Linguistic diversity has become a defining feature of contemporary educational contexts because of intensified mobility, migration, and sociocultural transformation. Classrooms increasingly bring together students with diverse linguistic repertoires making multilingualism a normalised condition of schooling rather than an exception associated with specific programmes or groups (Bermingham & O’Rourke, 2018). Importantly, this diversification of students’ linguistic profiles means that multilingual education unfolds within multilingual classrooms, where teaching and learning take place in contexts shaped by learners’ heterogeneous linguistic resources beyond the language(s) of instruction (Duarte & Günther-van Der Meij, 2022). As a result, linguistic diversity raises fundamental questions about how languages are conceptualised, valued, and addressed within educational practice.

Traditionally, linguistic diversity in education has often been framed as a challenge, particularly in relation to academic achievement and classroom communication (Reese et al., 2021; Sáenz-Hernández et al., 2023). From this perspective, multilingual students’ linguistic repertoires have frequently been constructed through deficit-oriented discourses that position linguistic difference as a problem to be remedied. However, an expanding body of research has challenged this view, arguing that linguistic diversity and students’ full linguistic repertoires may also constitute a resource for learning and foster more inclusive educational environments (Nap et al., 2024; Sierens et al., 2018). One of the most widely recognized alternatives is the critical language awareness approach, which promotes positive attitudes towards linguistic diversity, legitimizes multilingual identities, and interrogates dominant language ideologies, exposing and challenging linguistic hierarchies (Hedman & Fisher, 2025; Hélot et al., 2018). Accordingly, implementing a project grounded in this perspective through a collaborative and dialogic methodological approach appears especially appropriate, as it supports critical engagement, mutual learning and the recognition of students’ linguistic repertoires (Bransford et al., 2000). 

In this regard, decisions concerning which languages are legitimised in schools, and how they are used (including the aforementioned approach), are not neutral or purely linguistic or pedagogical. Rather, they are embedded in language policy orientations that reflect dominant language ideologies and sociolinguistic hierarchies (Menken, 2008; Shohamy, 2006). Nevertheless, language policy cannot be understood solely as a set of top-down regulations. Recent scholarship conceptualises language policy as a multifaceted and dynamic phenomenon that operates across multiple dimensions and levels. From this perspective, language policy encompasses also practices at both school and classroom levels, as schools and classrooms can thus be understood as ideological and implementational spaces (Hornberger, 2005), where policy orientations are translated into practice, negotiated, and sometimes reconfigured through daily educational activity. Therefore, classrooms are not neutral arenas of implementation; rather, they are sites in which language-related meanings are continuously constructed and contested.

This theoretical framework is particularly relevant in the context of the Basque Country, where classrooms are characterized by a complex linguistic ecology that goes beyond the three curricular languages (Basque language, Spanish and English). Alongside these languages, a growing number of students bring diverse linguistic repertoires linked to migration. In this poster, we examine the linguistic attitudes of a group of students who participated in a project aimed at critically engaging with language hierarchies in the classroom. The project specifically addressed the power relations that continue to shape the minoritisation of Basque language, while at the same time conceptualising it as a language of social cohesion and intercultural communication. In addition, the project sought to make visible, acknowledge and value the linguistic diversity present in the local community. By opening up implementational space for these reflections and practices, the study explores how students’ engagement with multilingualism and language ideologies may reshape their attitudes towards Basque, other languages, and linguistic diversity in education.

The study was conducted in a primary school located in a predominantly Basque-speaking town, where Basque is the main language of everyday communication and schooling, although the town itself is situated within a largely Spanish-speaking area characterised by considerable linguistic diversity. In this context, the study was guided by the following research question: How do collaborative and dialogic classroom practices shape the ways students articulate linguistic attitudes and language hierarchies within a pedagogical project focused on language and diversity? To address this question, a qualitative observational approach was adopted. Data were collected through classroom observation during the implementation of the project, with particular attention paid to two interrelated dimensions. First, the study examined participation and interactional practices that emerged in collaborative group work, focusing on how dialogic spaces enabled students to articulate, negotiate and co-construct meanings around language, power and diversity. Second, the analysis focused on the linguistic attitudes expressed by students during these interactions, including how they positioned Basque, other curricular languages and minoritised languages within their discourse. Observations were carried out in a mixed-grade classroom combining 5th and 6th grade students, as part of an intentional organisational model that brings together two school years within the same group. Finally, the poster presents selected findings from this analysis, illustrating how collaborative and dialogic practices functioned as spaces for critical reflection and how students’ attitudes towards linguistic diversity and language hierarchies were articulated and, in some cases, reconfigured through participation in the project.

This study highlights the pedagogical potential of opening up implementational spaces through collaborative and dialogic practices to engage students with issues of language, power and linguistic diversity. Collaboration functioned as a central mechanism through which students were able to articulate, negotiate and reflect on different perspectives related to language hierarchies and multilingualism. Collaborative interaction created conditions for more extended, reflective and cognitively demanding contributions. These findings resonate with research on cooperative learning, which consistently shows that dialogic group work fosters participation, a sense of community and opportunities for learners to explain, justify, challenge and build on one another’s ideas in ways that are less likely to emerge in teacher-led whole-class instruction (Bransford et al., 2000). In addition, the study reinforces the relevance of multilingual and critical language awareness perspectives in educational contexts characterised by increasing linguistic diversity (Hélot et al., 2018; Sierens et al., 2018). Rather than framing multilingualism as an additional challenge, opening up implementational spaces allowed linguistic diversity to be approached as a pedagogical resource and as a site of ideological negotiation. From this perspective, language awareness is not limited to fostering knowledge or positive attitudes, but actively seeks to challenge the reproduction of sociolinguistic inequalities. Finally, creating spaces for students’ voices contributes to a more democratic understanding of language policy (Levinson et al., 2009). Opening up implementational spaces to students thus becomes central to strengthening participatory forms of governance and to conceiving education as a space for social change. This framework is particularly significant in contexts such as the Basque Country, where hegemonic language hierarchies persist, minoritised languages remain in processes of normalisation, and classrooms are increasingly multilingual, but this form of critical engagement is equally pertinent with multilingual contexts in which schools negotiate the coexistence of minoritised and dominant languages.

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