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Participation and democratic life

Children’s voice and democracy

Promoting multilingualism in the classroom

Language awareness

Family & School Partnership

Multilingualism at school and in the family

Social justice and human rights

Economic inequalities & Social Justice

Justice and particularly social justice are concepts that underpin democracy and human rights education. Social justice has increasingly been connected to global dynamics and to other (global) relevant concepts, namely human rights education (e.g., Agartan, 2014; Banai, Ronzoni, Schemmel, 2011a; Department Of Economic And Social Affairs. Division for Social Policy and Development, 2006). Furthermore, this concept has increasingly been used throughout educational settings and actors (Darling-Hammond, French, & Garcia-Lopez, 2002).

Generally speaking, social justice refers to a just distribution within societies of wealth, opportunities, and privileges. More specifically, social justice can be defined as “principles that set stringent limits to permissible socioeconomic inequalities, even if not all of them require strict equality” (Banai, Ronzoni, Schemmel, 2011b, p. 59). In everyday life settings are embedded opportunities to explore, experience and learn more about social justice and how everyone is responsible for building a world with a just and equitable distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges within societies.

Hackman (2005) defines “social justice education to include student empowerment, the equitable distribution of resources and social responsibility, and her processes to include democracy, a student-centered focus, dialogue, and an analysis of power. Social justice education does not merely examine difference or diversity but pays careful attention to the systems of power and privilege that give rise to social inequality, and encourages students to critically examine oppression on institutional, cultural, and individual levels in search of opportunities for social action in the service of social change” (p. 104). The author further suggests five essential components for social justice education:

Content mastery;
Tools for critical analysis;
Tools for social change;
Tools for personal reflection;
Awareness of multicultural group dynamics.

First, to participate in positive and proactive social change, students must have access to broad and deep levels of information on local, national and global issues that society currently faces and historical contextualization, learning how to critically examine content and effective dialogue about it with others. However, content mastery alone is insufficient to create democratic and empowering education. A careful and critical consideration of issues of oppression, power and privilege is needed to provide deep knowledge and a pathway to action. Ultimately, ongoing and critical self-reflection helps creating an effective social justice educational and empowering environment. In this way, social justice education can empower and encourage children to act, participate, express and defend their and each other’s rights as part of their everyday citizenship. Moreover, effective social justice education recognizes group dynamics as explained by constructed social identities and multicultural perspectives (Hackman, 2005). Overall, education for social justice enables children to learn:

how interconnected we all are
how to challenge dualisms
how to value differences
how to think critically about the world and the communities where we live
how everyone can be a part of creating a world with greater justice, equity and human rights for all.

Agartan, K. (2014). Globalization and the question of social justice. Sociology Compass, 8(6), 903-915.
Asia Society/OECD (2018). Teaching for Global Competence in a Rapidly Changing World. Paris/New York: OECD Publishing/Asia Society, doi: 10.1787/9789264289024-en.
Banai, A., Ronzoni, M., Schemmel, C. (2011b). Global social justice. The possibility of social justice beyond states in a world of overlapping practices. In Banai, A., Ronzoni, M., Schemmel, C. (Eds.) Social Justice, Global Dynamics: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, pp. 46-60.New York: Routledge.
Banai, A., Ronzoni, M., Schemmel, C. (2011a). Social Justice, Global Dynamics: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Council of Europe (2010). Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
Darling-Hammond, L., French, J., & Garcia-Lopez, S. P. (2002). Learning to teach for social justice. New York: Teachers College Press.
Department Of Economic And Social Affairs. Division for Social Policy and Development (2006). The International Forum for Social Development. Social Justice in an Open World The Role of the United Nations. New York: United Nations.
Flowers, N. (2007). Compasito. Manual on human rights education for children. Hungary: Council of Europe Publishing.
Gollob, R., Krapf, P., Weidinger, W., & Ơlafsdơttir, Ơ. (2010). Educating for democracy: Background materials on democratic citizenship and human rights education for teachers (Vol. 1). Belgium: Council of Europe.
Hackman, H. W. (2005) Five Essential Components for Social Justice Education. Equity & Excellence in Education, 38(2), 103-109, doi: 10.1080/10665680590935034
Oxfam GB (2006) Education for Global Citizenship, A Guide for Schools. United Kingdom: Oxfam Development Education.

Promoting Intercultural Sensitivity

The link between language and culture

A level of privileged analysis for observing this relationship is pragmatics. Between languages and cultures there are differences and analogies for social and interaction behaviours that manifest themselves on the linguistic level.

