Bilingualism in European Early Childhood Education as a basis for World Citizenship

The purpose of our project is for educators to learn more about the settling in process, also referred to as the acclimation process, that occurs when children are adjusting to a new environment such as a new kindergarten.  The primary focus of our research and conference is geared toward children from eleven months to seven years of age whom are entering a kindergarten where the language(s) spoken in the kindergarten may not be the language(s) that are spoken at home.  Our research team is interested in how multiple languages and children's metalinguistic competency development affects their ability to form relationships and bonds with their educators and classmates.  Throughout our research, we have shared openly about our experiences as a multinational research team, with team members’ nationalities representing Germany, Hungary, Finland, Spain, Great Britain, Romania and the United States. Twenty-three members working within four EU partnering organisations have worked collaboratively together and it is our hope that educators, parents and carers are able to learn from this project and are more equipped to foster all children’s transitional identity development in international early childhood educational Settings. With this in consideration as a basis for World Citizenship, we’d like to thank the following people whom have endorsed us within our panel.

Roman Simon, MdA