Abstract
The study IMAGO, Picturebooks – multilingual, rhymed and wordless – in kindergartens and primary schools in South Tyrol aims to shed light on the significance of visual storytelling for children's language and literature acquisition in different educational contexts in a region characterized by language and cultural diversity. Theoretical reference points are narrativity (Fludernik 1996), materiality and multilingualism (Franceschini 2011); methodologically, the study is located in reconstructive social research. Children grow into our society in the various social contexts of family, kindergarten, and primary school. Media such as picturebooks open up opportunities for them to engage with experiences that are meaningful to them and support them in the appropriation of self and world (Ommundson et al. 2022). Different forms of visual storytelling, which are manifested in the materiality of the picturebooks, evoke different practices of action. In the project, everyday interactions dealing with different narrative forms in German and Italian kindergartens and primary schools in South Tyrol will be ethnographically observed, and narrative-specific action practices will be reconstructed. In addition, focused interviews will be conducted with children, educators, and teachers to gain insights into the perspectives of the participants. The research is guided by the question of how multilingual, rhymed, and wordless picture books are read by children in a multilingual context in kindergarten and primary school and to what extent they contribute to children's language and literature learning. In the presentation, the picturebook selection and the project design of the study will be presented and opened up for discussion.