Unveiling discourses on interculturality and identity construction in primary schools in Italy: a study based on translanguaging pedagogy

ABSTRACT

This work aims at describing results drawn from a data corpus collected in a translanguaging-based research project named L’AltRoparlante, carried out since 2016 in four multilingual schools in Northern and Central Italy, in order to promote and support inclusive multilingual education. In this contribution, we will focus on the analysis of a corpus of interviews conducted with the teachers (11) and the students (146) of two schools involved in the project. All the interviews were analyzed and coded with NVivo 11 Pro, applying the principles of Grounded Theory and Qualitative Content Analysis. Aiming at combining the research on translanguaging pedagogy with that on multicultural discourses, our work sheds light on two main issues: (1) teachers’ discourses on students’ sociolinguistic repertoires, and the promotion of inclusive education and interculturality at school; (2) emergent bilingual students’ legitimization of their plural linguistic identities, and the promotion of their heritage cultures as a resource for the whole class.

KEYWORDS:

• Translanguaging
• superdiversity
• interculturality
• Italian schools
• inclusive pedagogy

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributors

Andrea Scibetta is a Post-Doc fellow at the University for Foreigners of Siena and a Chinese language lecturer at the University of Florence. In 2017, he completed a PhD in Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition at the University for Foreigners of Siena. With his colleague Valentina Carbonara, he coordinates the project: “L’AltRoparlante: translanguaging educational practices for the management of the superdiversity in class”, which was awarded the European Language Label in 2018. His scientific activity concerns Chinese, L2 Italian teaching to Chinese students, the promotion of Chinese in Italian schools, multilingual education.

Valentina Carbonara completed her PhD in Linguistics and second language acquisition in 2017 at the University for Foreigners in Siena. She has taught Italian as a second language in different schools in Italy and abroad (Syria, Morocco and Turkey). She is co-coordinator of LEND (Languages and new didactics) in Siena branch. She collaborates with Bilingualism Matters (Siena branch), and with the colleague Andrea Scibetta she coordinates the project: “L’AltRoparlante: translanguaging educational practices for the management of the superdiversity in class”, which was awarded the Eueopean Language Label in 2018. Her research interests are: teaching Italian as a second language, early language education, CLIL, bilingualism and translanguaging.

Notes

1 This paper is a result of a research project managed collaboratively by both authors. Andrea Scibetta wrote the following sections: ‘The Intercultural dimension: Common Grounds with Superdiversity and Translanguaging’, ‘L’AltRoparlante project’ and ‘Teachers’ perspectives’. Valentina Carbonara wrote the sections ‘Translanguaging in the Wake of Italian Inclusive Education’, ‘Method’, ‘Students’ perspectives’ and ‘Conclusions’.