Linguistic diversity in Portuguese schools: ideological and practical implications

Abstract

New migration flows from countries with no historical links with Portugal have transformed the country’s sociolinguistic landscape, creating an impact on the social aspects and ethnoglinguistic identities. The Portuguese state faced a challenge of promoting a quality education for immigrant children within the course on integration. After the initial lack of response to the linguistic diversity in Portugal’s schools, the Portuguese government formulated political guidelines for language-in-education diversity management. Most recent studies about multilingual contexts in education have gradually shifted the focus to teaching as a social practice while considering teachers, educators, caregivers, parents and students as actors of this practice. This change in perspective reinforces the link between practices and discourses that shape them. Drawing on the interview and observational data from a longitudinal linguistic ethnography around the site of an informal school organized by immigrant parents (2004-2012), this paper aims to discuss the ways in which language teaching practices and their interpretation by institutional agents, parents and children reflect the changes in offcial discourses in mainstream educational setings (e.g., PLNM discourses). The main emphasis is placed on identifying the discursive spaces available for other languages in Portuguese mainstream education and on the impact the commonly accepted language ideologies may have on identities of multilingual speakers.