Publications
A quantitative analysis of the language policy processes in early childhood professionals’ advice on multilingual parenting Ghent University
Whereas early childhood professionals can play a pivotal role in fostering young children's home language development, little is known about what determines the kind of multilingual parenting advice they offer families. The objective of this study was to deconstruct the processes culminating in two types of such recommendations: advice highlighting the usage of the home language in the family domain versus advice to include the dominant ...
Inclusief onderwijs : hoe, wat en waarom? Ghent University
Diversiteit en inclusie zijn tegenwoordig buzzwords. Maar wat betekenen ze nu eigenlijk? Kort gezegd: diversiteit is het erkennen van de verschillen die bestaan tussen mensen, inclusie is omgaan met deze verschillen. Onderwijs is de hoeksteen van onze samenleving en van scholen en leerkrachten wordt vandaag verwacht dat ze positief omgaan met de aanwezige diversiteit. We merken echter dat sommige jongeren uit de boot dreigen te vallen. De ...
Order in the chaos : nurses’ perceptions of multilingual families in a society marked by a monoglossic ideology Ghent University Vrije Universiteit Brussel
This paper explores the connection between nurses' multilingual beliefs and their advice on multilingual parenting to families with young children. Data was gathered through video-stimulated reflection dialogues with 11 nurses employed at infant welfare clinics in Belgium. Our analysis disclosed two salient counter topics regarding participants' multilingual beliefs: order versus chaos. The latter refers to nurses' view of multilingualism as a ...
Uncovering teacher educators’ dealing with diversity : practices, opportunities, barriers and tensions Ghent University
Teacher educators are increasingly perceived as crucial players for maintaining the quality of the teacher workforce. As such, the literature on teacher educators’ professional development keeps steadily growing. One area of focus in this specific research field, like educational research in general, are current issues of diversity, inclusion, equity and social justice. Unfortunately, knowledge on the meaning of the contemporary challenge to ...
Perceptions and practices of Flemish teacher educators to deal with diversity : a qualitative exploration Ghent University
Many (inter)national policy agendas state the ambition to ensure equity and justice in education for all, regardless of someone’s personal traits (European Commission, 2017; UNESCO, 2017). As such, all educational professionals are challenged to deal with the diversity in society to help realize this ambition (Gay, 2018; Vantieghem et al., 2020). Teacher educators in particular have an important responsibility in this. They are tasked to prepare ...
An empirical validation study of Spolsky's language policy model Ghent University
This study investigates Spolsky's conception of language policy as the amalgam of language beliefs, language practices and language management. To the best of our knowledge, no quantitative evidence has ever been produced for his theoretical model. The current paper addressed this void, albeit specifically in the domain of Early Childhood Care and Education - scarce in terms of language policy research, but vital for children's (multilingual) ...
Teacher expectations of multilingual students’ achievement : can teachers accurately predict science performance on a linguistically accommodated test? Ghent University
Assessment is a powerful tool for both teachers and students to get more insight into students’ competences. However, multilingual learners may be underper- forming on tests because linguistic barriers hinder them in demonstrating their content knowledge. In this study, we investigate whether multilingual assess- ment holds the potential to adjust erroneous teacher expectations of multilin- gual students. We discuss a randomised experiment in ...
How teacher educators deal with diversity : a Flemish perspective Ghent University
Despite their crucial role, Flemish teacher educators remain an under-researched professional group with particularly limited fundamental knowledge on how they deal with diversity (Vanderlinde et al., 2021). This is rather surprising since Flemish policy documents increasingly stress the need for teacher education to prepare teachers to teach in diverse contexts. The most recent policy report on the evaluation of the Flemish teacher education ...
Practices of teacher educators to deal with diversity Ghent University
Teacher educators are tasked with preparing student teachers to deal with diversity (Han et al., 2014). While extensive literature focuses on teacher education programmes and curricula to fulfill this task (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016), little research exists on how higher education-based teacher educators carry out this task or deal with diversity themselves (Lunenberg & Guberman, 2019). Moreover, the available knowledge is rather scattered ...