The paper deals - in the region between the Eastern Alps and the Northern Adriatic - with the issue of education of pupils in their native language as well as different national education policies regarding language and attitudes towards national minorities. Today's Slovenia and its neighbouring areas experienced changes in national borders, political systems, and school policies in four countries after World War I and World War II.

In  views of the school situation - in the 1910s (Austro-Hungary) and 1920s (Italy / Kingdom of SHS - Yugoslavia / Austria  / Hungary), the paper presents a change in attitudes towards language issues and (minority) education policy. The research focuses on the question of how Slovenian-German linguistic and school relations have changed since the times of Austria-Hungary, where German was the leading state language in the Austrian half of the country, and then became a minority language in the Kingdom of SHS / Yugoslavia at the end of 1918. 

After the First World War, education policy in all countries advocated teaching in the state language, with little or no sensitivity for linguistic and ethnic differences in each country. How did national minorities in four countries (Kingdom of SHS - Yugoslavia, Italy, Austria, Hungary) exercise their right to diversity and education in their mother tongue? How can we make a comparison of the educational situation of language minorities along the eastern borders of Italy (Slovenian, Croatian, German) with the German minority education in the Kingdom of SHS - Yugoslavia and the education of the Slovenian minority in Austria?

Due to major changes in language and school conditions, the final part will briefly present how the changes during and after WW2 with the migration of the German population (1941, 1945) and of the Italian population (1954) influenced the linguistic and national image of the region and the minority education. Knowledge of the dilemmas of modern primary school education also influences historical research. Does the primary school curriculum of the modern era, with openness to English as a foreign language from the beginning of school lessons, pose different challenges to teaching in the mother tongue? In the case of immigration, what is the challenge of modern initial teaching of elementary school students whose language of instruction is not their mother tongue?

On the basis of published literature, archival sources and pedagogical press, the contribution provides an overview of the discussed topic, especially in the time of changes and expectations after the First World War. In doing so, he mainly analyzes changes in the situation of the language of instruction, national and state education (politicization of education) and the education of national minorities, and compares Slovenian education in Austria-Hungary and four successor states where Slovenes live (Yugoslavia, Italy, Austria, Hungary). In the analysis, paper compares the position of the German national minority in the Slovenian part of Yugoslavia with the position of the Slovenian and German national minorities in Italy and the position of the Slovenian minority in Austria and Hungary in the period between the two wars. For the concluding questions of the actualization of teaching in the students' mother tongue, we briefly consider some examples of the initial teaching of immigrant children in elementary school.

The paper will show rapid breakthroughs and a very gradual acceptance of diversity in national education policy in terms of language issues, religious topics and national rights. The attitude towards national minorities, which is reflected in the state's efforts for linguistic and substantive (conceptual) unified education, is an example of the very limited acceptance of democratization and diversity in education after the First World War. Minority education is an example of diversity in education and draws attention to the degree of democratisation in society.

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