‘It’s a bit contradictory’: teachers’ stances to (practiced) language policies in German-language ECEC in Italy

ABSTRACT

Linguistic minority spaces tend to have a long history of language-ideological struggles that are often fought on the terrain of education, which is further complexified in the light of more recent migration. The northernmost Italian province of South Tyrol is such a space, in which German-language preschools are increasingly attended by children not commonly positioned as ‘German-speaking’, inevitably leading to challenges to the language education policies of these institutions. Drawing on ethnographic research, this paper investigates how teachers in early childhood education and care (ECEC) interpret and position themselves in relation to institutional and practiced language policies in this context. We show that teachers base their interpretations of language policies on a variety of sources, including written and ratified policy texts, the structural organisation of their institution, and their own beliefs and experience. We argue that contradictions embedded in institutional language policies require teachers to professionally navigate the demands placed on them in upholding the monolingualism of their institution, and in educating multilingual children. This paper sheds light on the complexities of (practiced) language policies in multilingual societies characterised by migration, providing insights into the challenges faced by ECEC teachers and highlighting the potential for ethnographic research to inform professional development initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education
• Language education policies
• Ethnography
• Critical sociolinguistics
• Language ideologies
• Teacher professionalisation

1. Introduction

During recent decades, there has been a rapid expansion of research in language education policy which focuses on inequality in linguistically heterogeneous educational institutions. More recently, research in this field has studied both language policy texts and the processes by which these are interpreted and enacted by educators (Johnson, 2013). In this manner, language policy research has productively addressed the ‘tension between theoretical conceptions of language policy as a form of social control […], and empirical research that focuses on the power of educators to serve as active agents in policy processes’ (Tollefson, 2013, p. 6). Such research has shown that educators’ and teachers’ agency in educational institutions is rather complex: they are placed in a web of relations between different kinds of social actors, including children and their parents but also their own superiors, employers and policymakers, who might at times have contradictory expectations. As Jaspers and Rosiers (2019) have argued, these contradictory expectations might not even necessarily be mutually exclusive, but part of a single shared view that, for instance, both monolingualism and multilingualism are valuable. Educational institutions in European societies characterised by migration present teachers with the challenge of, on the one hand, supporting all children in acquiring the language of the educational institution, which is mostly one of the dominant regional or national languages, and, on the other hand, promoting their multilingual competences. From the perspective of professionalisation theories (Helsper, 2021), there can be no simple pedagogical solutions for such complex contexts.

Migration societies can always to some degree be considered as socio-politically contested spaces, in that ‘[m]igration leads to the questioning and strengthening of borders and their validity’ (Mecheril, 2018, p. 123) and disrupts natio-racial-culturally coded orders of belonging (Mecheril, 2018; for a discussion see Platzgummer & Thoma, forthcoming, this issue). In spaces with the presence of recognised linguistic minorities, such orders of belonging have not been straightforward to begin with. As Heller (2011, p. 12) argues, ‘the link between language, nation, territory, and state has long […] been a vexed subject of debate and ideological struggle’ in such sites. Different kinds of paradoxes easily rise to the surface in minority spaces, including the fundamental paradox of recognised minorities that have found a legitimate place within monolithic states by appealing to the logic of ethnonationalism by which they were oppressed themselves (Heller, 2011). In many such sites, migration has further complexified these orders of belonging.

It is in such a site, the northernmost Italian province of South Tyrol, that we ask how teachers in German-language institutions of early childhood education, position themselves to (practiced) language policies. In the following paper, we will draw on data from two ethnographic projects in such preschools to tease out the underlying, often contradictory logics embedded in institutional language policies and reflected in teacher practice. We begin by positioning ourselves within the theoretical framework of ethnographic approaches to language education policy and practice and by outlining the socio-politically contested space that is South Tyrol. We then proceed to presenting the ethnographies this paper is based on, before elaborating on our findings and concluding with implications for teacher professionalisation.

2. Theoretical framework: language education policies in practice

Drawing on critical sociolinguistic research (e.g. Heller, 2018; Jaspers, 2018; Martin-Jones & Da Costa Cabral, 2018), we understand language education policies as historically and spatially situated and at the interplay of language ideologies, language practices, and (unequally distributed) linguistic repertoires. Various approaches have pointed to the complex relationships between policies and practices, which are reflected in terms such as ‘practiced language policies’ (Bonacina-Pugh, 2012) and in concepts which describe policies as ‘enacted as position-practice relations that develop through time and space’ (Grimaldi, 2012, p. 457), or practices as ‘de facto language education policy’ (Nero, 2014; Shohamy, 2006).

