Language Education Professionals in Multilingual ECEC Institutions – SprabiPiKs

The BMBF-funded project "Language education professionals in multilingual ECEC institutions  - SprabiPiKs" is a joint qualitative research project of Universität Hamburg (UHH) and the Universität Hildesheim Foundation (SUH). It is carried out in six Hamburg ECEC institutions whose share of children with a migrant background is above 40 percent.

The cross-disciplinary project adopts a linguistic (SUH) and an intercultural educational perspective (UHH). Both examine

• how ECEC professionals with high language development skills shape interactions with mono- and multilingual children and
• the quality of such interactions with regard to language education.

Parameters included in the study are the knowledge of the skilled ECEC professionals, their perception, interpretation and decision-making competencies as well as their orientations. The study further takes the conditions in the respective institutions and their social environment into account.

The goal is to reconstruct qualitatively with regard to the individual ECEC institutions as well as for ECEC institutions in general, how the competencies of ECEC professionals and the conditions in both the institutions and their social environment are related to the quality of interactions.

One of the underlying intentions of this research is to make a solid contribution to the unterstanding of the complex quality structure in which ECEC professionals operate. Moreover, we assume that this research will help to enhance the quality of interaction of ECEC professionals with regard to the different linguistic backgrounds of children.

In this podcast in German language, the project is presented as the research project of the month.

Profile of the project:

For the meta project (Meta-QEB) of the funding guideline "Quality development for good education in early childhood" of the BMBF, the research partners answered four questions about the design, implementation and first results of the project. The profile is presented on the website of the German Youth Institute (DJI).

Publications (English):

Salem, T., Lengyel, D., Graßer, B., Montanari, E. (2020): Language Education Professionals in Multilingual ECEC Institutions – Sprachbildungsprofis in mehrsprachigen Kitas. In: EUJAL 8 (1), 1-14.

Project team:

• Prof. Dr. Drorit Lengyel (project coordination, UHH)
• Dr. Tanja Salem (research associate UHH)
• Prof. Dr. Elke Montanari (head of the linguistic subproject, SUH)
• Barbara Graßer, M.A. (research associate SUH)

Project duration:

Aug 1, 2018 until March 31, 2022

Third Party Funding:

BMBF funding guideline
   "Quality development for good education in early childhood"   
Framework program for empirical educational research
Funding number 01NV1804A
This project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the funding number 01NV1804A. The responsiblity for the content of this publication lies with the authors.