As educators working today in French schools either on the mainland or in overseas territories (the two contexts are intrinsically linked by their colonial past), it beholds us to implement inclusion and social justice meaningfully. This means that we cannot continue to ignore the double impact of colonial history and imperialistic oppression on school failure, two factors which according to García (2017) and Hélot (2019) are at the heart of most multilingual contexts today. Therefore, we have crossed research on subaltern studies with research on translanguaging and argued that both theories can provide us with the conceptual tools we need to deconstruct the paradigm of absolute effciency that separates the world today, no longer in terms of what is fair or unfair but according to the survival of the fttest, or between former masters and new slaves (Camus 1951/2010). We believe this is possible from the very frst years of early schooling, that is from the beginning of the appropriation of named languages, and the subordination of human beings to market driven societies.

### **References**

Fairclough, N. ([1995] 2013). Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Routledge.

García O. (2007). Foreword. In S. Makoni & A. Pennycook (Eds.), Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages (pp. xi–xv). London: Multilingual Matters.

Wharton (Eds.). Du plurilinguisme à l'école. Vers une gestion coordonnée des langues en contextes éducatifs sensibles (pp. 359–378). Berne: Peter Lang.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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### **Translanguaging in Early Childhood Education in Luxembourg: From Practice to Pedagogy**

### Claudine Kirsch and Claudia Seele

### **Abstract**

An inclusive translanguaging pedagogy aims to promote learning and participation by drawing on the learners' entire semiotic repertoire. The focus of this chapter are the translanguaging practices of four early years practitioners in Luxembourg. We analyse the deployment of their linguistic repertoire, their reasons for translanguaging, and the ways in which their practices contributed to inclusion and participation. We found that the practices comprised using linguistic resources dynamically, translating, and 'home languaging,' and depended on the practitioners' pedagogical stance. We argue that multilingual practices need to be embedded in a refexive translanguaging pedagogy in order to enhance inclusion.

### **Keywords**

Early childhood education · Luxembourg · Translanguaging pedagogy · Inclusion

C. Kirsch (\*)

University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
C. Seele RAA Mecklenburg-Vorpommern e. V., Waren (Müritz), Germany e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© The Author(s) 2020

J. A. Panagiotopoulou et al. (eds.), *Inclusion, Education and Translanguaging*, Inklusion und Bildung in Migrationsgesellschaften, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-28128-1\_5

### **1 Introduction**

Educational institutions worldwide must cope with increasingly heterogeneous intakes and, therefore, monolingual pedagogical strategies are no longer appropriate. Owing to migration and globalisation, a growing number of children enter these institutions with more varied linguistic repertoires than those of the dominant majority. However, their resources are neither fully acknowledged by education systems nor systematically included in policies, curricula and teaching practices. In education, inclusion refers to 'a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all children, youth and adults through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities' (UNESCO 2009, p. 8 f.). The index for inclusion in early childhood education (Booth et al. 2008) provides professionals with concrete strategies that promote inclusion such as recognising cultural and linguistic diversity as a resource, showing respect for children's identities and cultures, and drawing on differences to support play, learning and the participation of all children. Language policies on early language education of the European Commission address the necessity to accommodate children's diverse needs and backgrounds, and promote equal opportunities and social justice (e.g. European Commission 2011). Translanguaging is a central pillar for realising more inclusive, learner-centered, multilingual pedagogies (García and Li Wei 2014; García et al. 2017). As a sociolinguistic and socio-educational concept, translanguaging refers, on the one hand, to the process of deploying one's entire semiotic repertoire to make meaning and communicate and, on the other hand, to pedagogical practices that leverage these processes to support learning and participation (García and Otheguy 2019).

In Luxembourg, multilingualism is an everyday reality (Fehlen and Heinz 2016). Apart from the three offcial languages – Luxembourgish, French and German – many more are spoken on account of the high proportion of immigrants in Luxembourg. In 2018, 47.5% of the residents did not have Luxembourgish citizenship (STATEC 2019) and 63.7% of the four- to six-year-olds spoke a frst language other than Luxembourgish (MENJE 2019). Despite this multilingual reality, educational practices were found to hold on to monolingual norms and policies of separating and excluding languages (Christmann 2011; Neumann 2015; Seele 2016). Studies such as PISA, PIRLS and the national *épreuves standardisés* (standardised tests) have repeatedly shown that academic achievement largely depends on students' socio-economic, migrant and language backgrounds (MENJE 2018). Recent language education policies therefore call for multilingual approaches in early childhood which aim to reduce the persistent inequalities in attainment and promote social justice.

The present chapter focuses on the translanguaging practices of professionals in early education and a day-care center in Luxembourg. Early childhood education is divided into formal and non-formal institutions (Kirsch and Seele 2020). Formal education for young children is organised within the offcial school system and comprises a two-year compulsory preschool for four- to six-year-olds and an optional preschool year for three-year-olds called the *éducation précoce* (early education). In the *éducation précoce*, teachers and caregivers collaborate and follow the national primary school curriculum. Non-formal educational institutions are a more recent development. They include state or private out-of-school educational institutions such as day-care centers (MFI and SNJ 2013). Professionals adhere to the national framework plan for non-formal education (MENJE and SNJ 2018). In this paper, we analyse the ways in which professionals deploy their semiotic repertoire and examine the extent to which their translanguaging practices contribute to inclusion and participation. The data for the present chapter stem from observations and interviews of the project 'Developing Multilingual Pedagogies in Early Childhood' (MuLiPEC), conducted from 2016 to 2019 by

Kirsch.

### **2 Translanguaging Pedagogies**

The call for more fexible approaches that open up to the diversity of the children and can accommodate their needs comes from various felds: the index for inclusion (Booth et al. 2008), work on linguistic human rights (Skutnabb-Kangas 1995), and education (Weber 2014), to name a few. 'Multilingual pedagogies' (García and Flores 2012) or 'translanguaging pedagogies' (García et al. 2012, 2017) recognise the existence of multiple linguistic resources in educational institutions and attempt to leverage students' unitary semiotic system to support meaning-making and learning (García et al. 2017). This resource-based pedagogy places the learners at the center, values their linguistic and cultural practices, and offers them some choice over their language use. The transglossic learning arrangements challenge dominant monolingual practices and equalize positions of learners' by allowing them to deploy their multilingual repertoires fexibly.

To contribute to the implementation of the pedagogy and help practitioners conceptualise the main aspects, García et al. (2017) identifed three interrelated elements; *stance*, *design* and *shifts*. The *stance* refers to the teachers' commitment to embrace multilingualism, draw on students' repertoires, and consider their languages as part of a unitary system rather than as isolated and bounded entities. The *design* refers to the curriculum and activities that integrate children's diverse linguistic and multimodal resources and enable children to connect home and school languages. The *shifts* denote the teachers' deviations from the design and the fexible ways in which they adapt to the children's needs.