Teachers, principals and other professionals in schools play an essential role in practiced language policy. Following García and Menken (2010), teachers have often been regarded as being ‘at the epicenter’ of processes by which policies get translated into practice. Although this metaphor runs the risk of rendering language education policymakers invisible, it is particularly well suited to draw attention to the confluence of different fields of force within which each teacher must constantly find their way to enact language policies in their pedagogical practice. Teachers have also been defined as ideology brokers (Blommaert, 1999), pointing to their agency in perpetuating, questioning, resisting, or transforming language ideologies and social inequalities related to multilingualism (Canagarajah, 1999; Nero, 2014).

To understand the concrete processes of translating policies into practice, ethnographic approaches are commonly seen as the method of choice (e.g. Martin-Jones & Da Costa Cabral, 2018). Since ‘language policy exists even where it has not been made explicit or established by authority’ (Spolsky, 2004, p. 8), an analysis of policy documents alone does not allow drawing any conclusions on de facto policies. Rather, it is necessary to understand how official policy texts come to be enacted in practices and how unauthorised and unofficial policies in unwritten forms are negotiated and (re)organised in ongoing institutional memory and practice (Levinson et al., 2009). Therefore, and in line with Ball, we aim at capturing ‘the complex interplay of identities and interests and coalitions and conflicts within the processes and enactments of policy’ (Ball, 2006, p. 22).

It has been shown that language policies in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in different national contexts in Europe largely follow a monolingual norm and thus institutional monolingualisation as a principle. This results in the national language being the only recognised language (Winter, 2021, pp. 102–106), and in silencing linguistically minoritised children (ibid., p. 100), especially children of colour (Thomauske, 2017). In such contexts, the practices related to multilingualism reduce the complexity of linguistic diversity along the dichotomy national language vs. other languages (Zettl, 2019, p. 256). It would however be short-sighted to see such pedagogical practices as exclusively discriminatory. They also attempt to do justice to the fact that competencies in the national language are of particular importance for the transition to elementary school, where language-related and intersectional exclusion mechanisms take effect (Dean, 2020; Krompàk, 2015).

While a monolingual norm seems to prevail, it has also been observed that ECEC teachers use different kinds of linguistic resources when communicating with children in accordance with specific pedagogical situations and goals and addressees (Kassis-Filippakou & Panagiotopoulou, 2015). For example, Seele (2015) and Knoll and Jaeger (2020) demonstrated how teachers in ECEC systematically used different languages or registers depending on the children’s social and migrant backgrounds. Weichselbaum (2022) showed that teachers secretly speak migration languages to children illegitimated to do so by the institution.

While one might expect a different orientation towards multilingualism in those European societies that are officially multilingual on a national or regional level, research on language policy in such ECEC contexts (Bergroth & Palviainen, 2017; Palviainen & Mård-Miettinen, 2015) as well as on education generally (From & Sahlström, 2017; Jaspers & Rosiers, 2019) has identified an orientation to institutional monolingualism or at least language separation also in these contexts. For instance, ECEC institutions in officially trilingual Luxembourg, at least before the newly-introduced programme of multilingual education (see Kirsch & Bergeron-Morin, 2023, this issue) have been shown to create a ‘monolingual pedagogical special world’ (Neumann & Seele, 2014, p. 360). The same research, however, has also investigated different kinds of strategies that teachers in such contexts adopt when there is a mismatch between institutional language policies and the linguistic repertoires of the children or students (Jaspers & Rosiers, 2019).

3. Language education policies in South Tyrol, Italy as a site of debate

The northernmost Italian province of South Tyrol, located at the border with Austria and Switzerland, is precisely such a site. While Italy as a whole only recognises Italian as an official language, South Tyrol is bilingual or trilingual in that it recognises German and, in part, Ladin¹ as official languages alongside Italian. In this section, we will outline how language education policy in South Tyrol is strongly embedded in history and in various ethnic, socio-political, and educational ideologies.

Previously part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, South Tyrol was annexed as a province to Italy after World War I. The legitimacy of this annexation has been at times vehemently contested at different moments in the past century. This also links to the fascist take-over in Italy and to the measures aiming to italianise the territory and its inhabitants. These measures included the Italianisation of place and proper names, the dissolution of German-language schools including the dismissal of German-speaking teachers and other professionals, and the introduction of an exclusively Italian school system (Alber, 2012). Only the ratification of the Second Autonomy Statute in 1972 and subsequent measures, through which South Tyrol became an autonomous province with considerable legislative, executive and financial autonomy, appeased the socio-political conflict in the province.

