The goal of the European Commission to enable citizens to communicate in two languages other than their mother tongue has provided the impetus for the implementation of multilingual language policies that promote language learning and linguistic diversity at all levels of education. The autonomous province of South Tyrol in northern Italy presents an interesting case for examining the evolution of language policy in education, both at the school level and in teacher training in higher education. Reflecting a complex history of language policies defined by strong political and social tensions, the current school system in South Tyrol is based on the separation of students into monolingual programs (German or Italian) depending on the school setting chosen by families, with the other language attributed the status of a L2. Only the Ladin school system operating in two valleys of the Dolomite region offers a parity model in which instruction time is equally divided between Italian and German. Although other schools in the region have experimented with language immersion models of bi/plurilingual teaching, or with pupil exchanges, no official bi-/multilingual education policy exists in South Tyrol where multilingual education is delivered mainly in monolingual settings (Alber 2012). While seeking to recognize the linguistic and cultural uniqueness of the region and preserve its ‘monolingual habitus’ (Gogolin 1994, 1997), this approach is increasingly at odds with the reality in schools of students with plurilingual repertoires and the challenges of integrating those who have neither German nor Italian as a L1. How then to accommodate ‘linguistic superdiversity’ (Duarte and Gogolin 2013, 2017) in an education system vested in preserving a monolingual habitus? This paper examines how curricula for teacher training at Bolzano have adopted a plurilingual and intercultural approach to help prepare teachers to support diversity within South Tyrolean schools. They complete 30 ECTS in their L2 and participate in an online course on multilingualism and multiculturalism developed with partner institutions (University of Primorska, PH Freiburg, Narva College of the University of Tartu) for an Erasmus+ project. The South Tyrol case raises important questions about how to foster a cohesive society through universal education while simultaneously supporting local and minority languages and cultures to foster inclusion and belonging. It exemplifies the concrete challenge of translating at the local level the ‘united in diversity’ dream of the Commission regarding multilingualism and multiculturalism across borders. Keywords: multilingualism in education, superdiversity in education, ICLHE, teacher training, language policy in border regions.

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