Studies in monolingual, bilingual and multilingual early years settings have identifed various purposes and benefts of translanguaging: facilitating communication and meaning-making, promoting participation and learning and supporting the children's socio-emotional development and multilingual identities (García 2011; Garrity et al. 2015; Kirsch 2017). In these studies, translanguaging was transformative in that it changed individuals and made teachers develop inclusive practices which valued all languages and challenged dominant monolingual practices. This was the case when teachers raised the status of minority languages, drew on the children's varied funds of knowledge for learning, and designed collaborative tasks where children used their linguistic repertoires fexibly (Gort and Sembiante 2015; Mary and Young 2017; Palviainen et al. 2016).

Some studies shed light on the relationship between translanguaging and inclusion. Studying translanguaging in a bilingual education programme in a secondary school in Sri Lanka, Wijesekera et al. (2018) found that the teachers generated inclusion through creating feelings of solidarity and interdependence between students of two ethnicities, who had historically lived in separation and anxiety. This led to respect and the feeling of being a member of a community. Examining the use of multiple languages in a Dutch-medium secondary school in Brussels, Jaspers (2015) concluded that this practice may reinforce traditional language hierarchies. While abiding to the school's monolingual language policy, the teachers, Mr S in particular, reverted at times to French and the children's home languages including Turkish and Arabic. This fexible language use created some 'camaraderie' (p. 125) between Mr S and the students. While students may have felt respected, valued and more included, Jaspers argued that this languaging practice also raised the students' awareness of language hierarchies. Given that the home languages were only used at transitional moments and in a playful way, they had less status. Furthermore, Hamman (2018) showed that the fexible language use in a primary dual-language class in the US led to children's unequal participation. The teachers and children used more English than Spanish which provided the English-dominant children with more opportunities to show their expertise and at times positioned the Spanish-dominant speakers as different. Finally, Mary and Young (2017) reported that a preschool teacher in France used translanguaging strategically to help children learn. The teacher used words and concepts in Turkish to show the three- to four-year-olds that she was knowledgeable of some cultural practices. This helped the children connect linguistic and cultural practices at home and at school. The resulting inclusive practice testifes to the teacher's intercultural competence 'underpinned by the value she places on equity and her consequent commitment to offer all the children in her care equal access to education' (Mary and Young 2017, p. 8). Taken together, Jaspers (2015), Hamman (2018), Mary and Young (2017) and Palviainen et al. (2016) seem to agree that teachers should carefully monitor their language use, that is plan how to use translanguaging strategically in teaching and learning in order to promote inclusion and ensure participation.

In sum, this section has shown that the translanguaging pedagogy intents to promote children's learning and participation through the inclusion of their entire linguistic and non-linguistic repertoires. Studies focusing on the relationship between translanguaging and inclusion in early education are scarce. Moreover, most studies either focused on one institutional language and the children's home languages (e.g. Belgium, France) or two institutional languages (e.g. Finland, Sri Lanka, US). Virtually no studies paid attention to the languaging practices of multilingual children and staff in contexts where two or more languages are used. The present study addresses these gaps and examines the translanguaging practices in a day-care center and a class of the *édcuation précoce* in multilingual Luxembourg in relation to inclusion. In order to examine if and how these practices are embedded in a refexive translanguaging pedagogy that implies a more general inclusive *stance* (García et al. 2017), we ask:

### **3 Methodology**

The present case study is part of the longitudinal research project MuLiPEC which examines the infuence of a professional development course about multilingual pedagogies on the practitioners' knowledge, beliefs and practices (see Kirsch and Aleksić 2018). In this chapter, we focus on the practitioners of one formal and one non-formal education setting, who work with three-year-olds. Ms Clara (teacher) and Ms Jane (educator) work in an *éducation précoce* in a town in the South of Luxembourg and Mr Ken and Mr Ted are educators in a day-care center in the Center of Luxembourg. All four are aged between 30 and 39, have more than 10 years' experience and are multilingual. They all speak Luxembourgish, French, German, and English and Ms Clara and Mr Ken some Portuguese and Spanish respectively. The language diversity of the children was high in each setting. None of the 11 children in the *précoce* spoke Luxembourgish as a home language, but Arabic, Cape Verdean Créole, French, Portuguese, and Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian were spoken. While most children were from working class backgrounds in this school, most children in the day-care center were from middle-class families. Of the 21 children, most did not speak Luxembourgish as a home language but Arabic, Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian were spoken.

The present chapter draws its data from 36 days of observations in the settings, 6 observations of the professional development course, and 11 interviews. A research assistant, Mortini (PhD candidate), and Kirsch observed and video-recorded daily interactions. An overview of the activities is given in Table 1.

All video-recordings and interviews were transcribed and relevant paralinguistic resources (e.g. tone of voice) and extralinguistic resources (e.g. mime, gestures) were included in the observations. To analyse the translanguaging practices, Kirsch identifed, frstly, monolingual and multilingual dialogues. Next, she analysed the deployment of the practitioners' and the children's linguistic resources in transglossic situations, examining which features of the repertoire were used and how these were orchestrated. Codes included using resources fexibly, translating and 'home languaging'. The frst code refers to instances where adults and children dynamically combine various verbal and non-verbal resources from their repertoires to communicate in bi- or multilingual conversation. Translating means that specifc key words or sentences are translated from Luxembourgish to another language or vice-versa. In other words, the same content is mentioned in two 'named' languages. Finally, the code 'home languaging' denotes situations of language separation where adults switched from Luxembourgish to a home language to talk to a particular child, thereby remaining in a monolingual mode. Thus, they may speak French to one child, German to another and Luxembourgish to the whole group, using one language with one person at the time. The categories may of course overlap and we distinguish them mainly for analytical purposes. In order to identify the nature and purpose of translanguaging, Kirsch made a micro-

**Tab. 1** Overview of the type of language promoting activities

analysis of teacher talk (Seedhouse 2005), coding for communication, knowledge construction, well-being, inclusion/exclusion as well as interaction promoting strategies (e.g. asking questions) and language modelling strategies (e.g. corrective feedback). The fndings generated from the video-recordings were compared across the two settings and triangulated with the interviews. The latter were analysed with thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) with a particular focus on the reasons for translanguaging and the relationship between translanguaging and inclusion.

### **4 Findings and Discussion**

Languaging practices were, according to the practitioners, largely shaped by the traditional monolingual curriculum and the expectations of parents who had enrolled their children in the *précoce* or the day-care center to learn Luxembourgish. The practitioners explained that they had a habit of using Luxembourgish unless they needed to comfort a child during the settling-in-phase. Over the course of the professional development, they learned and experienced that translanguaging promoted language learning and did not confuse children (García 2009). Mr Ken explained that he felt good, 'almost freed' because he could let children communicate in their home languages without him having to ask 'do I have to intervene, do I have to insist on Luxembourgish?'. He believed that he could better accommodate children's needs. Ms Clara and Ms Jane similarly reported using home languages more frequently, feeling 'relieved' and 'less constrained' (interviews, March and June 2017). From February 2017, thus more than half a year into the professional development path, translanguaging became a legitimate practice in all settings (Kirsch et al. 2020). While all practitioners deployed features of several 'named' languages of their repertoire, they combined these in different ways. The following three sections present the orchestration of these linguistic resources in a more bilingual, monolingual and multilingual mode.