For example, the kind of relationship we have with the person we are speaking to can change the way we speak.

In Italian, we express whether we have a formal or non-formal relationship with the person we are speaking to through the choice of the pronoun: we use tu for example with friends and lei with someone less intimate (a medical doctor for example). However, for people who are not native speakers, this distinction is anything but trivial: if a native Italian speaker can (almost) always confidently choose the most appropriate pronoun for the situation, this is not always easy for a foreign speaker. To make the best choice, a series of parameters that even native speakers would not be able to list with precision, that "they have always known", come into play. Among other things, the relationship between people, age, but also concrete situations have relevance. For example, if two adults who do not know each other bump into each other on the street, they will use lei, but if a person asks another (a total stranger) where the bar is located at a music festival, tu will be used. These choices regarding formal or informal speech also change over time within the same cultural and social context.

Then there are some languages where the social relationships between speakers is even more significant in terms of the communicative exchange. For example, in Javanese, a language spoken in Indonesia and Malaysia, it is always necessary to indicate the social relationship that one has with one's interlocutor. A sentence with the same referential meaning (i.e. concrete meaning) will be different according to the social status, profession, age, nationality and many other characteristics of the person whom I address. For example, the word “house” will be translated as omah, grija or dalem: the three words indicate exactly the same referent (concrete object), but the first is used if you are talking to a person of low social class, the second to someone from the middle-class and the third, to a higher class person.

Regarding greetings, understood the words and gestures that open (and close) an actual conversation, the languages of the world behave in very different ways. Compared to the European languages, Arabic devotes many more words to this ritual. While in English, the conversation can begin after a simple exchange of greetings (-Hello! -Hello!), In Jordan Arabic, after the exchange of greetings, information on the state of the health of the interlocutor and their family is requested, God is thanked and only at this point can the conversation begin. This practice is also present in Wolof, a language spoken in Senegal- since this country has been largely Islamicized, together with the language this communicative practice has also been inherited.

Another example of very different linguistic practices involving the pragmatic dimension is rejection. In Chinese, for example, you avoid refusing with a simple and dry no, but instead use expressions such as wŏ yŏu shì, translatable as "I have something to do". This sentence is not followed by a request for information about future plans, as would be acceptable, for example, in Italian. This answer is to be understood in all respects as a refusal.

There are therefore different styles of communication that manifest different ways of understanding oneself, one's relationships with others, but also the world in which one lives.

Consider the way of representing time in Aymara, a South American language (see Dodman 2013: 25). In Indo-European languages such as English and Italian, the past is conceived as something that lies behind us while the future awaits us, before us. In Aymara, this representation is reversed: the past, in fact, is before us because, having already passed, we can see it; the future, inversely, is unknown, we cannot know it (and therefore see it) and because of this, it is behind us.

In addition to time, space can also be thought of in different ways based on the language spoken. For example, a speaker of a European language tends to conceive of space and the objects that are placed in it according to their position. So, for example, in English I would say that a certain object is in front or behind, right or left, depending on where I am (or in relation to another object that I consider relevant). So I will have a vision of space that changes in relation to the point that I take as a reference: I will say, for example, there is a market in front of me (I am the reference point) or there is a market in front of the church (the church is the reference point). The speakers of guugu yimithirr, an Australian aboriginal language, on the other hand, have a conception of space that is called "absolute". The words to indicate where the objects are located work in a similar way to the cardinal points: it does not matter where I stand in relation to the object because the east will always remain the place where the sun rises and the west where it sets. So, if I want to explain where a certain object is (big or small, near or far) I will use words like east, west, south and north (Levinson 1997). This different way of representing space has consequences on how the speakers of guugu yimithirr move in space. If they are in an unknown place, they remember where objects are found not based on coordinates bound to their position (such as front, back, right and left), but based on cardinal directions where objects are placed. Thus, space is cognitively conceived of in a very different way than for a speaker of a European language.

Bettoni, C., 2006, Usare un’altra lingua. Guida alla pragmatica interculturale, Bari, Laterza.

Cardona, G. R., 2006, Introduzione all’etnolinguistica, Torino, UTET.

Curci, Annamaria, 2012, “Il quadro di riferimento degli approcci plurale alle lingue e alle culture (CARAP), Italiano lingua due n.2 (2012). Disponibile al sito: https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/promoitals/article/view/2824

Deutscher, G., 2010, Through the Language Glass: How words colour your world, New York, Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Co.

Dodman, M., 2013, Linguaggio e plurilinguismo: apprendimento, curricolo e competenza. Trento, Erickson.