South Tyrol’s status as an autonomous province is legitimised by the coexistence of three recognised ‘language groups’, the German, Italian and Ladin group. The notion of ‘language group’ is essentially one of ethnolinguistic affiliation (Platzgummer, 2021). The far-reaching rights related to the autonomy of the province also regulate power sharing between these groups which are constructed as ‘autochthonous’. A main regulation concerns a bilingual administration in the whole territory of South Tyrol (and trilingual in the Ladin valleys), which allows individuals to choose ‘their’ language in various domains and grants them the right to be addressed in their preferred language. The institutionalisation of these three ethnolinguistic groups regulates their representation in legislative and executive bodies, access to public sector jobs and social benefits. Since it follows a principle of proportionality, every citizen residing in the province must declare their affiliation or aggregation to one (and only one) of these groups.

Education follows the tripartite language group notion in having three different linguistically conceived tracks (Platzgummer 2021), including for preschools. Most preschools are preschools with German as the language of education, located across the province. The fewer preschools with Italian as the language of instruction are located mostly in urban areas, but also in some rural areas, while in the Ladin valleys, all three languages are used in ‘Ladin’ preschools (Salzmann & Videsott, 2023). The question of whether such a separation is still appropriate has been a subject of debate (Wisthaler, 2013). As critically discussed in Platzgummer (2021), the legal basis for this division, Art. 19 in the Autonomy Statute 1972 (Südtiroler Landesregierung, 2019) stipulates that students need to be taught in their ‘mother tongue’ by teachers for whom the respective language is also their ‘mother tongue’. The mother tongue of teachers is thereby asserted through their declaration of language group affiliation, thus effectively institutionalising ethnolinguistic categories also within the education system.

Similar to other education systems catering to linguistic minorities (Jaspers & Rosiers, 2019), German-language preschools, which represent the focus of this paper, have been experiencing a phenomenon that has been intensely discussed in South Tyrol in recent years: Since enrolment can be chosen freely, families with Italian or migration languages as family language(s) are increasingly bypassing the language-related assumptions behind the three-way division and enrolling their children in the track with German as a language of instruction. In places where many such families live, children who are referred to as ‘German’ are consequently no longer in the numerical majority in German-language preschools. Discourse-analytical research on a televised discussion about this phenomenon has pointed to a hierarchisation of educational rights in public discourse, headed by the ‘German’ group, followed by the other two institutionalised groups constructed as ‘autochthonous’, and positioning migrant groups at the bottom (Thoma, 2022).

Actual linguistic repertoires of teachers and children in German-language preschools in South Tyrol are of course more complex than the public discourse around the three institutionalised language groups and a migrantised group would suggest, as we will discuss in more detail in the following section. Both teachers and children will tend to be multilingual, albeit in different ways, and this reality is bound to create tensions with the monolingual conceptualisation of the institution. In the following, we therefore empirically investigate how teachers in this context position themselves to institutional and practiced language policies.

4. Methods: ethnographies of German-language preschools in South Tyrol

This paper is based on two ethnographic research projects on multilingualism and language education in South Tyrolean preschools with German as a language of instruction (KiDiLi [www.eurac.edu/kidili] and MeBiK [www.eurac.edu/mebik]). In the context of these projects, we conducted fieldwork in four groups in three different preschools in an urban area in South Tyrol between April 2021 and May 2022. The preschools were selected in consultation with the preschool board and aimed at reflecting the heterogeneity of the city. The fact that we had both grown up in South Tyrol and attended German-language educational institutions was beneficial in negotiating access to the field. The preschool groups had 18–22 children, who were mostly between three and six years old. Each of these groups was led by one teacher and had one or two additional teachers with differing areas of responsibility.

We began our ethnographies in different groups of the same preschool; while Verena stayed in this preschool for the entire one-year fieldwork period within the project KiDiLi, Nadja, within the project MeBiK, divided her participant observation among the three preschools, aiming at finding minimally and maximally contrasting cases. A typical fieldwork day would start when parents or other relatives brought the children in the morning at around 7:30 AM and would end after preschool when the children were picked up again at around 3:00 PM. In addition to the participant observations reflected in our fieldnotes, we both made audio recordings in the preschools and conducted group discussions with teachers as well as narrative interviews with parents.

In this paper, we focus on data from two of the three preschools in which we conducted fieldwork. In these two preschools, a particularly intense ethnographic engagement developed with the educators, including our participation in their team meetings, during which they reflected on and planned their educational practices. The first of these preschools, to which we refer here as the Flower-Street preschool², is located in a district that was referred to as the ‘periphery of the periphery’ in the self-description of a neighbouring youth centre and is predominantly inhabited by families with Italian and/or languages of migration as family language(s). The other preschool, to which we refer as Birds-Road preschool, lies at the border between an industrial district and a district which was often described as having a ‘village character’ – a designation linked also to the presence of German-dominant families in this district.

