News from Members

Language Diversity, Education and Learning in the Context of Migration and Diaspora Workshop

13–14 November 2025,  Iscte, Lisbon, Portugal

Across the globe, language education in migratory settings faces complex challenges shaped by social inequality, linguistic hierarchies, and political marginalization (Blommaert, 2010; García & Kleyn, 2016). Both the language learning and the language use of migrant students in educational institutions are often less defined by pedagogical concerns than by power dynamics related to legal status and politics of belonging and difference. While language education in migration and diaspora could foster feelings of belonging and be a tool for identity-making, it could also function as an exclusionary mechanism through racialization and bordering practices (Amy, 2006; Liddicoat & Heugh, 2014). What defines the language learning of migrant students is often power dynamics related to legal status and politics of belonging and difference rather than pedagogical concerns. While language education in migration and diaspora can foster feelings of belonging, it can also function as a bordering tool through students’ racialization and exclusion.

Heritage language (HL) education – often delivered in complementary or community-run schools – plays a vital role in constructing national and linguistic identities (Cummins, 2005; Fishman, 2006). Yet, these efforts frequently lack institutional recognition, sustainable funding, and access to appropriate pedagogical resources (Pauwels, 2016; Piller, 2016). Teachers working in HL contexts often do so without specialized training, while navigating competing ideologies around standard versus vernacular forms, and monolingual versus translanguaging approaches (Creese & Blackledge, 2011; García & Wei, 2014). In such classes or schools, teachers and learners also construct and negotiate identities and hierarchize language varieties (Yilmaz, 2018). Students, meanwhile, face identity tensions as they negotiate belonging across home and host societies, often within educational systems that fail to reflect their multilingual realities (Kanno & Varghese, 2010; Norton, 2013). Public discourses and policy frameworks further complicate the landscape, with many national systems continuing to uphold monolingual ideologies (Blackledge, 2000), further marginalising languages spoken by minority groups (May, 2012).

In national education systems, linguistic diversity and language learning efforts of migrant students are not only evaluated through ideologies of monolingualism (Panagiotopoulou & Rosen, 2018) but also logics of appropriateness and legitimacy (Flores & Rosa, 2015). Policies such as separate language classes for newly arriving migrant and refugee students are based on deficit thinking and lead to academic, social, and spatial exclusion (Hilt, 2017; Pérez-Milans & Patiño-Santos, 2014; Woltran et al., 2024). In educational landscapes, the language practices of international (racialised) students are often devalued through raciolinguistic ideologies that interpret their speech as deficient, deviant, or inappropriate, thereby reinforcing racial and colonial hierarchies under the guise of linguistic neutrality   (Alim, H. Samy et al., 2016; Flores & Rosa, 2015; Rosa & Flores 2017).

This workshop, organised by IMISCOE Standing Committee Education and Social Inequality (EduSocial) and Migration, Mobility and Ethnicity Research Group (CIES-Iscte), seeks to create a space for scholars to share innovative research and discuss inclusive, equitable, and culturally sustaining language education in the context of global migration.

We invite papers that explore how language functions not only as an assumed tool for integration but also as a site of resistance, adaptation, and identity negotiation (Canagarajah, 2013; Hornberger & Link, 2012). The workshop will address a wide range of themes related to the linguistic, educational, and sociocultural dimensions of migration and diaspora. It will explore how language functions both as a medium of inclusion and as a marker of identity, and how educational systems, communities, and families respond to the needs of multilingual learners in transnational contexts.

Key areas of focus include:

• The intergenerational transmission and maintenance of heritage languages in diasporic communities
• The role of complementary and community-based schools in sustaining linguistic and cultural continuity
• Multilingual education policies and practices in mainstream schooling contexts
• Teacher training and professional development in heritage language and multilingual settings
• Language learning experiences of migrant children, including academic, social, and identity-related dimensions
• Language ideologies and their role in reinforcing or challenging linguistic hierarchies
• The racialization of language learners and its implications for equity in education
• Language rights, recognition, and access to equitable educational opportunities
• Translingual practices and pedagogies in diverse and multilingual educational environments

Who Should Apply:

We welcome contributions from scholars from all qualification stages – PhD students, ECR, senior scholars – who are engaged in research related to language education and migration. We especially welcome perspectives that highlight underrepresented communities, comparative approaches, or interdisciplinary methodologies.

