Worldwide migration movements have changed schools and education. Both educational researchers and stakeholders worldwide are challenged in including heterogenous children and promoting different aspects of diversity of children and adolescents in educational institutions. Teachers are challenged to provide equal and just educational opportunities for all students regardless of their origin, gender, race, linguistic repertoires and other forms of diversity. Researchers still emphasize the deficit view within educational institutions on pupils with a migration background (see, e.g., Dirim and Mecheril 2018; Herzog-Punzenberger 2016). Moreover, students with a migration background still score lower in international large-scale studies (OECD, 2015, 2019; Mullis et al., 2017) and the causes for this lower performance must be attributed to educational institutions, their organization and approach to diversity. In addition, these studies consistently show that academic success depends on language skills in the language of instruction. This has contributed to a focus of educational policies on supporting the language of instruction and to paying less attention to the explicit development of the heritage languages of children with a migration background. Thus, heritage language education (HLE, institutionalized or private teaching of the language of origin, Mehlhorn, 2017) is a controversial discourse among families, schools, policy makers and scientists, and is given a marginalized position in most educational systems in Europe. Whether learning the HLE contributes to an increased integration of children with a migration background is controversial and highly discussed among researchers, stakeholders and society, while research on HLE is still in its infancy (Gross et al., 2021).

Different forms of HLE have emerged over the years, reaching from informal private lessons provided by language communities to formal instruction provided by schools. Nevertheless, HLE is mainly requested by parents at regional or national level and is mostly offered by private organizations, communities, religious organizations, or associations (Extra, 2017). In Italy, an assimilation approach for children with a migration background prevails (Catarci, 2014; Fiorucci, 2015, 2020); nevertheless, guidelines and recommendations refer to the need for appreciation of the individual multilingualism of children, recommend teaching HL outside school hours (Ministero dell'Istruzione, 2014) and underline the need to include HLs in school curricula to support these children’s integration (Italian Ministry, 2007; Eurydice, 2019). Even though several Italian regions provide – on a very limited basis – HLE as an extracurricular offer or as part of the optional program, its role for the integration of children with a migration background is controversial. Thus, this paper sheds light on how teachers and stakeholders perceive and experience the role of heritage language education for the integration of children with a migration background in primary and lower secondary school.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews within a multiple case study design (Thomas, 2011; Tight, 2017). This paper draws on data from in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 subject teachers, HL teachers, and stakeholders from one region in northern Italy. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted in 2020 with HL teachers, regular teachers, and other stakeholders to provide well-founded information on participants' experiences, perceptions and points of view (Mann, 2016). Data were analyzed in early 2021 using the Qualitative Content Analysis (Mayring, 2016) in MAXQDA and resulted in an elaborated coding system with several categories and subcategories. The coding process followed consensual coding, in which two coders independently code a text and then compare the codings (Kuckartz 2016).

HLE is an issue with strong implications for the formation of citizenship, ethics, democracy, dialogue, integration, and coexistence. On the one hand, the relevance of HLE emerged for the induvial development – for example in relation to academic success, the individual experience of competence, personality development and self-esteem. However, on the other hand, data has shown the marginalized position of HLE in the school system, although HL teachers and stakeholders recognize the value of HLE for the integration of individuals at school but also in society. This points to a predominant approach of linguistic assimilation as the basis of integration of children with a migration background. Knowledge in HLs is seen as a personal, but hardly as a social added value. First results of the study have also shown that the weak integration of HLE and its staff into daily schooling limits the positive effect of HLE on the valorization of linguistic repertoires of children with a migration background. Structural changes and the curricular provision of HLE would contribute to the equality of all those involved in educational systems.

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