Children’s language practices at the preschool somewhat reflected the districts’ demographics. At Flower-Street preschool, Italian was the lingua franca among the children, and most of the migrantised children had already acquired some Italian before starting preschool. Although some children shared other languages (e.g. Albanian, Moroccan Arabic), they did not seem to use these in conversation. When interacting with teachers, the children would mostly use linguistic resources from Italian and, less so, from Standard German – except for one and two children respectively in each group who consistently used resources ascribed to local varieties of German. At the preschool Birds-Road, on the other hand, most children regularly used resources from Italian, Standard German and local varieties of German among each other. Teachers at both preschools usually spoke local varieties of German when interacting among one another or with us researchers, as did we. In interactions with children, the teachers mostly used linguistic resources ascribed to Standard German, and sometimes also ones from Italian and from local varieties of German.

In our analysis, we focus on instances in which teachers explicitly positioned themselves in relation to their own language practices in the preschool and/or to institutional language policies and analyse the latter as they emerge as salient. We draw on different kinds of policy texts, fieldnotes from conversations with teachers during preschool days, and audio recordings made during teachers’ meetings as well as during group discussions. In the analysis process, we transcribed relevant passages of these audio recordings (see annex for transcription conventions) and translated transcript excerpts and fieldnotes from Standard German and/or local varieties of German into English only at the point of selection for publication.

5. Findings: teachers’ stances to (practiced) language policies

In this section, we draw on fieldnotes and transcripts from our ethnographies to examine which kinds of stances ECEC teachers take up in relation to their (practiced) language policies against the background of tensions, contradictions and dilemmas arising due to the teachers’ positioning within different norms, ideals and authorities.

5.1. ‘This is written in the framework guidelines!’ – Policy texts as authoritative arguments

The first fieldnote we present stems from participant observation towards the beginning of fieldwork at preschool Flower-Street. It shows how the researchers’ presence leads to a negotiation of the teachers’ (practiced) language policies, during which teachers also draw on a policy text as an authoritative argument to legitimise their practice.

Data Extract 1 – Fieldnote:

 

The preschool teachers and I talk about the audio recordings that I would like to make at the preschool in the near future. They ask me what exactly my colleague and I are interested in with those recordings. I explain that we want to understand how language is dealt with in the preschool. They ask me for feedback about this, but I explain that it is too early for that. I explain that we are also interested in what the teachers resolve to do, for example when they explained to me that they have resolved to speak Standard German. They immediately ask me if they actually do so – which I refuse to answer, saying that it is not important to me whether they do so, and that it was actually surprising to me. Before I can explain why, one of the teachers interrupts me and emphatically points out that they have instructions to do so, that this is written in the framework guidelines! Elisabeth adds that she does sometimes speak dialect with Stefanie, because in her opinion that is also valuable.

 

The fieldnote establishes a negotiation around the researcher’s desire to make audio recordings at the preschool as the starting point for a conversation about the teachers’ language practices. The teachers clearly address the researcher in her expert role: they display a professional interest in her research activities and explicitly ask for feedback about their language practices. In this interaction, the researcher also establishes ‘what the teachers resolve to do’ – i.e. their language policies – as a research interest. She illustrates this with an example, referring to a previous conversation in which the teachers expressed an intent to speak Standard German at the preschool. She thus addresses the teachers as professionals who would be able to ‘explain’ their intended language policies, and at the same time leaves the possibility open that what the teachers have resolved to do might not correspond to their actual practices. The teachers orient to this possibility and ask the researcher whether she can confirm that they speak Standard German, again addressing her as an expert. Their question could insinuate either that they are not consciously aware of their actual practices, or that they need to resort to the authority of a linguist to tell them whether these practices can be considered ‘Standard German’. In both cases, their question displays a professional interest in their language practices as teachers. The researcher again avoids answering, pre-emptively assuring the teachers that she does not judge their language practices against the norms of Standard German.

At this point, however, the researcher signals her ‘surprise’ – either at the teachers’ actual practices, or at their commitment to Standard German – and then feels cut off by one of the teachers, who states that this commitment is based on explicit ‘instructions’ and can also be found in the ‘framework guidelines’. The teacher thus refers to some authority that seems to regulate their language practices and establish an explicit language policy that posits Standard German as the kind of language to be used by teachers at the preschool. This authority, present in the teacher’s reference to ‘instructions’ and to the most important provincial policy document for German-language preschools (Deutsches Schulamt, 2008), also seems to trump the researcher’s authority as a linguist. The teachers’ response to the researcher’s ‘surprise’ might indicate that they feel criticised for their commitment to Standard German, and immediately wish to disavow responsibility for it by referring to an authority.

