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Early learning opportunities for children at risk of social exclusion. Opening the black box of preschool practice

ABSTRACTInfluenced by a growing number of longitudinal studies showing positive effects of preschool attendance, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is framed as a potential equaliser of opportunities, benefitting children at risk of social exclusion and children from families with a migration background. However, as research into daily interactions in contexts of diversity and multilingualism remains scarce, the qualitative processes by which preschool may reduce or rather reproduce inequalities, remain under-theorised. In the present study, eight children were closely followed during their first year in pre-primary education in the Flemish Community of Belgium through video observations of daily interactions. The results suggest that both the quantity and quality of individual verbal interactions were low, with few opportunities for language production. The majority of utterances by teachers were disciplining in nature. The few occasions where a home language was used in individual interactions were intended to better direct the behaviour of the child. By closely observing these interactions, unintended mechanisms that hinder an equal distribution of learning opportunities were found in each of the classes.