Teachers’ Reported Experiences With Emergent Multilingual Children’s Peer Interactions in Early Childhood Education and Care in the Netherlands

Many children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) are emergent multilinguals because they are exposed to a language in early care and education that is different from their home language. There are indications that these children do not always experience rich and frequent peer interactions in ECEC, yet such interactions are important for their language, social, and cognitive development. We asked teachers about their experiences with emergent multilingual children’s peer interactions, and about factors that could play a role. We took a mixed-methods approach: teachers in the Netherlands who had experience working with (0- to 4-year-old) multilingual children completed a survey (n = 216) and participated in in-depth interviews (n = 13). Some teachers reported that emergent multilingual children do not always experience social inclusion and high-quality peer play, mentioning various interacting factors, such as age, sociability, group composition, and pedagogical climate. Our study indicates the need for further research to disentangle these factors, more attention to multilingual children’s peer interactions, and more targeted professional development of teachers.