It is only at this point that the fieldnote mentions a specific teacher, Elisabeth, who ‘adds’ that she sometimes speaks dialect with one of the children of her group, Stefanie. This seems like a concession that she does not always follow her superiors’ instructions to speak Standard German. It is interesting that she mentions only one specific child with whom she also speaks in a local variety of German, thus characterising this resource as person-dependent. She legitimises her own language practice, stating that the variety, or speaking this variety in the context of the preschool, ‘also’ has value. She treats this as her own opinion, which does not confer the same authority as the reference to the framework guidelines, but it also makes it unattackable. While Standard German remains clearly set as the norm in Elisabeth’s interpretation of the institutional language policy, she displays resistance to the exclusivity of this language choice based on her own beliefs about the value of dialectal varieties.

The teachers’ commitment to Standard German was apparent to us from the first days of our ethnographies. From an autoethnographic perspective, we were both ‘surprised’, as this fieldnote shows, because these practices contrasted with our own experience of having attended German-language preschools in which teachers spoke local varieties of German. In this field interaction, this autoethnographic surprise is productive in two ways: the teachers’ reaction to it pointed to institutional language policies, as well as to a general sensitivity of language choice in ECEC teachers’ practices in this context.

Interestingly, our analyses of the cited ‘framework guidelines’ ratified in 2008 (Deutsches Schulamt, 2008) do not give any explicit normative indication of which language(s) or variety(ies) teachers ought to speak in interaction with children and leaves some interpretative space, as is not uncommon for language policy texts (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007). It only establishes Standard German as specific kind of language to be developed in the children and mentions ‘targeted linguistic offers’ (Deutsches Schulamt, 2008, p. 32, translation by the authors) for those children whose first language is not German. At the same time, however, the document also posits ‘multilingualism and multiculturalism as normality and enrichment’ and explicitly defines the local multilingualism as going beyond German, Italian and Ladin, i.e. as including languages of migration. A policy goal in the framework guidelines is that children should be encouraged to see this multilingualism as ‘an enrichment and as a way of living’ (Deutsches Schulamt, 2008, p. 33, translation by the authors). In this manner, the policy document creates a tension between the values placed both on multilingualism and on monolingualism in the language of instruction, as has been identified in other contexts (Jaspers & Rosiers, 2019).

5.2. ‘Do you mind if we speak dialect?’ – Negotiating practiced language policies with the researcher

The tension discussed in the previous section is also apparent under a different guise at the beginning of the establishment of field relations at Birds-Road preschool. The following fieldnote was taken on the first day at that preschool:

Data Extract 2 - Fieldnote:

 

Sigrid asks me: ‘Do you mind if we speak dialect with the children from time to time?’ I laugh and say: ‘No, of course not! You speak as you like. It doesn't matter to me at all.’ She explains: ‘You know, in this area here there are very few children who speak dialect at home. I see that as a very important resource that I want to strengthen. But I don't want your research to get messed up or that the result is something totally different than you planned.’

 

The teacher Sigrid constructs her language practices with the children as a question that might ‘matter’ to the researcher. The researcher is not addressed as an uninvolved observer but as someone whose expectations should not be disappointed. The fieldnote reveals that the use of ‘dialect’ is seen as a marked practice that deviates from the norm or from norm expectations. After the researcher reneges such norm expectations on her part and places the authority over language choice with the teacher, the teacher explains her practice of speaking ‘dialect’ at times by referring to the sociolinguistic environment of the preschool and the underlying pedagogical idea of strengthening the local German varieties as a ‘resource’. Her doubts about her practices in this context highlight an interesting understanding of research as an enterprise oriented towards expected outcomes, the achievement of which must not be compromised.

Overall, the fieldnote reveals that while using ‘dialect’ at least sometimes seems to be the unmarked and normal practiced language policy at Birds-Road preschool, it is questioned in situations where the language practices of the institution are under observation by the researcher – either in view of the research endeavour, as Sigrid states explicitly, or in view of the researcher as someone who might report back to institutional actors higher up in the hierarchy. It is telling that similar to Elisabeth in the previous example, Sigrid also frames her practices of speaking non-Standard German to children as rooted in her personal belief in the value of this resource. While this points to the fact that teachers interpret language policies based on their own beliefs, knowledge and experience, as has been argued by García and Menken (2010), it also shows that such interpretations create tension especially when teachers’ practiced language policies come under observation. At the same time, the renegotiation of practiced language policies with ‘new’ relevant actors in the field also points to their flexibility.