### **4.1 Using Translations**

The practitioners in both settings regularly translated from Luxembourgish to a home language other than Luxembourgish and vice versa, across the different types of activities and for several purposes. Firstly, they translated key-words and sentences to facilitate communication, ensure comprehension and value home languages as shown elsewhere (Gort and Sembiante 2015; Mary and Young 2017; Lewis et al. 2013). Representative examples of both settings in Luxembourg follow. In October 2016, the children in the *précoce* mixed salt, four and water to produce salt paste. When Abdul vigorously stirred the mixture, Ms Clara shouted in Luxembourgish '*lues*' (slowly) which she translated into French ('*doucement*'), Abdul's home language. The translation ensured that Abdul understood the warning, which he may not have understood in Luxembourgish. In the day-care center, Mr Ken translated some words into English to engage an English-speaking child named Aaron during the sharing of a book on animals. In Excerpt 1, he pointed to a tiger and Paul, a Luxembourgish-speaking child, mentioned that it was friendly. Mr Ken asked Paul if it looked friendly (line 2). Aaron uttered 'not friendly' in Luxembourgish, disagreeing with Paul (line 3). Mr Ken translated these two words into English and turned them into a clarifcation question (line 4). Aaron confrmed in Luxembourgish that the tiger was not friendly without any further elaboration.

Excerpt 1 *Book on animals (07.11.2016)*

Secondly, translating was used to promote language learning. When teaching key words, Ms Clara and Ms Jane translated these to help children understand and memorise the words by encoding them in two languages. Furthermore, they regularly translated from Portuguese or French into Luxembourgish to help children follow a conversation and encourage their participation. During a storytelling activity in February 2017 (Excerpt 2), for example, three-year-old Sarah described a picture in Portuguese, which led Ms Clara to translate the child's utterance into Luxembourgish. This translation legitimised the use of Portuguese in class and enabled the non-Portuguese children to understand Sarah's contribution. Ms Clara then extended the sentence to provide additional input in Luxembourgish.

Excerpt 2 *Storytelling activity, book project (06.02.2017)*

Translating is one of many communication strategies, as illustrated in the following example of Ms Clara. During one morning circle in February 2017, for example, when the children routinely counted all children, then the boys and the girls in turn, Abdul became confused. Rather than counting the boys, he counted the girls. Ms Clara repeated the Luxembourgish word for boys and made a 'no' gesture with her fngers, when Abdul began to count the girls a second and a third time. She then translated the word 'boy' into French, but realising that Abdul did still not know what to do, she showed him a picture of a boy and repeated the Luxembourgish word, articulating it slowly and carefully. Abdul fnally understood his task. This example shows that Ms Clara orchestrated many resources of her multimodal semiotic repertoire (Blackledge et al. 2017; García and Otheguy 2019). Translating, a bilingual strategy, did not suffce to help Abdul understand the word 'boy'. Given that young children are in the process of developing concepts, they need to experience word meanings in a wider range of ways and teacher-led translanguaging can therefore contribute to meaning-making.

There were plentiful examples of translating for the purpose of learning words in the day-care center. Excerpt 3 shows Gaspard saying 'knife' in French and Mr Ken translating the word into Luxembourgish and praising Gaspard. In Excerpt 4, Tony mentioned a colour in Luxembourgish, which Mr Ken translated for Gaspard into French.

Excerpt 4 *Language activity (19.06.2017)*

The educators in the day-care center had developed the practice of asking children for labels and translations, unlike the practitioners in the *précoce*. Excerpt 5 is drawn from the activity with the animal book (November 2016). Turning to Aaron, Mr Ken switched from Luxembourgish to English and asked if he had seen a fox (line 1). Aaron pointed to one. Switching back to Luxembourgish, Mr Ken asked for a translation of 'fox' (line 3). Aaron said daddy in Luxembourgish, expressing the idea that the fox is male. Mr Ken repeated his question and Aaron responded in Luxembourgish that he did not know. Aurélie created a Luxembourgish compound to indicate that the fox was female. She thereby challenged Aaron.

Excerpt 5 *Book on animals (07.11.2016)*

An analysis of the classroom discourse revealed that the practitioners in the school setting used different interaction promoting strategies and engaged children differently from the practitioners in the day-care center. Mr Ken and Mr Ted tended to work at the word-level, believing that three-year-olds develop languages in stages and are at the word-level stage (interview, September 2016). This may explain their focus on label quests and translations (Excerpts 1, 3, 4, 5). They tended to use closed questions to stimulate talk but rarely used modelling strategies such as corrective feedback and extensions unlike Ms Clara and Ms Jane (Excerpt 2). Another difference is the 'automatic' use of translations. Mr Ken and Mr Ted explained that they wished all children to feel well and included, and that the use of the children's home language contributed to this aim. However, the purpose of their translations was not always clear: they translated when there was no apparent need and no signs of misunderstanding. Aaron spoke Luxembourgish (Excerpts 1, 5) and Gaspard was able to speak Luxembourgish in June 2017 (Excerpt 4) but the educators translated nevertheless. Ms Clara and Ms Jane, by contrast, used translating more purposefully and in combination with other strategies, which would suggest a more careful monitoring both of the children's needs and their own language use (García 2009; Palviainen et al. 2016).

### **4.2 Home Languaging**

At the beginning of the academic year, all practitioners switched from Luxembourgish to a home language within an otherwise Luxembourgish space for communicative purposes other than translating words. This practice happened across activities and was legitimated by the intention to contribute to children's well-being (see also Seele 2016).

[Using home languages] is particularly important at the beginning of a school year to ensure that children feel well, accepted and understood. Furthermore, they are less afraid if we explain something in their language and request something. They develop a sense of security. Slowly, you then add Luxembourgish.

(Interview Ms Clara and Ms Jane, 9.9.2016)

The idea that the use of home languages is helpful and legitimate in the early stages but then needs to be replaced, as seen in the interview excerpt, was expressed by all practitioners. Through the professional development path, they became aware of the relationship between home language, well-being, identity and language learning and therefore continued to use home languages during the whole academic year (Cummins 2000; Mary and Young 2017; Kirsch 2017). This was particularly the case when they wanted to comfort or discipline a child or ensure comprehension. While working on an assessment task at the end of the school year in June 2017, Ms Jane switched from Luxembourgish to Portuguese to accommodate for Sandro's linguistic needs. She explained the task in Portuguese to be sure he understood. As seen previously, Mr Ken switched to English to address Aaron (Excerpts 1 and 5) and to French to address Gaspard (Excerpt 4). Excerpt 6 illustrates a similar switch to French by Mr Ted to address Gaspard during an outdoor play activity. Gaspard sat in a huge box, playing on his own.  He put a card box piece on top of the box and called Gaspard. Gaspard looked up but did not speak. Mr Ted switched to French asking him to use the board to make a window. When Gaspard did not react verbally, Mr Ted built a 'window' himself and tried to play peekaboo (line 1). Gaspard looked up but did not react. Mr Ted put more pieces close to the box, encouraging Gaspard to build a window (line 3). Gaspard did not react. When Nadia arrived, Mr Ted switched back to Luxembourgish, asking if she wanted to get into the box and informing her that they were building a window (line 5). He then called Gaspard, asking him to look. The conversation shifted from monolingual French (lines 1, 3) to monolingual Luxembourgish (line 5).

