From Policy to Micro-level Practice: Plurilingual Initiatives in Italian ECEC

This chapter examines how plurilingualism is addressed in Italian early childhood education and care (ECEC), with a focus on children aged three to six. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework, it considers national policy, regional and local governance, and classroom practice through the interconnected macro-, meso- and microsystems. The analysis focuses on Milan, where linguistic diversity is shaped by migration and urban change, and the Aosta Valley, where bilingualism and the protection of minority languages are embedded in regional policy. It then discusses initiatives including multilingual reading, linguistic schoolscapes, family participation and translanguaging activities. These examples show how educators and communities can create space for children’s linguistic repertoires. The chapter also identifies a tension between policy commitments to plurilingual inclusion and English. It concludes that sustained support, teacher education and closer documentation of classroom practices are needed to make plurilingual education more equitable and accessible.