April 2, 2014

Clara Keating

The present study takes an ecological approach to language policies and ideologies in order to see how discursive spaces for languages other than the official language of instruction are being constructed in Portugal today. The research setting - a complementary school for children of Eastern European immigrants in a town in central Portugal - provided a unique opportunity to examine how language and literacy ideologies from different symbolic places (e.g. educational discourses in Portugal and home post-Soviet states, European discourses on multilingualism and integration of immigrant children, heritage talk and migrant parents' "opinions on language" (Billig 1986)) interacted and were negotiated in the complementary classroom and around the site. The study draws from a combined theoretical perspective of research on language socialization (Kramsch 2002; Lemke 2002; Scollon 2002; Bayley and Schecter 2003 etc.), within a sociocultural approach to literacy and learning (Vygotsky 1978; Rogoff 1991; Barton 1994; Lave and Wenger 2003 etc.), in multilingualism studies (Shohamy 2006; Heller 2007; Blackledge and Creese 2010; Blommaert 2006, 2010; Lytra and Martin 2010; Pennycook 2010), in spatial studies (Latour 1996; Low and Zuniga 2004; Brandt and Lincoln 2002), and research on bilingual and multilingual education (Hornberger 2002; García 2009). Methodologically, it represents a longitudinal ethnography of language and literacy practices (2004-2012) which attempts to find connections between the micro-level of diverse language and literacy teaching and learning practices around the complementary school, with the teaching and learning Portuguese as a non-native language in mainstream schools, and to situate them within the macro level of European, post-Soviet and Portuguese state language policies and practices. The study constructs a descriptive and analytical perspective using an array of research methods, such as textual analysis of policy documents, multimodal analysis of literacy artefacts and visual data (ethnographic photographs), as well as participant observations and semi-structured interviews with policymakers, parents and children. The critical stance of this ethnographic study consists in not only describing the distribution of symbolic power in top-down language and literacy policies and ideologies but also in identifying the spaces of its contestation in the local practices, which may emerge into new policies of higher scales.
The research findings fall into several categories: 1) trends in top-down language policies and practices; 2) contestation and emerging trends in bottom-up language policies and practices; 3) theoretical and methodological reflections toward a construction of new frameworks on multilingualism.