Ah, our village was beautiful ... Towards a critical social linguistics in times of migration and war

Abstract

It is extensively documented that Central European education systems are rather ill-equipped when it comes to coping with their students’ social and linguistic diversity. In consequence, students with home languages other than the school language face particular obstacles in the education system. In Germany and Austria, for example, one of the most serious obstacles they are confronted with is the early segregation of students into a ‘stronger’ and a ‘weaker’ group. Particularly for ‘immigrant’ students with home languages other than German, this segregation is known to account for massive disadvantages, as more than four years and/or specific support would be needed to acquire German on the required level. Their manifold language competencies, amongst others, remain largely unrecognized. Poor school success, in turn, also accounts for negative consequences when they get older and enter the labor market. This entails serious disadvantages for general participation in society – in other words: for ‘raising one’s voice’ and ‘being heard’ in key economic, social and political discourses and decision-making processes of society. In our contribution3 we will follow up on this matter. The aim is to empirically investigate two questions: first, how are educational disadvantages – i.e., unequal opportunities – constructed and put into action in the particular case of highly multilingual students? And second, can our insights contribute to breaking the vicious circle?