Nafn nemanda: Emmanuel Akpen Ayuboya
Námsleið: International Studies in Education, MA
Heiti verkefnis: Play-based pedagogy and Language development in Icelandic Preschool: An ethnographic study
Leiðbeinandi: Nichole Leigh Mosty
Sérfræðingur: Halldóra Guðlaug Helgadóttir

Ágrip/efni (drög): Play is often held up as the natural language of early childhood, but in a preschool with a dozen mother languages in the same classroom, what does that promise actually look like in practice? This qualitative ethnographic study followed three- and four-year-old children through the daily play of a multilingual Reykjavík preschool to examine how play-based pedagogy shapes their language development, how such pedagogy might be more purposefully woven into everyday curriculum, and what policy and institutional support this requires to work equitably. The study is grounded in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, Froebel’s philosophy of play, Bruner’s concept of scaffolding,  theories on translanguaging, and a critical psychology lens on institutional power, treating language development not as something children simply absorb but as something they construct socially through shared play. Over four weeks, the researcher combined participant observation, document analysis, and semi-structured interviews with preschool staff, including the director, specialists, and classroom staff. The findings were set against the Icelandic National Curriculum Guide for Preschools and Reykjavík’s education policy. What emerged was a study in contrast. Multilingual children proved remarkably resourceful, drawing on the full range of their linguistic range to join play, build meaning, and create friendships, often with little adult support. Yet that resourcefulness only went so far: without deliberate teacher mediation and amid staffing shortages and standardised institutional expectations that took no account of linguistic diversity, real gaps opened up between what policy promised and what the classroom could deliver. Play-based pedagogy, the study argues, is not a self-executing solution to linguistic diversity in early childhood education; it works when teachers are trained, resourced, and present enough to turn ordinary play into language-rich moments of connection, a case for policy that invests in teachers, not just curricula, as the true promoter for linguistic equity in multilingual preschools.