A Descriptive Study of Early Childhood Education Steering Documents in Finland, Sweden and Australia around Language Immersion Programmes

Being able to speak different languages is important in today’s global world to allow communication and understanding. Countries may vary in how they support early language learning with immersion programmes. This paper specifically explores the steering documents in Finland, Sweden, and Australia for children attending early childhood education settings (children aged birth to five years). A content analysis was used to explore patterns. The descriptive comparison allows similarities and differences across the countries to emerge. As a result, a table describing the different immersion and monolingual approaches in respective country is presented. The paper concludes with a broader discussion on steering documents in early childhood education in regards to young children’s rights to learning languages and attending different immersion programmes within early childhood.