With the concept of inclusion, we recognize diversity as a societal value, which leads to more equity as one of the guarantors of social cohesion and peace. Methodologically, it is imperative to work in an interdisciplinary way and ensure that the voice of the affected is heard. One interesting way to achieve this goal is to decolonize research methods, holding spaces (Cairo 2021) and empowering research subjects as co-producers of the scientific explorations (Kerschhofer-Puhalo 2019; Ibrahim 2017).
My research focuses on the language and intercultural resources of plurilingual students risen with a heritage language and mostly with a migration background. The place of enunciation (Menezes de Souza 2019) is a language awareness & empowerment course especially designed for plurilingual students at a university of applied sciences in Switzerland. The presentations of these students on their own language resources, language biography, shared experiences and self-reflection activities confirm research findings (Isler 2020 among others) that it can be very challenging to be plurilingual even in a multilingual place like Switzerland. One reason is that academically speaking only people with curricular languages (e.g.: mother tongues and foreign languages learned at school) are perceived to be plurilingual. Informal self-evaluation and school assessments related to language skills are all too often still based on a(n) (unconscious) deficit approach. Another reason is that multilingualism has for years been depicted through a monolingual lens and the monolingual native speaker was therefore also set as the standard for educational purposes (Gogolin 1994, Skutnabb‐Kangas/McCarty 2008) turning invisible the huge linguistic repertoires (García 2020) and intercultural competences of plurilingual heritage speakers (Grosjean 2015).
What about complying with the SDGS and fostering respect for linguistic diversity by turning visible, acknowledging, and promoting these valuable resources for more equitable, sustainable, and peaceful societies?
Bibliography
Cairo, Amita. 2021. Holding Space: A Storytelling Approach to Trampling Diversity and Inclusion. Academic Book Solutions.
García, Ofelia. 2020. Singularity, Complexities and Contradictions: A Commentary about Translanguaging, Social Justice, and Education. In: Panagiotopoulou J., Rosen L., Strzykala J. (eds) Inclusion, Education and Translanguaging. Inklusion und Bildung in Migrationsgesellschaften. (11-20). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
Gogolin, Ingrid. 1994. Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann-Verlag.
Grosjean, François. 2015. Bicultural bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism, 19(5), 572–586.
Ibrahim, Nayr. 2017. Identity in children learning to read and write in three languages: a case study.
Isler, Dieter et al. 2020. Frühe Sprachbildung in sprachlich heterogenen Spielgruppen. Hrsg: Institut für Mehrsprachigkeit. Freiburg | Fribourg, 2020.
Kerschhofer-Puhalo, Nadja. 2019. My Literacies. Approaches to literacies in multimedia and multilingual contexts – The view of the child. Sparkling Science – a programme of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy (BMWFW).
Menezes de Souza, L.M.T. 2019. Glocal Languages, Coloniality and Globalization from below. In Guilherme, M & Menezes de Souza, L.M.T. (eds) Glocal Languages and Critical Intercultural Awareness: the south answers back. Routledge.
Skutnabb‐Kangas, Tove, McCarty Teresa L. 2008. Key Concepts in Bilingual Education: Ideological, Historical, Epistemological, and Empirical Foundations. In: Hornberger N.H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Boston, MA.