Submission & Acceptance Guidelines:

Please submit an abstract (max. 500 words) outlining your proposed contribution, including its relevance to the workshop themes.

We invite paper submissions for a focused academic gathering, where we will accept 10 papers to foster a rich and in-depth discussion. Selected contributions will be considered for inclusion in an intended special issue.

To support broad participation, we have a limited budget available to cover travel, accommodation, and meal costs for participants without institutional funding.

Important dates:

Deadline for Submission: 15th of June, 2025.

Notification of Acceptance: 30th of June, 2025.

Please send your abstracts to the contact persons:

Nubin Ciziri This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Lela Goginava This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tamila Carvalho: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

References

Alim, H. Samy, John R. Rickford, and Arnetha F. Ball (eds), Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Ideas About Race (New York, 2016; online edn, Oxford Academic, 22 Dec. 2016), https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190625696.001.0001

Blackledge, A. (2000). Monolingual ideologies in multilingual states: Language, hegemony and social justice in Western liberal democracies. Sociolinguistic Studies, 1(2), 2342. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v1i2.25

Blommaert, J. (2010). The Sociolinguistics of Globalization (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511845307

Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203073889

Creese, A., & Blackledge, A. (2011). Separate and flexible bilingualism in complementary schools: Multiple language practices in interrelationship. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(5), 1196–1208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.10.006

Cummins, J. (2005). A Proposal for Action: Strategies for Recognizing Heritage Language Competence as a Learning Resource within the Mainstream Classroom. The Modern Language Journal, 89(4), 585–592. JSTOR.

Fishman, J. A. (2006). Language Maintenance, Language Shift, and Reversing Language Shift. In T. K. Bhatia & W. C. Ritchie (Eds.), The Handbook of Bilingualism (1st ed., pp. 406–436). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756997.ch16

Flores, N., & Rosa, J. (2015). Undoing Appropriateness: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and Language Diversity in Education. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 149–171. https://doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.85.2.149

García, O., & Kleyn, T. (Eds.). (2016). Translanguaging with Multilingual Students (0 ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315695242

García, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging. Palgrave Macmillan UK. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137385765

Hilt, L. T. (2017). Education without a shared language: Dynamics of inclusion and exclusion in Norwegian introductory classes for newly arrived minority language students. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 21(6), 585–601. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2016.1223179

Hornberger, N. H., & Link, H. (2012). Translanguaging and transnational literacies in multilingual classrooms: A biliteracy lens. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 15(3), 261–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2012.658016

Kanno, Y., & Varghese, M. M. (2010). Immigrant and Refugee ESL Students’ Challenges to Accessing Four-Year College Education: From Language Policy to Educational Policy. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 9(5), 310–328. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2010.517693

Liddicoat, A.J., and K. Heugh. ‘Educational Equity for Linguistically Marginalised Students’. In The Routledge Handbook of Educational Linguistics, 79–91, 2014. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315797748-16.

May, S. (2012). Language and minority rights: Ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of language (Second edition). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203832547

Norton, B. (2013). Identity and Language Learning: Extending the Conversation. Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781783090563

Panagiotopoulou, J. A., & Rosen, L. (2018). Denied inclusion of migration-related multilingualism: An ethnographic approach to a preparatory class for newly arrived children in Germany. Language and Education, 32(5), 394–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2018.1489829

Pauwels, A. (2016). Language Maintenance and Shift (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107338869

Pérez-Milans, M., & Patiño-Santos, A. (2014). Language education and institutional change in a Madrid multilingual school. International Journal of Multilingualism, 11(4), 449–470. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2014.944532

Piller, I. (2016). Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199937240.001.0001

Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621–647. https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1017/S0047404517000562

Stuart, A. ‘Equal Treatment as Exclusion: Language, Race and US Education Policy’. International Journal of Inclusive Education 10, no. 2–3 (2006): 235–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603110500433405.

Woltran, F., Hassani, S., & Schwab, S. (2024). Pull-Out Classes for Newly Arrived Students from Ukraine – An Obstacle to Social Inclusion. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2024.2433515

Yilmaz, B. (2018). Language ideologies and identities in Kurdish heritage language classrooms in London. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2018(253), 173–200. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2018-0030