Page 325 - Pedagoška vizija / A Pedagogical Vision

Future Preschool Teachers’ Perspectives

on Integrating Multicultural
and Multilingual Content in Slovenian

Kindergarten Education

Blaž Klasinc Mojca Žefran
University of Primorska University of Primorska
blaz.klasinc@gmail.com mojca.zefran@pef.upr.si
The article explores pre-service preschool teachers’ perspectives on and
attitudes towards integrating multilingual and multicultural content into
preschool educational practice. It presents findings of a qualitative study,
carried out in the form of semi-structured interviews among 16 pre-service
preschool teachers in Slovenia, aimed at (1) identifying their attitudes towards
integrating multilingual and multicultural content in kindergarten activities,
(2) exploring their perceptions of their own competencies for successful inte-
gration of multilingual and multicultural content in their work, and (3) deter-
mining the challenges in integrating multilingual and multicultural content in
kindergartenactivities,asperceivedbytherespondents.Theresultsrevealpar-
ticipants’ positive attitudes towards multilingualism and multiculturalism and
their awareness of the importance of multilingual/multicultural education in
kindergarten but also highlight their perceptions of the challenges in multilin-
gual/multicultural preschool education, such as insufficient teacher training,
limitations imposed by the curriculum, time constraints, and teachers’ nega-
tive perceptions of their own foreign language proficiency.
Keywords: multilingual and multicultural education, linguistic and cultural
awareness, preschool education, attitudes, preschool teachers’ competencies

Introduction
Throughout its history, Slovenia has been a country where various languages
have coexisted alongside each other, with Slovenian as the official language
and recognition granted to Italian and Hungarian as official languages in re-
gions inhabited by the Italian and Hungarian minorities. Moreover, due to
recent migrations throughout Europe, Slovenia is becoming an increasingly
multilingual country, which is also reflected in education. According to the
Slovenian Statistical Office, in the school year 2022/2023, the number of chil-
dren with foreign citizenship in Slovenian kindergartens was 7,027 (Statisti-
cal Office of the Republic of Slovenia n.d.a), which indicates that 8.15 of

Krmac, N.,S.Hudovernik, M. Rodela,M.Mezgec, M. RadetićPaićinM. Kukanja Gabrijelčič, ur. 2024.
Pedagoška vizija: premikanje izobraževanja od tradicije do inovacij – 50 let razvoja na Pedagoški fakulteti.
Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem. https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-358-6.325-337