In this article, researchers in the field of early writing identify underlying beliefs and values about writing and learning to write for the beginning years of formal schooling in four jurisdictions: the American state of Connecticut, New Zealand, the Canadian province of Ontario, and Sweden, as reflected in the respective curricula and standards documents that guide instruction. Using Ivanic’s Discourses of Writing and Learning to Write to guide our text analysis, we found that curriculum developers have primarily been influenced by views of writing as a set of skills, processes, and genres. We found few references to the sociopolitical dis- course which indicates a view among curriculum developers that sociopolitical literacy is not suitable for this age group. We argue, with support in previous research, that young children’s writing does not have to be politically neutral and that it can be devel- oped under age-appropriate circumstances. Implications for policy and curriculum development include a need for greater consider- ation of the complexities of writing shown in research conducted across five decades. We propose a change to the model for early years, recognising that young children’s socio-political under- standings lie within their home and school lives, rather than the broader community.

Sami are Indigenous languages spoken by the Sami people in the northern parts of Scandinavia and Russia. All Sami languages are endangered because of historically aggressive assimilation policies. Currently Sami communities are working actively with language revitalisation processes. This article examines pupils’ access to knowledge in and about Sami languages and functional bilingualism in Sami and Swedish within the curriculum for the Sami schools in Sweden. Through a multifaceted lens of functional linguistic analysis, Bloom’s revised taxonomy of knowledge types and processes, and Bernstein’s concepts of vertical and horizontal discourse we examine the learning outcomes in the Sami and Swedish syllabi. The findings show an unequal balance between the two languages with the Sami syllabus containing fewer knowledge types, cognitive processes, verb processes, a stronger focus on oracy, and a stronger horizontal discourse than the Swedish syllabus. We conclude that the discourses about functional bilingualism that underpin these policy documents is contradictory and does not support Sami to be a fully functional language for all domains of society.

This is the first collection of research studies to explore the potential for mixed methods to shed light on foreign or second language learning by young learners in instructed contexts. It brings together recent studies undertaken in Cameroon, China, Croatia, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania and the UK. Themes include English as an additional language, English as a second or foreign language, French as a modern foreign language, medium of instruction controversies and content and language integrated learning (CLIL). The volume reviews the choice of research methodologies for early language learning research in schools with a particular focus on mixed methods, proposing that in the multidisciplinary context of early language learning this paradigm allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the evidence than other approaches might provide. The collection will be of interest to in-service and trainee teachers of young language learners, graduate students in the field of TESOL and early language learning, teacher educators, researchers and policymakers.

Sápmi is a geographical area that runs across the Kola Peninsula in Russia to northern Finland, Norway and Sweden. All Sami languages have been going through a rapid language change process and many of the traditional language domains have disappeared during the last decades due to previous national and local language policies. Nevertheless, recent growth of positive attitudes towards Sami languages and culture both within and outside the Sami group has given new momentum to the language revitalisation process. At the same time, English is becoming more present in the Sami context through tourism, media and popular culture. This study investigates 15-year-old writers' meaning-making in three languages they meet on a daily basis: North Sami, the majority language Finnish/Norwegian/Swedish and English. Data were collected in schools where writers wrote two texts in each language, one argumentative and one descriptive. Using a functional approach, we analyse how three writers make meaning across three languages and two genres. Results show that writers made use of similar ways of expressing meaning on the three levels we investigated: ideational, interpersonal and textual, but also how the production differed between the texts, and how context and content interacted with writers’ meaning-making in the three languages.