Session Information
31 ONLINE 25 A, Educational responsiveness to language diversity: What approaches are needed for evolving contexts?
Paper/Poster Session
MeetingID: 810 4757 8710 Code: rif6WL
Contribution
Linguistic diversity is a very old reality. The focus of the current study is on linguistic diversity mainly linked to mobility and immigration [1]. The high number and diversity of languages that coexist in a given society have increased, and multilingual classrooms are a reality[2], even in (rare) countries like Portugal, usually considered monolingual. Portugal was for centuries a country of emigrants and became a country of immigrants at the end of the 20th century, although having a lower percentage of migrants when compared to other European countries[3]. The dual reality of Portugal, country of emigration and country of immigration, leads to an ambiguous position as regards the teaching of second and heritage languages. In terms of language policy, there have been strong efforts towards the teaching of the heritage language for Portuguese emigrant communities. However, regarding immigrant communities, only Portuguese language is taught in schools. In Portugal, there was an influx of non-native Portuguese speakers, of African origin, in the 1970s (the result of decolonization), but due to the situation (they were Portuguese citizens) the teaching of Portuguese as a second language was not considered. The first official document in Portugal for the teaching of Portuguese as a second language dates from 2001.This communication presents some of the results of an ongoing research project, financed by the migrations support fund (FAMI). This is a project carried out in a partnership between the University of Lisbon and an NGO – Renovar a Mouraria, which works with immigrants in the central area of Lisbon, where there is a high density of immigrant population. The project brings together Linguistics, and researchers on Education and Migration.
The main objectives of the project are the following:
- To characterize the Portuguese context in what concerns multilingual education.
- To collect data about the challenges of children and young immigrants and refugees faced during the pandemic constraints.
- To study the schools’ responses to linguistic diversity and the teaching of Portuguese as a second language, to minimize the vulnerability of these populations.
The main research questions are:
(1) What are the challenges children and young immigrants have faced in learning during the pandemic?
(2) What is the impact of pandemic on their learning processes and competence on L2 from their personal point of view?
This study is being carried out in three school clusters in Lisbon, with a high concentration of students with an immigrant background. The study was authorized by the ethics committee of the University of Lisbon, being part of an ongoing project. In this communication, we present the results regarding a) the study about Portuguese responses to children and young people with migrant background or asylum seekers and b) the impact of the pandemic context on the educational paths of children and young immigrants. In other words, we will focus the analysis on the integration of this population at schools, on the conditions that result from the pandemic, and the main challenges on children learning.
Method
.The study adopts a mixed approach, involving the collection of quantitative and qualitative data in an integrative way. The central assumption of this methodological approach is that combining qualitative data with quantitative data produces a more comprehensive view may be attained, beyond the information provided by only one or the other [4]. It is a case study that aims to understand a phenomenon, embedded in its natural context, from a humanistic perspective. Therefore, this research will be particularistic and singular since the data imprint an identity of the reality under study and the focus is well delimited [5]. In a contextualized way, various sources and techniques will be used, with the purpose of obtaining the different perspectives that translate the complexity of the phenomenon [6]. The techniques, the instruments used, and the participants, according to each research method, will be the following: (1) Focus groups, with the support of guidance and recording scripts, to the target population- children, youths, families; (2) Semi-structured interviews, using interview scripts, to school leaders, teachers and key persons identified within the educational community; (3) Class’ observation, through an observation protocol, in the classes and in the support groups for the students who benefit from them; (4) Documentary analysis of PLNM (Português Língua Não Materna) curricula and legal documents framing the reception of migrants, based on an analysis matrix; (5) Questionnaire survey to teachers, students and young people not attending school or working contexts, based on questionnaires validated in previous researches. Questionnaire surveys will be applied to an expected sample of 300 participants. The participants are students from three school clusters in Lisbon and young learners of L2 attending L2 courses. The processing and analysis of qualitative data will be carried out using content analysis, while quantitative data will be treated according to statistical analysis, with the support of SPSS software. In this case, using a mixed methodology, inferences in both quantitative and qualitative databases are made [4] The ethical issues comply with the rules set out in the General Data Protection Regulation, to preserve the participants' anonymity and data confidentiality
Expected Outcomes
Migrant children or asylum seekers are faced with learning challenges and assessment in the Portuguese language. For many, there is the risk of underperforming. These students are at risk when compared with their native-born peers in Portuguese schools. We show how policy makers respond to these populations in regular times, and how schools and families mobilized themselves to face the extreme conditions of pandemic, for minimizing the difficult conditions of these vulnerable populations
References
[1] UNO (eds.) (2017). International Migration Report 2017. Highlights. ONU, New York (ST/ESA/SER.A/404) [2] Dockrell, J. E., Papadopoulos, T. C., Mifsud, C. L., Bourke, L., Vilageliu, O., Bešić, E., Seifert, S., Gasteiger-Klicpera, B., Ralli, A., Dimakos, I., Karpava, S., Martins, M., Sousa, O., Castro, S., Knudsen, H., Donau, P., Haznedar, B., Mikulajová, M., & Gerdzhikova, N. (2021). Teaching and learning in a multilingual europe: Findings from a cross-european study. European Journal of Psychology of Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-020-00523-z [3] Martins, M. A., Sousa, O., Castro, S. L., Dockrell, J., Papadopoulos, T., Mifsud, C. (2019). Views from Portuguese teachers on multilingualism and educational practices in multilingual classrooms. Analise Psicologica, 37(4), 493-506. https://doi.org/10.14417/ap.1622 [4] Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Fifth edition. SAGE. [5] Merriam, S. (1988). Case study research in education: A qualitative approach. CA: Jossey Bass. [6] Amado, J. (2013). Manual de Investigação Qualitativa em Educação. Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.