Education of immigrant children at the pre-school level in Sweden: an empirical study of how the education of immigrant children is conducted in practice

Abstract: The Background: Immigrant children's education is a very complex phenomenon that requires a special approach from pedagogues and country authorities. It cannot be neglected, otherwise the future consequences can be frustrating. According to the Swedish governmental policy, immigrant children should have the same rights for education as Swedish pupils. They should also have the right to preserve and cultivate their home culture. To achieve the latter, immigrant children should know their mother-tongue at a rather high level. The knowledge of the mother-tongue is also important for mastering Swedish, as the learning of these two languages is closely connected. The Purpose: This work concentrates on how the education of immigrant children at the pre-school is conducted in reality. Its main purpose is to investigate how such a complicated notion as immigrant children's education is carried out in practice and to discuss it. The Research Method: The formulation of the purpose determined the selection of the method of the investigation. To collect the data and analyse their quality, the qualitative research method was implemented. The Results: The research has shown that in spite of the indispensable role the mother-tongue plays for immigrant children, its training is not included on the programme of the pre-school where the study has been conducted. The reason for that is seen in the shortage of the communal money resources. The absence of the mother-tongue training at this level can become a serious hindrance for the overall development of immigrant children, and in many cases it is already the case, as the author of this work has seen it. Thus the hope has been expressed in the paper that in the future the commune will take responses for the situation around immigrant children's education and include the teaching of the mother-tongue into the pre-school schedules. Key Words: Immigrant children's education, pre-school, mother-tongue, learning Swedish, bilingualism