5.3. ‘What we do automatically is not wrong’ – Collegial reflection and pedagogical dilemmas

Alongside conversations that arose as the teachers were orienting to our presence in the field, we were also able to observe and record conversations teachers had among themselves around their language (education) practices during their team meetings. The following excerpt is a transcript stemming from such a meeting at preschool Flower-Street at the beginning of the preschool year. Based on input that one of the teachers shared from a training course she recently completed, the teachers had started discussing phrases they often say to the children (e.g. ‘your shoes are wrong’ or ‘you have to put that there’). Some teachers actively work to avoid expressions such as ‘wrong’ or ‘you have to’ to avoid damaging the children’s self-worth. Others, however, explain their extensive use of such expressions with the need to be understood by the children. It is at this point that one teacher, Barbara, shares concerns over this ‘simplified’ German, which ultimately ends up being a ‘bad German’ – and this is where the excerpt sets in:

Data Extract 3 – Interview transcript:

 

Elisabeth:

yes, but I think, well, you know, I think that what we do automatically is not wrong. I think it’s not wrong, we have to go down [a little.]

Barbara:

[no that], yes

Judith:

yes you start with, [at the beginning] you do more … 

Elisabeth:

[you know]

Elisabeth:

it is, also now I also still speak more often [Italian sometimes], now in the beginning, [you know?]

Judith:

[one-word-sentences or so]

Judith:

[yes]

Elisabeth:

what’s important now is that I, [emotio, you know? ]

Judith:

[do relationship, exactly.]

Elisabeth seems to agree with Barbara at least partially, but immediately brings a counterargument: she believes that the way that they speak ‘automatically’ is not wrong, but rather a necessity. She characterises this way of speaking as ‘going down a little’, drawing on a conceptual metaphor that conceives of complex language as ‘up’ or ‘high’ and of simple language as ‘down’ or ‘low’. She positions this way of speaking not only as something they do without any conscious effort, but also as without alternative – ‘we have to’. While Elisabeth does not fully deconstruct the association between ‘simple’ German and ‘bad’ German, she underlines that she is convinced that they are ‘not wrong’ to speak in this manner, thus making it a moral issue.

Barbara seems to agree with Elisabeth about these aspects but does not quite seem convinced. Judith starts elaborating on Elisabeth’s ideas, stating that ‘at the beginning’, most probably referring to interactions with children who only just started preschool, more one-word-sentences are used. With her use of an impersonal ‘you’ (German ‘man’ in the original), this statement almost receives the characteristic of a rule (König, 2014, p. 251). Overlapping with Judith, Elisabeth brings in an observation from her current practice, stating that she speaks Italian ‘more often’ now, also implying that this is something she will no longer do as much later in the year, again characterising language practices as somewhat flexible. Elisabeth’s example referring to Italian shows that, similar to ‘simple German’, the use of Italian is perceived as a strategy to be understood by the children, but also as potentially problematic. In the following, Elisabeth legitimises her way of speaking ‘now’ by referring to the importance of something that has to do with emotions. Her statement remains incomplete, as Judith offers a completion for Elisabeth’s sentence: she states that what is important is to ‘do relationship’, and with her use of ‘exactly’, this is positioned as a strong agreement with what Elisabeth was saying.

Two aspects of this excerpt are particularly relevant when it comes to teachers’ stances in relation to their practiced language policies. Firstly, the excerpt is a clear example of how the teachers work towards aligning their stances in the context of collegial reflection. The teachers made extensive use of their bi-weekly team meetings to jointly reflect their pedagogical practice, including their language practices. As this example shows, such reflections go beyond mere language choice but touched on a variety of aspects, such as which language practices would be conducive to the children’s language development or to their positive perceptions of self. In such collegial reflections, teachers reassured one another, like Elisabeth and Judith reassure Barbara in this excerpt, gave each other pointers to improve their practice, as in their conversations around expressions such as ‘wrong’ or ‘have to’, and continuously display gratitude to their colleagues for observing their practice. Such collegial reflection is also strongly fostered institutionally (Autonome Provinz Bozen Südtirol, 2017) and as such may be considered a tool for language policy implementation.

Secondly, the excerpt shows that the teachers’ interpretations of institutional language policies sometimes stand in conflict with pedagogical goals. Like Elisabeth and Judith in this example, the teachers often legitimise deviations from ‘good German’ (see Spitzmüller, 2022, for a language-ideological discussion) with pedagogical principles and aims. Based on their professional experience, they judge it as more important to build a relationship with children who have recently arrived at the preschool or, in other situations, to effectively scold or comfort a child, than to consistently speak Standard German only. Such orientations have been observed in other ECEC contexts (Kassis-Filippakou & Panagiotopoulou, 2015), and they show that language education policy aims can at times be in tension with pedagogical aims. Dealing with such conflicting demands or, in educational sciences terms, ‘pedagogical dilemmas’ requires teacher professionalisation (Helsper, 2002; Mantel, 2022).

