Multilingualism and immigration in the educational system: the case of Italian schools

This chapter reports on some preliminary research on educational policies and practices in a small sample of Italian schools with a significant presence of students with limited Italian proficiency due to their history of recent immigration. A survey was conducted in selected primary, junior high and high schools in the Greater Milan area in the Italian region of Lombardy (an area with an increasingly diverse school population) with a view to identifying teachers’ attitudes and expectations in respect of the perceived challenges posed by a multilingual/multicultural class population, and to assess the way in which such perceived challenges are addressed, or it is believed they should be addressed, by the teachers interviewed. The informants selected were teachers and heads of schools participating in a project set up by the University of Milan for the training of language mediators specialized in pedagogical assistance. Emerging practices are investigated against the background of existing policies – both at national and at supranational level – designed to protect and promote local minority and heritage languages, but ill-equipped to deal with immigrant languages. In order to provide a comprehensive overview of the contextual factors influencing the development of local policies and practices, the first part of this chapter sets out to examine EU policies regarding regional and minority (R/M) languages and immigrant languages, focusing in particular on the way in which they converge with and/or are integrated into the overall linguistic policy of the Union, with its traditional emphasis on multilingualism and multiculturalism. It also attempts to assess their impact on the linguistic policies implemented in Italy, a country where immigration has a fairly new but rapidly consolidating history. Consideration is given to the actions taken, both at EU and at national level, to extend the scope of policies about regional and minority (R/M) languages to cover the linguistic rights of immigrant communities, with the attendant duty to provide educational means to favour linguistic integration into the host country. The current situation in Italy is used as a case study to illustrate these broader issues and the consequences of institutional choices (or lack thereof) to address changing demographics and cultural conditions.