Excerpt 6 *Outdoor play (27.03.2017)*

The switch to French was intended to engage Gaspard in a conversation but Mr Ted did not succeed. Gaspard played happily on his own and did not wish to engage, notwithstanding the use of the home language or the number of prompts. This excerpt illustrates the educators' adult-centerd way of interacting without paying close attention to the child's linguistic, social or emotional interests. Many observations revealed that the educators seemed to fnd it diffcult to observe or carefully listen to children, let them take a lead, and engage them in a meaningful way. By addressing children in their home language while they tried to communicate in the language of the institution, the educators may well have 'othered' these children (Thomauske 2017).

### **4.3 Using Resources Flexibly and Dynamically**

Children in both settings were observed combining features of their semiotic repertoire in fexible ways to communicate. By contrast, we observed mainly the practitioners in the *précoce* orchestrate their linguistic as well as paralinguistic and extralinguistic resources in dynamic ways. A frst example presented was the observation of Abdul counting boys. This fuid translanguaging practice was observed in most activities from the second term onwards once the children had developed more skills in Luxembourgish and Ms Jane in Portuguese. Both practitioners seemed to have opened up to multilingual education and developed a translanguaging *stance*. Excerpt 7 illustrates Ms Clara and Felice translanguaging while looking at a book during free-play. This excerpt is typical of situations of dialogic reading in this classroom and illustrates how adults and children weaved together multimodal and multilingual resources to communicate, negotiate meaning and ensure comprehension. In this particular dialogue, only two people participate. Moving easily between Luxembourgish, Portuguese and English and using the whole body enabled Ms Clara and Felice to co-construct meaning. The three-year old boy pointed to details in the picture, labelled the animals in Portuguese (lines 1, 5), and used English (line 3) or Luxembourgish with Portuguese (lines 7, 11) to make himself understood. To guarantee comprehension, he pointed and imitated the slithering movement of a snake. The teacher listened to Felice and confrmed (lines 2, 4) or corrected his speech (line 6) when he confused snakes with worms. To help Felice remember the names of the animals and the word 'heart', she pointed to the objects in the book, drew a heart on his chest to make him feel the shape (line 12), repeated words (lines 4, 6, 8) and translated (lines 2, 4, 6, 10). As Felice did not know the word ladybird, she offered him the word in Luxembourgish and Portuguese. Felice not only had an opportunity to acquire the Luxembourgish names of the animals he knew in Portuguese but he may also have learned more about a grasshopper, a snake and a ladybird. Ms Clara showed him the grasshopper he had not mentioned and provided some explanations (line 2). She also rephrased his short utterances and embedded them in slightly larger chunks (line 8, 12) to promote language learning. In contrast to Excerpt 6 of the day-care center, Ms Clara monitored her speech and was highly responsive to the child's interests and needs. She let Felice take the lead, provided input when necessary to move the conversation on, translated with a purpose in mind and created a space where both could use their entire semiotic repertoire for meaning-making. The range of strategies deployed, such as translations, repetitions, explanations, questions, corrective feedback, pointing and drawing are very similar to the strategies used by other teachers (e.g. Mary and Young 2017; Mifsud and Vella 2018). In this carefully scaffolded child-initiated interaction, Ms Clara posits both herself and the child as multilingual. This positioning, which includes and legitimates the child's language practices, may enhance the child's confdence and well-being and make him feel valued and included in class. It is a core strategy of a translanguaging pedagogy according to Palmer et al. (2014).

### **5 Summary and Conclusions**

Focusing on practitioners in early childhood education in Luxembourg, this chapter set out to analyse their reasons for translanguaging, the deployment of their linguistic repertoire, and the ways in which their practice contributed to inclusion and participation. The results showed that all four practitioners associated translanguaging with particular aims such as communication, learning, participation, well-being and recognition of home languages (García 2011; Garrity et al. 2015; Gort and Sembiante 2015; Kirsch 2017). Furthermore, we found that all practitioners, who adhered to monolingual policies at the beginning of the professional development path, began to deploy their multilingual and multimodal repertoires more fexibly. This encouraged children to use language features dynamically. Translanguaging became a legitimate practice. The adults' multilingual language practices included translating, 'home languaging' and, especially in the case of the *précoce*, using semiotic resources fexibly and fuidly. Like teachers elsewhere (Gort and Sembiante 2015; Mary and Young 2017; Palviainen et al. 2016), the practitioners in Luxembourg frequently deployed translations. Unlike other studies, they also reverted to various home languages for purposes other than translations. To ensure their well-being, they at times addressed children in their home languages, speaking one language to one child, a second to the other. In this way, they created a situation of parallel monolingualism. This practice of frequent switching testifes to the practitioners' multilingual competence and is typical of residents in Luxembourg who need to constantly accommodate the interlocutors' linguistic needs in this highly diverse country. Similar to the Welsh study (Lewis et al. 2013), the translanguaging practices in Luxembourg developed with the children's (and the practitioners') developing language competence.

There were some differences in the translanguaging practices between the practitioners. Ms Clara and Ms Jane engaged less in 'home languaging' and used their semiotic repertoires more fuidly, as a result of having developed a dynamic view of multilingualism (García 2009). Furthermore, they monitored children's linguistic needs more carefully than the practitioners in the day-care center, possibly because of their longer experience of observing and assessing children at the end of each term or the teacher education programme, which focuses on planning, teaching, assessment and refection on one's practice. Ms Clara and Ms Jane had come to deploy translanguaging as part of a pedagogy including *design* and *stance* (García et al. 2017), thus legitimating and making 'visible the meaning-making potential of all students' (García and Otheguy 2019, p. 11). In doing so, they helped all children participate in daily interactions and literacy activities. By contrast, Mr Ken and Mr Ted tended to use translating and 'home languaging' to accommodate for the perceived needs of the children without always considering their actual needs or refecting how this may enhance their participation. There were some examples of unequal participation and 'othering' (Hamman 2018; Thomauske 2017), possibly because the multilingual practices were not embedded into a translanguaging pedagogy.

With the limited data at hand, we do not claim that the practices we observed in the day-care center led to exclusion. But, based on our fndings, we wish to remind practitioners and researchers that we need to take a close look at the forms of fexible language use, and their implications. Translanguaging can be inclusive and encourage participation if practitioners use their linguistic repertoires strategically and based on children's needs, and if they are aware of language hierarchies (Jaspers 2015; Hamman 2018). We therefore agree that translanguaging practices need to be integrated into a wider transformative pedagogy that values social justice and inclusion (García et al. 2017). While we agree with the need to monitor languages as emphasised by García (2009) or Palviainen et al. (2016), our fndings have shown that this complex ability does not come automatically, and may need to be developed, for example through further training with a focus on observation and refection. Future research could examine factors beyond the adults' languaging practices, such as the children's views, policy frameworks, the institutional context and parental contributions.

