This project explores beliefs about multilingualism, plurilingualism, language learning, and language education held by Italian educators. It aims to explore educators¿ perspectives on questions such as: What is the purpose of language education in primary and secondary schools (scuole elementari, medie e superiori) in Italy? Which languages are taught and which should be taught? To whom? How? Who are bilingual schools for? Why do bilingual programs end up being accessible to some students only? The project builds on parallel research carried out in the US by Bernstein and colleagues (2018, 2020, 2021, in preparation), which investigated educators¿ language ideologies, the ways that those beliefs are formed, and how they shape language education. The aims of the proposed project are a) to develop a survey of language ideologies that is valid and reliable in the Italian context and can later be administered at a large scale, b) to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between language ideologies, linguistic and immigration histories, and language education policies in the Italian context, and c) to carry out cross-cultural and cross-contextual comparisons with the US. The comparison with the work carried out in the US will help to highlight how beliefs about language and language learning have shaped the language education options available to various students in Italy and also to develop a way to measure those beliefs.
