Handbook of Early Language Education

This is the first international and interdisciplinary handbook to offer a comprehensive and an in-depth overview of findings from contemporary research, theory, and practice in early childhood language education in various parts of the world and with different populations. The contributions by leading scholars and practitioners are structured to give a survey of the topic, highlight its importance, and provide a critical stance. The book covers preschool ages, and looks at children belonging to diverse ethno-linguistic groups and experiencing different histories and pathways of their socio-linguistic and socio-cultural development and early education. The languages under the scope of this handbook are identified by the contributors as immigrant languages, indigenous, endangered, heritage, regional, minority, majority, and marginalized, as well as foreign and second languages, all of which are discussed in relation to early language education as the key concept of the handbook. In thisvolume, ＂early language education＂ will refer to any kind of setting, both formal and informal (e.g. nursery, kindergarten, early childhood education centers, complementary early schooling etc.) in which language learning within a context of children’s sociolinguistic diversity takes place before elementary school.

Mila Schwartz is professor in language and education and the Head of Research Authority in Oranim Academic College of Education (Israel). She received her first degree from the Pedagogical State University of Saint-Petersburg in linguistics and literature and completed her MA and PhD in the University of Haifa, in learning disabilities and literacy development among bilingual and trilingual children. Professor Schwartz conducted her post doc studies in Ben-Gurion University, Israel (the Kreitman Foundation Fellowships), and in Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.

Her research interests include studying language policy and models of early language education, linguistic, cognitive, and socio-cultural development of early sequential bilinguals/multilinguals and family language policy. Currently, her research focuses on theorizing the phenomenon of interactions between child language-based agency, teacher’s agency, and parents’ agency in early language education. In this research she draws on Bronfenbrenner’s human ecology theory (1979, 1994) that provides a framework for understanding the role of early language education in a young child’s life. Recently, she has proposed and elaborated on the following theoretical concepts: Language-conducive context, language-conducive strategies, and child language-based agency. Her academic distinction at the international level is based on more than 20 years of extensive research and exemplary achievements in academia and at top-tier research organizations such as the International Symposium of Bilingualism, where she held the position of Secretary of the Steering Committee from 2015 to 2019, and the Multilingual Childhoods Network (known also as the Special Interest Group, SIG, of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association, EECERA), where she currently acts as Convenor.