### **References**

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**Bilingualism Versus Translanguaging in a Swiss Day-Care Center: A Space Analysis of Language Practices and Their Janus-Faced Effects on Social Inequalities and Educational Opportunities**

Melanie Kuhn and Sascha Neumann

#### **Abstract**

Based on an ethnographic study of institutional language policies in bilingual Swiss day-care centers (French/German), we discuss implications these policies have in terms of balancing or even intensifying educational inequalities. Referring to a space analytical approach, we investigate to what extent language practices are regulated in relation to imaginations of the social order

This paper is a modifed version and translation of the article "Differenz und Ungleichheit im Kontext von Mehrsprachigkeit. Raumanalytische Perspektiven auf Regulierungsweisen sprachlicher Praktiken im frühpädagogischen Feld" in the volume *Differenz*— *Ungleichheit*—*Erziehungswissenschaft. Verhältnisbestimmungen im (Inter*-*)Disziplinären*, edited by I. Diehm, M. Kuhn, and C. Machold and published by Springer VS in 2017. Translated by J. Harrow, Mulsum, Germany.

M. Kuhn (\*)

S. Neumann

© The Author(s) 2020

Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
J. A. Panagiotopoulou et al. (eds.), *Inclusion, Education and Translanguaging*, Inklusion und Bildung in Migrationsgesellschaften, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-28128-1\_6

of languages in the social space surrounding the institution. In terms of social justice, our fndings raise the question whether bilingualism is more likely to push back translanguaging rather than support it.

#### **Keywords**

Bilingualism · Day-care center · Inequality · Switzerland · Translanguaging

### **1 Introduction**

The increasingly widespread understanding that day-care institutions for children under the age of 4 serve not only a care function but also an educational one is being accompanied by growing expectations that they can promote equal opportunity.1 Assuming that "language" is an "obvious element in promoting equal opportunities" (EKM and BFM 2012, p. 14), educational, social, and integration policies in Switzerland focusing on preschool care and educational institutions anticipate that day-care will "contribute to promoting the local national language" (Edelmann 2010, p. 2032). Accordingly, a number of empirical studies focus primarily on inequality as *educational inequality* and explore the potential of preschool language education and support for creating equal opportunities and preventively reducing educational disadvantage (see, for day-care centers and playgroups, e.g., Edelmann et al. 2013; Isler 2014; Vogt et al. 2015). Moreover, there are now a number of ethnographic studies that take a closer look at everyday life in formally monolingual and multilingual early education felds to see how the way linguistic practices address and socially position speakers produces hierarchical differences (on kindergartens in Switzerland, see, e.g., Kassis-Filippakou and Panagiotopoulou 2015; on preschool childcare in Luxembourg, see Neumann 2012a; Seele 2015; on Kindergartens in Germany, see Diehm et al. 2013a; Kuhn and Mai 2016; for international comparisons, see Panagiotopoulou 2017). Based on the premise in social theory that one function of language is to produce social orders (Heller 2006; Blackledge and Creese 2010), these studies assume that the hierarchy of languages points to hierarchical orders of power and domination. It refects "social dominance relations" and stabilizes them by "symbolically legitimizing them" (Niedrig 2002, p. 3 f.). The aforementioned studies do not reduce

<sup>1</sup>For empirical fndings on Switzerland, see Burger (2013) and Knoll (2018).

<sup>2</sup>Original German quotations are translated into English.

questions of social inclusion and social justice merely to educational success. In relation to inequality, inclusion, and social justice, they often address and analyze language more (but by no means exclusively) regarding the *situated* reproduction of social relations of dominance and inequality more generally.

The main interest of German-language studies on power and inequality addressing how multilingualism is dealt with in pedagogical felds is on the institutional devaluation of marginalized minority languages in monolingual settings and the normative and standardizing effects of early promotion of the majority language. This chapter, in contrast, focuses on *bilingual* Swiss child day-care. Here, it cannot be assumed in advance that only *one* language is considered to possess prestige and be worth promoting. As we shall show, however, even in bilingual day-care centers, the two formal languages of the institution—the offcial cantonal languages, German and French—can be assigned unequal legitimacy. The hierarchy of both languages does not necessarily "refect" the "social dominance relations" (Niedrig 2002, p. 4) of the majority and minority languages, but can serve as a countermodel designed to resist the language relations in the surrounding social space.

In the following, we shall apply the methodological heuristic of the "language regime" (Busch 2013, p. 127, translated) in two steps to develop a spatial-analytical perspective on linguistic modes of regulation (Sect. 2). Then, using interview data from an ethnographic study, we shall show how the German and French languages are related to each other hierarchically in the constitution of the local language regime, and how generationalizing, ethnicizing, and spatializing differences are produced and reproduced in this process. This reveals a separation of languages that aims to establish and protect purity of language and problematizes the mixing of languages to be found in children's translingual practices (Sect. 3). The chapter concludes with thoughts on analyzing the relation between language policies and questions of social inequality and educational opportunities (Sect. 4).

### **2 Methodological Considerations**

### **2.1 A Spatial Analysis of Using the Language Regime to Produce Difference in Day-Care**

Since the so-called *spatial turn*, theoretical perspectives in the social sciences have generally regarded space as a phenomenon that is not only generated through being practiced but also changeable (Soja 1989; Lefebvre 2006). Based on the assumption that the production of space is linked closely to social conditions (Günzel 2008, p. 11), the analytical focus of studies applying spatial analysis is on the entanglement of space, society, and power. Sociolinguistic studies, such as that of Heller and Duchêne (2012), reconstruct the connection between language, space, and globalization with the help of such a spatial-analytical approach. Busch (2013), in turn, analyzes the entanglement of language, space, and time using the example of the language dispute in Austria. Drawing on Lefebvre's (2006, p. 333) theoretical analyses of the threefold dimensionality of space, she develops the heuristic of the language regime that she understands, following Coulmas (2005), as that "bundle of habits, legal regulations, and ideologies" that "restrict the speakers' choice of linguistic means in spatially situated interactions" (Busch 2013, p. 135). In the following, we shall apply these methodological considerations to the feld of day-care centers using interview data. Referring to Busch (2013, p. 135), the frst dimension of *spatial practices* would include habitualized, institutionalized, and routinized language practices that re-/produce social space (Busch 2013, p. 137). In day-care centers, these would be collective practices such as circle times, mealtimes, reading aloud sessions, or handicraft lessons. With the second dimension of *spatial representations*, Busch (2013, p. 137), following Lefebvre, summarizes scientifc discourses and ideological conceptions of spaces that are located on a societal level. With regard to educational organizations, however, this also includes assumptions about which linguistic practices are taken to be "legitimate and desirable" in which of the above-mentioned settings, as well as the explicit regulation modes in language practices such as "house rules, decrees, and laws" (Busch 2013, p. 137). Under the third dimension of *representation spaces*, Busch subsumes the "lived in and experienced" space (2013, p. 138). From an analytical point of view, this is about "how subjects read the space and how they relate themselves to it, how they "interpret" it, and how they "shape it" (Busch 2013, p. 138). These three dimensions of linguistic space are entangled in multilayered ways and usually cannot be distinguished from each other clearly in empirical research. Nonetheless, they evoke perspective-broadening focuses of attention when it comes to interpreting the data material.

In the following, an expert interview conducted in the ethnographic study "Linguistic Landscapes. Case Studies on Pedagogical Practices in Dealing with Multilingualism in Bilingual Day-Care Centers,"3 will be used as a basis to examine the corresponding day-care center as a "small-scale language regime"

<sup>3</sup>The study was directed by S. Neumann and M. Kuhn with the collaboration of K. Brandenberg and L. Tinguely from January 2014 to August 2015 with funding from the Jacobs Foundation and Stiftung Mercator Schweiz.