Keckses I., 2014, intercultural pragmatics, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Levinson, S. C., 1997, “Language and cognition: the cognitive consequences of spatial description in Guugu Yimithirr”, in: Journal of Linguistic Antrhopology 7(1), 98-131.

Nettle, D. e S. Romaine, 2000, Vanishing voices, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Zorzi, D., 1996, “Dalla competenza comunicativa alla competenza comunicativa interculturale”, in: Babylonia 2(1996), 46-52. (disponibile on line: https://www.itals.it/alias/dalla-competenza-comunicativa-alla-competenza-comunicativa-interculturale)

https://www.sil.org

https://www.ethnologue.com/ (this resource is more important as a repertoire of the languages of the World - families, number of speakers, etc.)

http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/ (this project collects data about languages that are currently at risk of disappearing)

https://www.soas.ac.uk/elar/ (this SOAS archive collects data on languages that risk extinction)

https://www.coe.int/en/web/language-policy/home

http://lingvo.info/it

https://en.iyil2019.org/

Promoting Second Language Learning

Promoting multilingualism in the family

Living with more than one language

Living with more than one language can be very rewarding. This is especially true for families who have moved countries. It helps them to balance maintaining old ways of life with the new. However in everyday life, living with several languages can be quite complicated. Languages are connected to feelings, people and places, and they can have many different meanings.

For families, moving between different languages can be tricky. It can make the dynamic in families quite challenging. Parents will have ideas about the languages they want to use at home and children will not always follow these ideas. They will bring in their own ideas. This can led to tensions and conflicts.

As a parent you need to know that you are not alone. Many families face these situations at home. Sometimes you might feel that it would be easier to give up on your heritage language.

What helps children’s language development in general is if young children hear the languages parents are comfortable and competent with at home. Talking in your strongest language with you child has a number of advantages:

It means that the child will have good quality language experiences at home;
Being able to communicate with you child in the language you feel comfortable with will make interactions and relationships easier – especially as your child gets older;
In addition, if you don’t pass on to your child something that is as important to you as your language, this can feel as a loss.

If you only speak your heritage language at home as a family, you might be worried that your child will struggle when starting school. Research shows that strong first language skills help children to learn the second language. At the same time, to become bilingual, children need to hear and use both languages.

Fitting in both languages will help our child in school, but can be a juggle and will not always go smoothly. Often the balance in how you use your languages at home will change over time and need readjusting. What is important is to notice tensions and difficulties when they come up, so that you can think and talk about them and find the best way as a family!

Changes are likely to happen as children grow up. Readjustments will be needed at times, for example when children start preschool or school. This can be a challenging time. Children will now hear and use the school language for some hours every day. New language experiences can be intense, and you might find that children will not always switch back to their home language when coming home in the afternoon.

As a parent you might observe your child ‘experimenting’ with their new language skills in playful ways. For example they might build words or sentences in the new language into their role play. As children increasingly start to master the new language, it can feel easier for them to carry on using it at home. It is quite likely that they will try to use it when speaking at home to their siblings and parents. In fact, children might be quite persistent to use one language more than the other and you as a parent might find this difficult to change.

The struggle to find a balance that feels right to you and your child can bring tensions into interactions and relationships at home. Sometimes it might feel more comfortable to adapt to your child’s language choices. In addition, daily life can be demanding especially when dealing with children. For instance, think of a day that you are rushing to a school meeting or elsewhere and you need to get ready with your child as soon as possible. Your child is being playful and you have no time to deal with that…

As a parent you need to be aware that not using, or only sometimes using the heritage language at home will mean that your child will over time develop better language skills in the other language. If children do not hear and actively use their heritage language, they will start losing their skills in that language and probably become fluent only in the majority language.

Moving between different languages and finding the right balance is challenging for families. However, studies of bilingual and multi-lingual families show that it is not an impossible task to provide children with the opportunity to practice and learn more than one language. As a parent you will find that you will need to persist with the heritage language, and that you will need to find positive ways of reinforcing it. For instance, when your child says or asks for something, you can translate it back to her or switch language when asking a question rather than of simply responding to your child‘s needs.

Settling into preschool or school can be more challenging for children who are less familiar with the school language. Children might be more irritated and emotional for a while, and at preschool or school children might first go through a silent period. These experiences are common in bilingual and multilingual families.

