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Article published In:
Linguistic Landscape
Vol. 7:3 (2021) ► pp.314–343

Kindergartens in Northern Norway as semiotic landscapes

| Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences | UiT The Arctic University of Norway
| UiT The Arctic University of Norway
| UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Educational institutions have a responsibility to ensure that all children receive care and equal possibilities for development, independent of their linguistic and cultural background. However, there is little knowledge about how kindergartens ensure a welcoming and inspiring place for both transnational migrants, Indigenous children, and children from the majority population. Through a semiotic landscape analysis from two kindergartens in Northern Norway, this article contributes to this knowledge gap. Our starting point is that educational spaces are social, cultural, and political places. Applying a Bakhtinian perspective on semiotic landscapes as dialogues, the analysis focuses on two discourses. The first concerns diversity as an individual or shared value, and the second concerns balancing the ordinary and the exotic. We find that diversity related to transnational migration seems to be more integrated into the semiotic landscape, while the minoritised Indigenous Sámi people is stereotypically represented in kindergartens.

Keywords: semiotic landscape, kindergarten, linguistic and cultural diversity, Indigenous Sámi people, dialogues, emic and etic perspectives
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Societal and educational context
  • 3.Theoretical background
  • 4.Methodology: Research methods and data analysis
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Diversity as a shared or individual value
    • 5.2Balancing the ordinary and the exotic
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 20 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ll.20025.pes
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