Mi(s) Lengua(s): educational paths for Hispanic students within Italian school

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Italian linguistic space has radically changed through the onset of the new millennium due to the presence of innovative multiple linguistic practices that have taken place as a consequence of deterritorialization processes. Furthermore, Latino diaspora in recent years have fostered the appearance of new forms of Global Spanishes (García and Otheguy 2014. “Spanish and Hispanic Bilingualism.” In The Routledge Handbook of Hispanic Applied Linguistics, edited by Manuel Lacorte, 639–658. London: Routledge) in many contexts of Northern Italy where Hispanic communities are numerous. In spite of the global sociolinguistic changes, the forms of minority bilingual practices are submitted to ideological stigmatisation by many public institutions. This is the case of educational settings, where the presence of not-vernacular repertoires can be considered an obstacle for transnational students although the expansion of all the codes that make up the bilingual repertoire is a key element towards students’ proper sociocognitive development. With this background in mind, I will offer the results of the action research Mi(s) lengua(s), an educational project inspired by a glottopolitical perspective, aimed at the inclusion of home language and culture in the educational paths of a group of middle school Hispanic students in Milan.