5.4. ‘It has always worked with Italian’ – Legitimising language practices

While the previous section pointed out conflicting demands placed on teachers in relation to their practices with children, tensions also arise around language practices in interaction with parents. The following text is an excerpt from a discussion with the teachers of preschool Birds-Road in which Sigrid addresses such tensions.

Data extract 4 - Interview transcript

 

Yes – in a way (2) it's our own fault, and it's certainly the case that we don't speak German with the parents right from the start. Because there are preschools where they consistently speak in German (2) and (3) I have no idea how that = how that works out then, I have to say that, too. In contrast, with us, with me it was always like this, I have – the parents always, if it didn't work with German, it always worked with Italian – and I have to say that the advantage in [name of city] is that even if there are families with a migration background, Italian is something they all know. Because I = I also know of colleagues who work in kindergartens where neither German nor Italian is spoken. And then I think I would also be overburdened, I have to say. Because at the latest with English, school English – okay, but when it comes to technical terms or these important things = it is all already too late. (1) That's why, um, I have to say, with us it has always worked with Italian.

 

Sigrid starts her argument by ascribing a ‘fault’ to the pedagogical team, thus pointing to a (monolingual) norm of language choice and at the same time making it a moral issue. The fault consists of not speaking German ‘right from the start’ of the professional relationship between teachers and parents. By setting up a contrast to other preschools, to which she attributes monolingual communication while hinting at doubts about its functioning (‘I have no idea how that works out’), she disaligns with ‘consistently’ speaking German. Her argumentation is based on her experience and on a rationality of practice and making things work. The repetition of ‘always’ (lines 4–5) is a rhetorical move that, on the one hand, brings her experiences into focus and, on the other, makes an argument that it is not the choice of language but successful communication that counts. As a further argument, she introduces Italian as a lingua franca that is accessible to all families ‘with a migration background’ and a language that enables communication. She then brings up English as a possible language of communication but suggests that this language is not suitable for discussing ‘important things’ due to her limited competences. At this point, she also brings affect into play, namely the danger of becoming ‘overburdened’, an argument that is hard to argue against. The passage ends with a renewed emphasis on Italian as a language of communication with parents.

Overall, the passage shows how Sigrid draws on her professional experience in a multilingual environment and her professional autonomy to legitimise her language practices (García & Menken, 2010). She makes a compelling argument in which communication is placed above monolingual purity – and needs to do so within an institutional logic that highly values monolingual purity in German not only with children but also in interactions with parents. In fact, the tensions Sigrid addresses are tied to a broader socio-political discourse that frames parents as responsible for their children’s German-language education and constructs the parents’ own German language skills as a necessity to fulfil that responsibility, as Thoma (2022) has shown elsewhere.

5.5. ‘It’s a bit contradictory’ – Between certified and practiced language competences

In the previous section, Sigrid worked towards legitimising her language practices in interaction with parents. In line with the political discourses in South Tyrol described above, in what followed Sigrid places the responsibility for language education with parents and demands that parents accommodate to the institutional language of instruction when interacting with teachers. As we have shown, this contrasts with her own practices in such interactions and with the arguments she previously brought forth. This leads her to then directly address some of the contradictions inherent in the institutional setup of German-language education in South Tyrol in the following excerpt:

Data Extract 5 – Interview transcript

 

Sigrid:

But that’s basically, you know, that's = that's again, we're a public, we're a provincial, we're regional employees and we need – it's the prerequisite to have bilingualism. But at the same time, it's a bit contradictory, because we are a German preschool, then we have – to speak German. But just, that's why I say [there is].

Researcher:

[But ] who tells you that you have to speak German with the parents? I mean, with the children it's another thing, but with the parents?

Sigrid:

Yes, good question! There is no clear instruction, it always seems to me. (2) Because on the one hand, (2) as I said, we have got to have the prerequisites to even get on the teacher ranking, so the bilingualism, but at the same time um (3) yeah, dunno. The public offices have to be bilingual and at the same time we are a German preschool again and there you have to, uh – speak German.

Researcher:

Mhm

Sigrid:

Therefore, there is no clear instruction and then uh (3) I don't know.

