Multilingual forms of language acquisition have been a research field for many decades and numerous consequences have since then been applied within the area of education. However, large scale assessment studies called attention to the performance gap between pupils with and without a migration background. They also showed great variety across countries regarding educational disadvantages of migrant pupils (Schnepf 2007). Nonetheless, several research gaps persist, both in terms of methodological approaches of accessing and analysing data, as well as concerning content-related issues.
In terms of methodology, these large-scale international assessment studies provide useful information on the appropriateness of school systems for the group of multilingual speakers. The fact, however, that these rely on cross-sectional data brings along a number of restrictions with respect to uncovering the dynamic interplay and causal relations of relevant variables. Cross-sectional designed studies, comparing individuals of different age-cohorts at one point of measurement do not allow for inferences concerning intra-individual change over time, as age differences are confounded with cohort effects, for instance (Schrauf 2009). For empirical research that intends to explore individual development over time, a longitudinal design is required (Schrauf 2009). All three contributions of the proposed symposium thus derive from longitudinal designs, based on testing or observing one sample of individuals periodically over time.
Concerning content-related aspects, a second research gap has been repeatedly identified in the area of second language acquisition; investigation focused on later language development of multilingual speakers and possible cognitive factors influencing it (Nippold 2004, Nippold 2007, Tolchinsky 2004). Much research on language development has looked for exogenous factors possibly originating or reinforcing the above mentioned educational gap, such as interactional input, mechanisms of societal reproduction of inequality, structural aspects of educational systems. However, less efforts have been made in order to identify endogenous factors of cognitive nature as possible predictors for language performance and thus for school attainment. The paper from Gogolin & Duarte thus focuses on the role of working memory in predicting language development of multilingual adolescents in Germany. The contribution from van Gelderen, Trapman and Hulstijn emphasizes the role of linguistic and metacognitive knowledge and processing speed as predictors for performance in reading comprehension of mono- and bilinguals in a Dutch speaking context.
A further aspect in the study of later language development which has been rather neglected concerns the issue of multiple language acquisition of two second languages within multilingual university study programs. Growing globalisation movements have caused an intensification of multilingual study possibilities, mainly with English as one of its languages, but also with German, Spanish or French. However, the processes involved in this multiple language learning contexts and also their effectiveness in allowing high levels of language proficiency has not been studied from a longitudinal perspective. The third paper will thus emphasise the role of social networks for language proficiency in a context of multiple language learning.