Cultural-linguistic diversity in Italy and Sweden? A sociomaterial analysis of policies for heritage language education

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we critically discuss the impact of policy documents on the construction of national narratives on the provision of support for cultural-linguistic diversity in education systems in two European countries. The analysis focuses upon a selection of national policy documents that deal with the planning and provision of HLE since the 1990s. We take critical pedagogy and sociomateriality as theoretical lenses to investigate educational policies on HLE. Thus, this study critically traces the ways in which language ideologies are enmeshed with legislative, political and educational discourses by following an inductive and retroductive process, wherein key-concepts, themes and critical configurations of HLE are mapped, compared, re-assembled and discussed in terms of a complex system. The analysis shows that the (non-)provision of HLE shapes the educational space and the value references and world views that prevail and are (re)produced in it. Emerging deficit perspectives, linguistic assimilation and marginalisation processes limit the path towards more inclusive and equitable educational institutions and practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural-linguistic diversity
• sociomateriality
• mother tongue
• language of origin
• heritage language education

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are texts that are publicly available through the URLs provided in the reference list of the article. Data are also available on request from the corresponding author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2024.2314380

Notes

1. While Italy has an inclusive school system, in Sweden the school system includes a range of different school forms, mainly depending on the groups that are targeted: e.g. special and sami schools and adult education. The terms for special school and special upper secondary school (särskolan and gymnasiesärskolan) have recently been changed to ‘accommodated/adapted school’. Different school forms have their curriculum wherein mother tongue is included as a school subject.

2. All translations of the quotations from Italian and Swedish are our own.

3. This happened only recently in 2022 when the new Government was installed in the Swedish Parliament, comprising right-wing parties. One of the first decisions stated in the so-called Tidöavtalet (Tidö agreement) was to start a national evaluation of MTT to investigate its possible negative influence on all pupils’ knowledge development in the Swedish language.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Giulia Messina Dahlberg

Giulia Messina Dahlberg is Senior Lecturer in Education at the Department of Education and Special Education, University of Gothenburg. Giulia holds a PhD in Education and her research interests deal with the study of the communicative practices of individuals dealing with a range of tasks both inside and outside institutional educational settings, especially when participants engage with different language varieties and modalities. She is particularly interested in issues of multilingualism and diversity and how these affect participation and inclusion. A central contribution of her research lies in its focus of what happens when we open up social sites, places and materialities to ‘diverse mobilities’ enabled by todays’ interconnectivity. Giulia has a background as an upper-secondary language teacher and she has worked in national programmes at university level over the past 15 years.

Barbara Gross

Barbara Gross is Junior Professor in Educational Science with a Focus on Intercultural Education at the Department for Education, Faculty of Philosophy, at the Chemnitz University of Technology and lecturer at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Italy). Barbara holds a PhD in Education from the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and her research interests include linguistic and cultural diversity, (in)equity and heterogeneity in educational institutions, intercultural and postcolonial approaches to education, critical diversity studies, and internationalisation of educational research.