Sigrid refers to the linguistic prerequisites for taking up the profession of a preschool teacher in South Tyrol, namely proven knowledge of German and Italian, and she links this to the fact that she works in the public sector. On the other hand, she addresses the language of the institution, namely German, from which she deduces an obligation to speak German, and positions these two aspects as inherently contradictory. At this point, the researcher interrupts Sigrid and asks where the obligation to speak German with parents comes from. Sigrid’s pointing to the ‘good question’ of the interviewer indicates that she is not fully aware of the reasons for her assumption that teachers must speak German to the parents. After stating that there is ‘no clear instruction’, Sigrid basically repeats what she has just said. This time, she explicitly refers to ‘the bilingualism’, a common term in South Tyrol which refers to the regional certificate of German-Italian bilingualism which is prerequisite to be employed in the public service. She concludes by stating again that there is ‘no clear instruction’.

Overall, this excerpt points to the language-related contradictions that preschool teachers have to deal with in a linguistically contested region. The fact that the teacher refers twice to missing or unclear instructions points to her search for language practices that would be ‘correct’ and appropriate to the institution and situation. At the same time, the argument she raises points to the legitimate question of why the certificate of bilingualism should be necessary if the second language is not at all desired in communication within the institution.

6. Conclusion

In this paper, we examined ECEC teachers’ reflections on institutional and practiced language policies to gain insights into how they interpret and position themselves to such policies in the socio-politically contested spaces that are German-language preschools in South Tyrol, Italy. We departed from the assumption that language education policies are historically and spatially situated and at the interplay of language ideologies, language practices, and (unequally distributed) linguistic repertoires (e.g. Heller, 2018; Jaspers, 2018; Martin-Jones & Da Costa Cabral, 2018). Our analyses have shown that teachers draw on a variety of sources in processes of policy interpretation. Some of these sources pertain to the setup of early childhood education in South Tyrol, including the tripartite structure of the education system, the ratified policy texts of German-language preschools, as well as institutionally required language competences for teachers’ employment. Taken as a whole, these different elements are already inherently contradictory: while the designation ‘German-language’ points to a monolingually German institution, the language requirements in both German and Italian send a different message. The policy texts value both (Standard) German monolingualism and multilingualism, albeit with a strong emphasis on the former. This results in teachers interpreting language (education) policies as calling for ‘as much Standard German as possible’ and creates a need for them to legitimise their language practices when they deviate from Standard German.

In this context, some of the tensions and dilemmas embedded in German-language education in South Tyrol as well as in pedagogical practice more generally provide for good legitimation strategies. For instance, teachers can draw on values such as child-centeredness, co-construction, and entering into relation, established in educational policy texts (Autonome Provinz Bozen Südtirol, 2017; Deutsches Schulamt, 2008) when legitimising language practices that involve Italian or what they term ‘bad’ or ‘simple’ German. Moreover, as has been argued by García and Menken (2010), teachers also interpret and appropriate language policies based on their own beliefs, knowledge and experience. The resistance of some teachers to a language policy valuing Standard German over dialectal varieties needs to be interpreted in this light, as does their resistance to an unwritten language policy that extends the ‘German’ requirement to communication with parents. In the first instance, it is the value they perceive dialectal varieties to have that leads them to continue using them in spite of their policy interpretation, while in the second instance, it is a logic of ‘what works’ in their experience that leads them to argue for the use of Italian with non-German-speaking parents.

Not unlike in other multilingual contexts (Jaspers & Rosiers, 2019; Knoll, 2016), the enrolment of an increasing number of children who do not have German as a family language in German-language has led to intensified efforts of such institutions to act as enclaves in a social context where another language predominates. This entails challenges and contradictions for the institution that its teachers need to grapple with. ECEC teachers in this context are required to navigate conflicting demands and expectations for which there are no clear and easy solutions. For this reason, it is of particular importance that they adopt a (self-)reflexive and critical perspective in their language and language-didactic practices.

We believe that our ethnographies can be a meaningful starting point for raising such a critical language awareness (Fairclough, 2014) in teachers. In a first workshop with ECEC teachers, we have already drawn on transcripts from our ethnographies and jointly identified pedagogical dilemmas (Helsper 2002; Mantel 2021). The teachers were thus able to analytically ‘observe’ their own practice retrospectively without any pressure to act. This workshop revealed some of the complexities of conflicting expectations and relieved teachers of normative expectations. We hope to continue this collaborative work and develop professional development initiatives that can help ECEC teachers navigate the conflicting demands placed on them in politically contested multilingual fields of action.

Transcription conventions

- pause under one second

(1) pause of 1 second

utterance stressed utterance

[utterance] overlapping utterances

= latched utterance

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Autonomous Province of Bolzano: [Grant Number 18021/20].

Notes

1 Ladin is a Raetho-Romance language spoken in five Dolomitic valleys across three Italian provinces, within South Tyrol the Gardena and Badia valley. For more information on the sociolinguistic context in these two valleys see Salzmann and Videsott (2023).

2 All place names and personal names have been pseudonymized.