Kindergartens in Northern Norway as semiotic landscapes

Anja Maria Pesch,Hilde Sollid,Maria Dardanou

doi:10.1075/ll.20025.pes

Anja Maria Pesch, Hilde Sollid + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.20025.pes

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Abstract

Abstract Educational institutions have a responsibility to ensure that all children receive care and equal possibilities for development, independent of their linguistic and cultural background. However, there is little knowledge about how kindergartens ensure a welcoming and inspiring place for both transnational migrants, Indigenous children, and children from the majority population. Through a semiotic landscape analysis from two kindergartens in Northern Norway, this article contributes to this knowledge gap. Our starting point is that educational spaces are social, cultural, and political places. Applying a Bakhtinian perspective on semiotic landscapes as dialogues, the analysis focuses on two discourses. The first concerns diversity as an individual or shared value, and the second concerns balancing the ordinary and the exotic. We find that diversity related to transnational migration seems to be more integrated into the semiotic landscape, while the minoritised Indigenous Sámi people is stereotypically represented in kindergartens.

Highlights

As transnational migration and attention on minoritised Indigenous peoples across the world have increased, educational institutions have a responsibility to ensure that all children receive care and equal access to development, independent of their linguistic and cultural background
In this article we have analysed the semiotic landscapes of two Norwegian kindergartens
On the one hand we find a discourse about the linguistically and culturally diverse kindergarten as a place like every other Norwegian kindergarten

Summary

Introduction

As transnational migration and attention on minoritised Indigenous peoples across the world have increased, educational institutions have a responsibility to ensure that all children receive care and equal access to development, independent of their linguistic and cultural background. The empirical point of departure is kindergartens in Northern Norway, where transnational migrants, the historical minorities of the Sámi and Kven/Norwegian Finns (granted juridical status as Indigenous people and a national minority, respectively) and Norwegians (as the majority) are part of the linguistic and cultural diversity of the region. Even though access to heritage languages and cultures in kindergarten is not given to children with various backgrounds, new immigrants as well as children with Sámi, Kven/Norwegian Finnish and/or Norwegian backgrounds have the right to experience an inspiring and welcoming environment through other semiotic means (Bubikova-Moan, 2017; Øzerk, 2016)

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