Statistically, the status of heritage language education in Austria (currently: Muttersprachlicher Unterricht/Erstsprachenunterricht) is well documented; there are a few recent studies on certain aspects of heritage language education in Austria (Hawlik 2021; Schrammel & Geldner 2022; Unterköfler-Klatzer et al. 2022), however in-depth studies are not yet available. This topic has received little attention in Austria, both from a scientific and a social point of view (Dalton-Puffer, Boeckmann & Hinger 2019). A research project by four universities of teacher education in the Austrian provinces of Carinthia, Styria, and Burgenland aims to fill these gaps. Using qualitative and quantitative research methods, heritage language teachers and school administrators have been interviewed about the training and professional development of heritage language teachers, their role and position in school teams and the organisational and methodological implementation of heritage language education. This presentation firstly sheds light on the most important project results. They are one more step towards scientific and systematic research into heritage language teaching in Austria and are aimed on developing measures to professionalise teachers and strengthen the role of heritage language education in research and practice. Secondly, a further focus of this presentation is on the tension between heritage language education and “German as a second language education” in Austria, which - politically promoted and propagated - increasingly occupies the most important position in the Austrian educational landscape concerning "intercultural education" (by a wide margin). For some time now, a trend can be observed: The number of schoolchildren with first languages other than German is rising, while the number of enrolments in heritage language education is falling. The latest political drafts for curricula at teacher training colleges only propagate German as a second language. This seems problematic from the perspective of critical intercultural pedagogy.

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