(Busch 2013, p. 127).4 The interview conducted with a manager of a bilingual day-care center in a municipality of Western Switzerland can be analyzed not just in terms of the discourses *on* language and space (spatial representations) that are entrenched within it. It is far more the case that analyses can also question—indirectly—the speaker's self-positioning *in* space (the representation space) and the spatial location of language practices (the spatial practices).

#### *On the spatial/temporal entanglement of language regimes*

Starting from a sociolinguistic perspective, situated language practices cannot be analyzed in isolation from the historical, sociopolitical, and institutional contexts in which they are embedded (Heller 2006; Pennycook 2010). In a spatial theory interpretation, the assumption of such a context dependence of language practices primarily refers to the sociohistorical conditionality of each space (Foucault 2006; Lefebvre 2006). Busch (2013, p. 139) transfers this premise to the feld of language with Bachtin's concept of the "chronotopos" (2008) when she points out that in every speech act, "references to different space–time structures" can be discerned, and that ultimately, every language regime "can be thought of as such a chronotopos linked to other times and spaces".

Methodologically, this means that we have to take an additional analytical step and reconstruct a local language regime along with the constructions of difference implemented within it by also focusing on the historical and extralocal framings. In the following, we perform such a contextualization of the empirical fndings on the constructions of difference in the early educational language regime in two ways: First, the expert interview itself serves as such a contextualization. By this, we follow Seele's assumption (2015, p. 160), borrowed from Pennycook (2010), that the sociohistorical conditions of language practices should not be viewed as a statically given context, but rather as being accomplished and recontextualized locally in everyday practice. On this basis, we can ask: Which sociopolitical and/or historical phenomena are appropriated in what way in the interview? How does the person interviewed use these to contextualize the language regime of the institution? In the interview, this means that *practices* of contextualization can be traced that are carried out by the person being interviewed *herself (frst*-*order contextualizations)*. When analyzing difference and inequality, we can, in turn, ask the following questions: What modes of regulating and enabling language practices

<sup>4</sup>For this chapter, the heuristic of the language regime was applied retrospectively to the data after it had been collected and, together with an expert interview, this analysis here refers to a more limited database than that in Busch's ethnography (2013, p. 172f.).

does the person invoke during the interview? What differences does she construct thereby? When doing this, we focus on the representations of space and the representation spaces as well as the spatial practices that can be reconstructed from the interview. Second, we draw on social science literature and legislative texts to contextualize the language regime against the background of the historically developed and contested language situation and the legal de-/regulation of institutional day-care in this particular Swiss canton (*second*-*order contextualization*).

### **3 Constructions of Difference in the Local Language Regime of the Day-Care Center**

### **3.1 Spatial Representations and Representation Spaces**

The heuristic of spatial representations focuses the analysis on the discourses *over* language and space invoked by the manager, the ideas she formulates regarding which language practices are considered "legitimate" in the day-care center, and the explicit ways they are regulated through house rules, decrees, and laws (Busch 2013, p. 137). The use of the two formal institutional languages of German and French is regulated in different ways for the individual groups of speakers.

### *Generation*-*based construction of difference: The rights of children*—*the duties of professionals*

Giving the children the opportunity of not having to speak German. I think it's important that we keep this open. Hence, no pressure, that's very important.

The explicit formulation that the children should not be pressured into speaking German makes it apparent that they are implicitly and, so to speak, conversely granted the right to speak French in everyday activities at the day-care center. For the professional staff, in contrast, the manager imposes relatively rigid language requirements that are intended to exclude their use of French.

So, I'll also try to picture it and say when you come in the door, turn on the switch, [speak] German5 … Well, I stand by the fact that I'll correct very quickly then and simply go there and say no, not like that, and either they do it or they have to look for another job.

<sup>5</sup>In this location, this means various dialects of Swiss German.

Whereas the children should not be forced to speak German, the staff members, in turn, are required to submit unconditionally to a monolingual language regime in the day-care center (*turn on the switch, [speak] German*). Language-related misconduct is ultimately sanctioned by exclusion from the organization (*they have to look for another job*).

Insofar as German has a continuous legitimacy in everyday life at the day-care center whereas French is a legitimate language only for the children, both languages are brought into a hierarchical relationship with each other, thus, creating an inequality between German and French (Brandenberg et al. 2017, p. 265). At the same time, the respective symbolic capitals of the children's languages of origin are also assigned a different rank. Although francophone children are allowed to speak their language of origin every day at the center, German is still the language to which, and "in which, and through which children are educated" (Neumann 2012a, p. 188). Furthermore, the language regime of the day-care center is institutionalized in line with the "generational order" (Alanen 2005). It acknowledges different ways of regulating language for different speakers in the feld: Whereas children are expected to adapt receptively, staff members, in contrast, are expected to actively use the German language. This leads to a generational differentiation between children and professional staff, which, in turn, is the basis of a pedagogical order (Brandenberg et al. 2017, p. 266).

From the perspective of the heuristic of representation spaces, the (self-) positioning of the manager *in* space, and her ways of appropriating and shaping the language space (Busch 2013, p. 138), this sequence brings to light that the manager presents herself as a kind of "language police offcer" who monitors adherence to the language regime and intervenes promptly in the event of any language-related misconduct on the part of the staff (*correct very quickly … not like that*). In doing so, she assigns to herself and her management team (see *we* below) a central role in maintaining the institutional language regime of this conceptually bilingual institution. This is described as being a laborious task:

So, all the work with parents, then the whole team, that also took a lot of energy, because we always had to make sure that the educators didn't slip into French.

#### *Contextualization*

On the level of a second-order contextualization, the textual "house rules, decrees, and laws" (Busch 2013, p. 137) relating to the regulation of language practices also have to be analyzed from the perspective of spatial representations. From a social theory perspective, it can be assumed that they prefgure a local language regime without determining it (Nadai 2012, p. 51). A distinction can be made between the nonlocal political documents of the regional authority of the canton such as recommendations and laws on the one side versus the local documents on the institutional level such as the pedagogical concepts and curricula on the other side. On the political level, the language regime of the day-care center is *de*regulated in two ways: In the cantonal Law on Supplementary Family Day-Care Facilities (FBG) (Grosser Rat des Kantons 2011), the associated implementation regulations (Staatsrat des Kantons 2011), and the cantonal standards and recommendations for institutions and facilities for child care (Direktion für Gesundheit und Soziales 2010), there are—in contrast to Kindergartens—no requirements regarding the use of the two offcial cantonal languages German and French.6 Moreover, these documents defne only a care but not any educational function for day-care centers. This type of institution "meets the parents' care needs while simultaneously ensuring educational supervision" (Direktion für Gesundheit und Soziales 2010, p. 9). As a result, it is hardly surprising that these documents contain no recommendations relating to language education. Thus, neither the promotion of language nor the use of the offcial languages is regulated politically.

