Conflict resolution in the context of Early Childhood Bilingual Education: towards a multicultural development

Abstract

This article discusses how young children learn to deal with conflicts from a multicultural standpoint. The present work is based on the view that, in a world of multiple demands and perspectives, children learn to deal with life in a variety of ways that will enable them to choose who they will become. The main underlying concepts of this article include: multiculturalism, linked to multilingualism and multimodality, as well as collaborative intervention for the creation of zones of proximal development and children's oral argumentation. The data consists of a multimodally transcribed episode of a snack time situation among two-year-old children, showing the multicultural development of kids in their way of dealing with conflict resolution.

Keywords

• multiculturalism
• collaborative intervention
• conflict resolution