‘Superdiverse’ School Populations in Southern Europe: Reflections on Language use and Suggestions for Learning Strategies  Cover Image

‘Superdiverse’ School Populations in Southern Europe: Reflections on Language use and Suggestions for Learning Strategies
‘Superdiverse’ School Populations in Southern Europe: Reflections on Language use and Suggestions for Learning Strategies

Author(s): Sandro Caruana, Stefania Scaglione
Subject(s): Cultural Essay, Political Essay, Societal Essay
Published by: Editura Universitară & ADI Publication
Keywords: Migration; Primary schools; Language teaching; Interlinguistic awareness; Multilingualism; Cultural diversity; Superdiversity; Intercultural awareness; Plurilingual and intercultural education; Integration

Summary/Abstract: MERIDIUM is an EU-funded Lifelong Learning Project, which involved primary schools in six countries in Southern Europe: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Malta. In this paper we present some results of this project, and we put forward suggestions in order to adopt strategies in language teaching which may suit the language use and needs of increasingly diverse students’ populations, favouring interlinguistic and intercultural awareness. Such an issue is particularly relevant in Southern Europe, where a “homoglottic habitus” often hinders educational systems from building on the multi- and plurilingual potential of families and social contexts which pupils live in.

  • Issue Year: 3/2014
  • Issue No: 01
  • Page Range: 63-73
  • Page Count: 11
  • Language: English