Try not to work only on your own: bilingual and multilingual language development can also be hugely supported by other people in the environment. Contact with grandparents and the wider family, time spent in the country of origin, and friends in the community who use the heritage language can all support parents in the task of using and maintaining the heritage language. As a parent, it will help you if you make most of these helpful opportunities. What also matters is how the preschool or school responds to issues bilingual and multilingual children bring with them, and if and how they encourage the presence of families’ heritage language in school. As a parent it will be important for you to make sure school understands your language background and knows about how you balance your languages at home.

The benefits of storytelling

Professional Development Activities

Critical incidents

Critical incidents (or bumpy moments) are commonly used to foster professional development in cross-cultural training. They consist of brief descriptions of situations in which there is a misunderstanding, problem, or conflict, that may arise from cultural differences or assumptions between people who interact.

In the intercultural context, a critical incident has three distinctive features (Fiedler, Mitchell Triandis, 1971; Weiss, Syring and Kiel, 2018):

it depicts a typical, everyday situation in which representatives of one culture interact with representatives of another culture;
the situation does not go as expected, causing conflict, confusion or ambiguity for at least one party;
the behaviours of the interacting people might easily lead to misinterpretation without sufficient knowledge about their respective cultures.

A peculiarity of a critical incident is that it “gives only enough information to set the stage, describes what happened, and possibly provides the feelings and reactions of the parties involved. It does not explain the cultural differences that the parties bring to the situation. These are discovered or revealed as part of the exercise” (Wight, 1995: 128). A Critical Incidents Exercise (CIE) does not give interpretations or possible solutions from which to choose. Rather, it encourages professionals to come up with their own solution, giving more thought to the situation and identifying what they would likely do if they were in that situation (Tripp, 1993; Wight, 1995).

Because of their nature, critical incidents can be a powerful tool for professional development since (Brookfield, 1990; de Frankrijker, 1998; McAllister et al., 2006):

they contribute to increase professionals’ awareness of their own culturally determined values and accompanying behaviours and those of other cultures;
they stimulate flexible and open attitudes;
being open to multiple interpretations, they represent a rich vein for fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

In the sections OBSERVE AND REFLECT of the ISOTIS VLE, you can find some CIEs, presented as ‘Cases’, on different topics:

Parent-Professional relationship;
Promoting multilingualism.

Each CIE presents a set of questions provided to stimulate and guide your reflection and critical thinking. Some of those questions concern the specific episode presented in the case, while others will engage you in thinking what you would likely would do if you were in that situation, and to design possible strategies/activities you can implement with the children/families you work with to address the issue at the core of the episode.

You can use the provided CIEs to reflect by yourself or as a stimulus to discuss with your colleagues.

Moreover, you can upload and share eventual critical incidents you have experienced.

Reflecting on a CIE with your colleagues can maximize your learning opportunities through the comparison of different viewpoints.Let's see some suggestions on how to use it as a group exercise working on the following example:

1. Read the following critical incident individually, underline words or sentences you consider crucial to interpret this episode or that impress you the most:

The following episode occurred in a primary school.

An Albanian student – who speaks and understands Italian well – was not doing too well in school and often misbehaved, arguing with his classmates and even raising his hands against them. [...] His teachers tried to implement possible strategies to overcome these problems. They succeeded at the academic level. As for the rest, the situation remained mostly unchanged.

After a while, some parents of other students started to express their disappointment to the teachers about their children often coming home with scratches, bruises... The teachers decided to summon the boy’s family. A written notice was sent through the boy’s diary, with a request for a signature by one of the parents to confirm they actually read it. The notice was not signed, despite repeated requests made to the boy. One day the pupil reported that his parents did not want to sign. The teachers interpreted this refusal as a severe lack of respect towards them. (Adapted from Luatti)

2. Individually try to answer the following guiding questions:

Why do you think the boy’s parents behaved the way they did?
What personal or cultural-specific motives may explain the parent’s refusal to sign the notice?
What would you do if you were the teacher?
Re-read the CI aloud together with your colleagues and share your reflections about it;
Consider what missing information may be important to correctly interpret the event and the reactions of all the parties involved. This missing information may encompass both:
- the contextualization of the case (e.g., how was the relationship between the teachers and the boy’s parents before the episode? Did the parents speak Italian? Did they ignore other written notices before?);
- specific culture-bound values and/or assumptions implicitly at stake (e.g., what cultural values about school, education or family-school communication may be behind the parent’s refusal?).

You may need more time to make assumptions and gather more information (especially at the second level). In this case, you may consider to assign each member of your group a specific task in collecting missing information and plan a second meeting to share the new information collected.

3. Jointly discuss possible strategies or an alternative course of actions you would use if you were in a similar situation;

Move on reading to know the conclusion of the episode.

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