Albanian Parents and the Greek Educational Context: Who is Willing to Fight for the Home Language?

Abstract

This article examines views of Albanian immigrant parents regarding home-language maintenance in Greece. It aims to reveal language ideologies in relation to broader ideologies about schooling and education. Following a qualitative interpretative approach, we conducted semi-structured individual and group interviews with 19 parents of bilingual students. Parents express a range of ideological stances from total resistance to the dominant school monolingual ideology to passive acceptance and could be grouped into three categories: (a) the “fighters,” who make a conscious claim for home-language use and education; (b) the “probilingualism” parents, who partially consent to the dominant discourse of monolingualism in the Greek school; and (c) the “indifferent” parents, who appear not to be concerned about the future of the Albanian language. Data from interviews suggest that dominant school-language attitudes and practices play an important role in shaping the language views and practices of immigrant parents.