Plurilingualism and school inclusion: crossing paths with spaces and languages

Abstract Summary

Abstract :

By introducing the critical concept of plurilingual and pluricultural competence (Coste, Moore & Zarate 1997), the researchers brought new insights and precise ways of addressing the complexity of plurilingual repertoires in a variety of contexts, and at their various junctures. Contemporary educational systems, particularly in European societies, are faced nowadays with the challenge of coping with different forms of plurality (plurality of cultural and language references, in terms of values and principles, etc.). These various forms of plurality are important in many respects for young children entering school (especially when the main language of schooling is not their first language) as they already have a complex experience of language forms und uses, even if this experience naturally differs from one child to another. Yet, these children, even without any prior knowledge of the language of schooling, know about the plurality of languages, they possess a somewhat rich and diversified linguistic repertoire that school and other instances of socialization have difficulties to support and, therefore, oft choose to ignore or stigmatize, especially when it comes to the languages of ‘‘migrants’’. Establishing bridges between their first repertoire and the school language and acknowledging the transversalities of spaces of socialization can only assist the process of school inclusion of these young learners. In our study, we analyze, on a qualitative level, the representations of plurilingualism of 40 young children, aged around 12 years old, these of their parents and their teachers of schools. The qualitative analysis confirms that their needs are specific and require an acknowledgement of singularities and pluralities in the school inclusion: singularities in the sense that each young newcomer has his or her own trajectory and history of migration, and pluralities because he or she has an experience of plurilingual and pluricultural competence that the school cannot continue to ignore.

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