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.
This study will permit the development of a survey of beliefs about language that is reliable and valid for the Italian context and that can then be administered on a larger scale. Additionally, interim findings will present a picture of teacher beliefs about language and language education in Italy. While this work is well-established in the US context (Byrns & Kiger, 1994; Fitzsimmons-Doolan, 2014, 2017), no work on a similar scale has been conducted in Italy.
These findings have the potential to influence policy making in language education, by identifying how language education is carried out for school-aged students in Italy and how plurilingualism is handled in schools at a local level. Moreover, the outcomes of this research have the potential for a more global impact, increasing access to language programs such as bilingual education, regardless of students' families' socio-economic statuses (e.g., through bilingual programs in public schools).
The project is inherently international at multiple levels. It is based on an international collaboration and the whole project is framed to parallel two projects carried out by Bernstein and colleagues in the United States. The results from the Italian study will be compared with those obtained in the United States, which will provide an initial understanding of multilingual language education practices and policies in the two school systems as well as insights into how beliefs about language in each context relate to the socio/political/historical context. The innovative character of this research will provide insights for policy makers and school managers. The ultimate goal of the project is to actively start a debate on public bilingual/plurilingual education and to identify the actions that need to be taken to grant access to plurilingualism to students from all social and economic backgrounds.
DUE TO SPACE LIMITS, A COMPLETE LIST OF THE CITED WORKS IS AVAILABLE AT THE FOLLOWING LINK: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSTiR9UXEprX3KMsKg2_1Y8j5nAs...
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rest of the references: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSTiR9UXEprX3KMsKg2_1Y8j5nAs...