In contrast, the concept of the day-care center formulates the programmatic intention to guarantee7 "the balance" between the two languages German and French by "mostly bilingual staff" (see also Brandenberg et al. 2017, p. 263). If one understands a pedagogical concept as a textual representation of everyday (language) practice, then, in view of the theoretically proclaimed equality of both languages, one can observe only a loose coupling between the situated language practices and their document-based regulations—and, thus, a discrepancy between the institutional program and its practical implementation. This is an issue that can be registered frequently in day-care centers (Neumann 2012a). However, the manager does not interpret this discrepancy between the bilingual concept and the monolingualizing practice as a relapse behind her self-formulated bilingual claims:

Yes, simply you know what is written down, yes, the mission statement. Well, we have a brochure in which it says that our crèche is bilingual … Well, we are bilingual because we only speak German, otherwise we would be French-speaking.

<sup>6</sup>For schools, and thus for the Kindergartens for 4–6-year-olds that are part of the school system, the territorial principle is used to regulate that the language of instruction must correspond to the offcial language of the municipality of a school district: either German or French. If a school district includes French and German-speaking or bilingual communities, attendance at public schools in both languages is guaranteed free of charge.

<sup>7</sup>For reasons of anonymization, no source is given here.

As this seemingly paradoxical statement already suggests, the manager legitimizes the monolingual German language regime of the day-care center as a necessary strategy to counter the dominance of French that she justifes with an—in this case, language-based—construction of difference, in which an ethnicization of different groups of children is embedded.

#### *An ethnicizing construction of difference: French*- *and German*-*speaking children*

It's not just like that with the children, we have maybe eight or nine German-speaking children in a group and maybe only three or four French-speaking ones and then the groups simply speak in French. So, the German speakers learn French, the French speakers do not learn any German … That is also one reason why we said, well, those who speak French, they can just as well learn German.

This example given by the manager has to be understood as fctitious, inasmuch as the ratio of two-thirds German and one-third French-speaking children discussed here is not consistent with the more equally balanced occupancy fgures at the day-care center. It is to be understood far more as a complaint designed to dramatize the personal experience of French being spoken as a matter of course even when German-speaking children are in the clear majority. With an ethnicizing differentiation between German- and French-speaking children, she states that there is no mutual learning, and thus implicitly positions francophone children as being unwilling to learn. The manager concludes from this that it is acceptable to expect the francophone children to do what the German-speaking children through their willingness to learn—do almost as a matter of course: namely, to learn the other language. In this way, she makes the French-speaking children responsible for the seemingly natural dominance of the French language. By emphasizing that this is not just the way things are with children, she construes the dominance of the French language as a general problem rather than a problem specifc to children. Against this background, the monolingualizing language regime of the day-care center is brought into play as a necessary strategy to resist the dominance of French.

#### *Contextualization*

Well, I started there 30 years ago as an intern and the majority of us spoke French … That we consistently speak German with the children, that started about 12 or 13 years ago … We have worked out quite purposefully, simply from the experience over the last few years, so simply really that the German language comes frst, yes.

The manager describes the "chronotopos" (Bachtin 2008) of the language practice at the day-care center in relation to other times (Busch 2013, p. 139). By citing the 30-year-old experience with the hegemony of French as the reason for the change in the language practice introduced some 12–13 years ago, she herself undertakes an institutionally historical contextualization of the currently dominant language regime (*frst*-*order contextualization*).

### **3.2 Spatial Practices**

The heuristic perspective of spatial practices targets the language practices in the everyday life of the day-care center that reproduce the social space and, thus, reconstitute it over and over again (Busch 2013, p. 137). By applying this analytical approach to the observational data from the project, we can show how different spaces are created by the different ways in which language practices are regulated. This can be seen in, for example, the spatial formation of the children's circle times: When the professional staff ask for a German translation of something the children have said in French, the children's French language is no longer considered to be as legitimate to use within the circle time in the same way as it is to use it outside ( Brandenberg et al. 2017, p. 265). For the data from the interview, however, the analytical perspective on spatial practices, which focuses more on the microlevel of everyday life, has to be readjusted. In this context, we can ask which space-related references the manager is actually using to constitute the language regime of the day-care center when talking about the local language practice. The manager spatializes what happens in language by separating the inside from the outside of the daycare center in two different ways.

*Spatializing construction of difference I: Day*-*care center versus the city*

In order to be bilingual, we have to upgrade German here in city X. If we were in another city, it might well be the other way around.

With the statement to "*upgrade German*", the manager is describing the directive that the professionals should speak only German with the children. In a spatial localization (*here in city X*), she constructs the monolingualizing language regime as a necessary regional requirement (*we have to*), whereby she brings the day-care center into play as a place that aims "to preserve valued elements of a threatened language" (Heller 2006, p. 52).

#### *Contextualization*

This linking of the local language regime of the day-care center with "other spaces" (Busch 2013, p. 139)—namely, with the relation of the German to the French language in the surrounding social space—can also be read as a practice of *frst*-*order contextualization*. The manager is referring to the fact that the ratio of language majority to minority is different in city X than in Switzerland as a whole. Although far more people speak German than French in Switzerland, the situation in city X is quite the opposite. Here, German is spoken by only a minority.8 By doing this, the manager sets up a border between the "inside" of the daycare center and the "outside" of the social language space, and she legitimizes the precedence of German practiced in the daycare center9 as being due to the hegemony of French outside.

On the *second*-*order* level, the language regime of the day-care center can be contextualized within the framework of the cantonal and nationwide language debates. Historically, there has always been a contested relationship between German and French in Canton X that lies on the language border between French- and German-speaking Switzerland. The language policy debates in the canton were initiated by the demands of the German-speaking population, which is explained, among other things, by the fact that especially the German-speaking regions had suffered from political neglect and economic underdevelopment until the 1950s (Helbling 2004, p. 10). In particular, reforms of the cantonal school law led repeatedly to conficts between the language communities (Helbling 2004, p. 8). Indeed, an independent German-speaking school system was established only in the 1970s. At the cantonal level, it is only since 1991 that all offcial documents have to be available not only in French but also in German. The fact that the "language issue" seems to be about more than language is made clear by the way that the language border between German-speaking Switzerland and French-speaking Western Switzerland is sometimes also described with the (criticized) concept *Röstigraben* as a cultural border dividing French-speaking from German-speaking Switzerland. When it comes to institutional early childhood education, parents in French-speaking Western Switzerland, for example, are unfamiliar with

<sup>8</sup>This leads to the paradoxical situation, according to Helbling (2004, p. 5), that both language groups in the canton often refer to themselves as a "minority".

<sup>9</sup>Compare the aforementioned statement by the manager: "When you come in the door, turn on the switch, [speak] German", in which the door symbolizes the border between the French/outside and the German/inside.

the preschool playgroups known as *Spielgruppen* that are very widespread in German-speaking Switzerland (Feller-Länzlinger et al. 2013, p. 17). In contrast, the use of crèche places for children under the age of 4 is higher in French-speaking than in German-speaking Switzerland (Neumann et al. 2015, p. 23).

