Language diversity as resource or as problem? Educator discourses and language policy at high schools in the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

The ways in which educators talk about diversity, and specifically about linguistic diversity, reflect underlying beliefs about language in society and influence teaching practice. Semi-structured interviews with 55 high school teachers in the Netherlands were analyzed qualitatively in order to identify teachers’ discourse patterns related to the backgrounds and home languages of their students as well as language policies in the school context. The teachers struggle with the labels to categorize students with migration backgrounds, showing awareness of problematic insider-outsider labels. In terms of language diversity, deficit discourses about home languages and a monolingual focus on Dutch acquisition for immigrants highlights the prevalence of a language-as-problem orientation in decisions about language use. Language policy is focused on the development of skills in the target language, Dutch, and the promotion of a Dutch-only norm in the high schools. However, some interviewees describe the potential resource of the mother tongue in the classroom. Highlighting taken-for-granted assumptions in the discourses of Dutch teachers does not negate their best intentions in preparing their students for society. Rather it demonstrates the influence of language ideologies on teaching practice and the importance of teacher preparation and increased awareness of students’ home language resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher discourses
• Netherlands
• language policy
• language ideology
• language orientations

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the insightful contributions of student interviewers Wouter Brons, Defne Cam, Lisa Momoko Schmidt, Paul Musso, Sophia Queckenberg, Ana Roozendaal, and Jakob Semb Aasmundsen.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This project was made possible by a local municipality through a collaboration of schools, research institutions and policymakers, coordinated by Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching [Kenniswerkplaats Diversiteit]. The second author was supported by a grant of this local municipality. The first author was supported with funding from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 752550 [Voices of Belonging].