Abstract
AbstractThis paper seeks to show how language, combined with other social variables, exacerbates migrants’ and their descendants’ struggles at school and beyond in Luxembourg. To a certain extent, the official trilingualism of Luxembourg – French, German and Luxembourgish – corresponds to an ‘elite multilingualism’ (Garrido 2017; Barakos and Selleck 2018) which defines who can access certain resources, e. g. education, work etc., and who can be left playing catch-up. The latter are those migrants who I here conceive asmultilinguals on the margins. The elitist system is a form of domination and power over those whose language repertoire is less valued. Migrants’ disadvantage is further impacted by other indicators of their identity that can go beyond their educational qualifications and language repertoireper se, such as their country of origin, ethnicity, race, gender, citizenship etc. Language intersects with other forms of disadvantage or privileges. From an ethnographic sociolinguistic perspective, drawing on interviews and participant observations, this paper will illustrate this intersection of language, race and ethnicity, and struggles from the ground-level educational realities and aspirations of Cape Verdean migrants and their descendants in Luxembourg. This helps cast light on the social organisation in Luxembourg and understand the effects of multilingualism in creating ‘abyssal lines’ (Santos 2007) between the nationals, certain European migrants, Lusophone and African migrants in terms of social and economic mobility.
Highlights
This paper addresses specific moments of struggles concerning mobility and language of residents of Cape Verdean background in the Grand Duchy of Luxem
Cape Verdean migrants and their descendants in Luxembourg compose one of the social groups that struggle with official multilingualism from primary to higher education, as will be shown below
While Dominique was born to Cape Verdean parents in France, Carmen was born in Cape Verde, both of them had almost all their primary and secondary education in Luxembourg
Summary
Bernardino Tavares bourg, which is a small state at the heart of Europe and one of the richest countries in the world (Fehlen 2009). Within the EU, Luxembourg has the highest proportion of foreign residents, mostly other EU citizens, forming almost half (47,9 %) of its population (Statec 2017) It is often compared economically and socially with its three neighbouring countries – France, Belgium and Germany – from where most of its everyday labour force hails, i.e. the cross-border workers, who form 48 % of the country’s workforce (de Bres 2014; Franziskus and De Bres 2015; Powell et al 2017). Cape Verdean migrants and their descendants in Luxembourg compose one of the social groups that struggle with official multilingualism from primary to higher education, as will be shown below.
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