planning with a focus on multilingual early childhood education and care, and discusses how this concept emerged from the theoretical background and its presence in the interpretation of results, as well as how it unfolds in different contexts. This is followed by a reflection on the continuities and discontinuities in the ethnographic approaches employed. To address agency in early childhood education and care in more depth, a model of agency will be introduced. Lastly, future directions for participatory approaches in ethnography and advocacy will be discussed as new avenues for the investigation of language policy and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Agency
• early childhood education and care
• language policy
• ethnographic approach
• advocacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.