Within the scope of European research on migration-induced and minority-related language diversity there is a persisting disparity between familial home language practices and the so-called “monolingual Habitus” (Gogolin 1994) of educational institutions. Although most European school systems have a monolingual self-understanding, the actual reality of these states is linguistic diversity; the languages of migrants and minorities are indeed extremely vital in Europe (Extra 2008). The "Super Diversity” (Vertovec 2007) reference frame offers a theoretical starting point to grasp this disparity, as it is understood as a characterization of social positioning by means of a dynamic teamwork of linguistic, cultural and social phenomena which exceeds the magnitude and presents understanding of complexity in societies. Such a framework opens up research questions looking at language use, both in view of the individual development as well as concerning events in social subsystems (such as family, educational and other social institutions). It thus allows for a change of perspectives also in relation to the home-school relationship regarding language diversity. It states that the present knowledge of the impact that the complexity of the situation has on individual development is systematically insufficient as the categories employed in the analysis reify images which are no longer appropriate for the current social environment or the practice of individuals in societies. The OECD-PISA study offers an example for this disparity (Klieme, Artelt et al. 2010; Klieme, Artelt et al. 2010), as it captures language use by including the most frequently spoken language at home by  15-year-olds as a proxy for language use within the family.

Against this background, the paper's research questions are as follows:

(a)  Which methods and instruments are appropriate to grasp the new forms of linguistic (super) diversity of both migrant and minority families? What are limitations and problems of existing instruments?

(b) Which policies and measures can be developed in order to embrace this (super) diverse multilingualism in Euroepan educational instuitutions?

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