The Relevance of Multilingualism for Teachers and Immigrant Parents in Early Childhood Education and Care in Germany and in France

This paper deals with the initial findings from an international research project called "Children Crossing Borders." This study focused on discovering how early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems in five countries (the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and the USA) serve the children of recent immigrants and what parents with diverse backgrounds want for their children in ECEC settings. The paper will focus on the issue of multilingualism of immigrant children in ECEC systems in two of the five countries: Germany and France. The questions which guide the paper were: What are the perceptions of the dominant language or nondominant languages among parents and practitioners? How do national contexts affect how the home language(s) is/are used or not used in school settings?