Session Information
31 SES 16 A, Risk or Opportunity – A Question of Perspective? Language and Education in Transnational School Careers Part 1
Symposium
Contribution
The proposed symposium (part I and part II) thematises the connection between linguistic heterogeneity, education, and (family) biography in migration societies. It aims at the question of what national aspects can be found in language-related education processes and how these are taken up, perpetuated, and/or transformed by actors with transnational school careers in different nation states (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK, France, Cameroon and Norway).
Theoretically, we build on concepts of transnationalisation which analyse the changes occurred due to migration processes on the level and from the perspective of the acting individuals (Siouti 2013). In doing so, social practices, areas, and spaces that cross national borders (Wimmer/Glick/Schiller 2002) and their appropriation by the individuals are central. Following the spatial turn in sociolinguistics, we emphasise practices that transcend language barriers and repertoires (Jørgensen et al. 2011; Busch 2017). In this sense, questions regarding language values can only be discussed in relation to space. Depending on the context, this value may appear in a continuum between “valued asset” and “dismissed as having no language” (Blommaert 2010: 197). Processes of linguistic marginalisation (Patrick 2010) that are embedded in a national context or in regard to their border-crossing nature put individuals – also in educational institutions as linguistic markets – into different socio-spatially positions. This positioning is connected to different education opportunities.
On a methodological level, we rely on multi-sited research approaches that were developed following concepts of transnationalisation with the aim to overcome methodological nationalism (Wimmer/Glick Schiller 2002) and to challenge the concept of field as geographical space. Furthermore, we use methodological concepts developed in biographical research. Using narrative interviews, we access transnational (linguistic) processes of education from individuals’ perspective (Schnitzer 2017; Schwendowius 2015). This allows to analyse the importance of transnational biographical capital (Siouti 2013) for education processes as well as of the biographical appropriation and construction of languages in transnational spaces (Thoma 2018). We also consider biographical self-reflexiveness of the researcher in the process of transnational production of knowledge (Ruokonen-Engler/Siouti 2016) as well as the reflection upon linguistic hierarchies and the socio-spatial position of researchers and subjects alike (Schnitzer 2017; Thoma 2018) bound to linguistic resources as crucial for our approach.
The findings, encompassing different national contexts, underline the role of educational institutions. Language and multilingualism prove to be important access regulators and shape educational paths. These results contribute to a better understanding of the complex interplay between linguistic capital, practices, and ideologies within the context and processes of transnational education on a thematic, theoretical, and methodological level. In doing so, the experiences of the individuals with language-related attributions and hierarchies (Thoma 2018) as well as the self-perception of the students and their individual possibilities in migration societies (Putjata 2017) are central. The analysis and discussion of these results opens new questions and provides further insights into transnational education research.
References
Blommaert, Jan (2010): The Sociolinguistics of Globalization, Cambridge. Busch, Brigitta (2017): Expanding the Notion of the Linguistic Repertoire: On the Concept of Spracherleben – The Lived Experience of Language, Applied Linguistics 38/3, 340–358. Jørgensen, Normann/Karrebæk, Martha/Madsen, Lian/Møller, Janus (2011): Polylanguaging in Superdiversity, Diversities 13/2, 23–37. Patrick, Donna (2010): Language Dominance and Minorization. In: Jaspers, Jürgen et al. (Eds.): Society and Language Use, John Benjamins, 176–191. Putjata, Galina (2017): New Language Education Policy – Policy Making and Enhancement of Migrant-Related Multilingualism in Student’s Own Perception. A Case Study with Russian Speaking Israelis, ZfE 20/2, 259–278. Ruokonen-Engler, Minna-Kristiina/Siouti, Irini (2016): Biographical Entanglements, Self-Reflexivity, and Transnational Knowledge Production, Qualitative Inquiry 22/9, 745–752. Schnitzer, Anna (2017): Mehrsprachigkeit als soziale Praxis. (Re-)Konstruktionen von Differenz und Zugehörigkeit unter Jugendlichen im mehrsprachigen Kontext, Beltz. Schwendowius, Dorothee (2015): Bildung und Zugehörigkeit in der Migrationsgesellschaft. Biographien von Studierenden des Lehramts und der Pädagogik, transcript. Siouti, Irini (2013): Transnationale Biographien: Eine biographieanalytische Studie über Transmigrationsprozesse bei der Nachfolgegeneration griechischer Arbeitsmigranten, transcript. Thoma, Nadja (2018): Sprachbiographien in der Migrationsgesellschaft. Eine rekonstruktive Studie zu Studienverläufen von Germanistikstudent*innen, transcript. Wimmer, Andreas/Glick Schiller, Nina (2002): Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences, Global Networks 2/4, 301–334.
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