On the national level as well, the issue of how to deal with Switzerland's constitutional quadrilingualism in education is still controversial (Arquint 2014). Current political debates, which have been put to the vote in some cantons via citizens' initiatives, focus, on the one hand, on the question of a "Standard German requirement" in Kindergartens in German-speaking Switzerland (Berthele 2010). This is sometimes interpreted as a threat to regional Swiss-German linguistic identity (Knoll 2016). On the other hand, foreign language teaching at elementary school level is under discussion, with critics seeing this as a threat to national unity (Ribeaud 2013). Hence, the local language regime at the day-care center has to be understood against the background of these current and historical language policy conficts in the surrounding language space. The manager herself also goes on to refer to the family space.

#### *Spatializing construction of difference II: Day*-*care center versus the family home*

On average, the children attend for about sixty percent of the week. And if they speak only French at home, it's simply not enough for us to speak only two or three sentences of German. There just has to be consistency and that's what counts then.

The manager justifes the need to consistently adhere to the German-dominated language regime through the fact that the children *attend* the daycare center for only a few days a week and are otherwise exposed to the francophone language practices in their family homes.10 Here as well, a spatial difference is evoked between the inside and the outside, and the inside is constructed as a space to counter the outside by legitimizing the language practices inside the day-care center as a necessary pedagogical consequence to counter the language use established at the outside *place* of the family home (see also Seele 2015, p. 169).

The day-care center is presented as having a limited infuence on this familial outside, so that the parents are also understood as addressees of the institutional language regime:

<sup>10</sup>In Switzerland, children attend their day-care centers for an average of 2.5 days per week. One reason for this is the high cost for the parents. In German-speaking Switzerland, parents pay two-thirds of the full costs; in French-speaking Switzerland, about one-third (Kibesuisse and Netzwerk Kinderbetreuung Schweiz 2015, p. 5).

Well, it is also the case that we also have to maintain our attitude when dealing with the parents. Well, I always frst try to speak German with the parents, but most of them don't like to speak it; they have certain inhibitions. But I think that's where it starts. That is to say, demand something from them—from the parents as well and not just from the children. And after that, they are the example, I mean model.

Here as well, a necessity (*have to*) is evoked. It is also essential to persist with the monolingualizing practice vis-à-vis the parents. It seems that more is expected of them than of the children, because they should at least try to communicate in German. The manager seems to assume not so much incompetence in the francophone parents, but more of an inhibition and a reluctance to speak German. Following the motto "nip it in the bud", she protests that parents should also be expected to use German, because they should serve as a practical language role model for their children (*I mean model*).

The manager aims not only to regulate the parents' language practices within the day-care center but also to suggest that parents adopt specifc language practices in the family space:

Well, I think that's also important now, when parents ask … that we really pass on the advice … that is very important, that they simply stick to one language. Because otherwise, the child will mix them up very, very strongly indeed.

Although the *advice to* speak only *one language* at home does not seem to be handed out without being solicited (*when parents ask*), it is, nonetheless, assigned a very high signifcance (*very important*). Ultimately, it remains to be seen whether the manager is pushing for the use of a single common family language or proposing an orientation toward the widespread concept of "one person–one language" (Döpke 1992), according to which each parent should speak to the children in her or his frst language and, thus, use only *one language.* Nonetheless, the proclaimed and evidently undesired effects on children of parents using several languages (*because otherwise*) are clearly highlighted: This leads to *the child* mixing up the languages *very, very strongly indeed.* As a consequence, a fexible and strategic shuttling between French and German—as is common in practices of translanguaging (García and Wei 2014)—is labeled not only as *needing to be avoided* but also as *avoidable* through a strictly monolingual mode of language use by parents. Hence, in the bilingual regime of the daycare center, the fexible use of different linguistic repertoires appears as a both disadvantaging as well as an illegitimate practice. Finally, this demonstrates (again) that a bilingual concept is not in every case a fruitful basis for the implementation of a translingual environment. This applies in particular if a bilingual concept still sticks to monolingual norms of language use.

### **4 Conclusions on How Early Educational Language Regimes Relate to Inequality**

In the institutionalized language regime of the bilingual day-care center, speakers are "restricted in their choice of linguistic means" by a range of regulations (Busch 2013, p. 135). By emphasizing the maintenance of the language regime by the professional staff as something that has to be monitored and declaring that nonacceptance is a justifcation for sanctions, the manager clearly reveals how language regimes are linked to power. Different rules on the use of language apply for the different groups of actors in the day-care center. Although the children are not expected to speak German, the parents *should* at least try do so in the institution and the staff members *have to* do so. The ethnicizing and spatializing differentiations serve primarily to legitimize this generationally ordered language regime that—according to the manager's statements—is only necessary *because* French-speaking children are supposedly not willing to learn and *because* the French language dominates the sociospatial and familial environment. It is only against this background that the manager can present the generationally differentiating language regime of the day-care center as a compensatory solution to problems (such as the threatening superiority of the French language and the unwillingness of francophone children to learn German), while the institutional practice of differentiation is itself involved in the construction of these problems (Neumann 2012b, p. 147 f.).

What opportunities for participation and education does the institutionalized language regime offer to the French- and German-speaking children, and what inequality-related effects are possibly associated with this?11 In line with Heller (2006, p. 17), we can say that the language regime:

make[s] sense only if understood as part of [a] political … mission, a mission which itself can only be understood as a part of minorities struggles for power.

Interpreted in this way, the regime aiming to protect the German speakers who are perceived as oppressed can, on the one hand, be read as a policy of empowerment for German-speaking children who are a linguistic minority in the social space. The day-care center presents itself as a political actor in the contested

<sup>11</sup>This cautious formulation refects the methodological challenges facing qualitative inequality research (Diehm et al. 2013b; Emmerich and Hormel 2017).

power feld of languages. In line with this, the bilingual concept of the day-care center is still following a monolingual norm of language use and acquisition. At the same time, the regime of promoting bilingualism by privileging the German language places limits for a fexible use of language in terms of an active translanguaging by adults and children, which, for both French-speaking and German-speaking children, means that they are offered limited opportunities for learning how to cope with a complex linguistic environment. At the same time, this delivers comparatively more limited opportunities for participation in everyday activities for francophone children—at least until they have acquired receptive German language skills. What is applied to the French-speaking children here is a "subtractive bilingualism" (García 2009, p. 142): The use of the frst language (French) is restricted in order to promote a second language (German). As a consequence, at an early age, these children gain the experience that their language of origin is assigned a lower status in the institutional hierarchy of languages. Looking at the educational relevance of the preschool institution of the day-care center, we, nonetheless, have to ask whether German-speaking children might not be disadvantaged in the long term when the day-care center so decisively does not feel responsible for teaching French. This is not just the language of the majority in the canton, but also the frst foreign language in all German-speaking elementary schools in the canton—and, thus, ultimately an educationally relevant capital. In view of the realities of migration in society, this particularly affects those children whose family language belongs to neither one language group nor the other. Because the majority of migrants in city X acquire or have acquired the hegemonic lingua franca French and often do not speak German, these parents usually choose to send their children to school in the francophone part of the school system. In this case, the German language skills acquired by the children at the day-care center will result in a loss of educational capital in the francophone education system in which they will continue to be relevant only as a foreign language. Hence, the institutionalized language regime of the day-care center that either discriminates against or favors individual language groups in both cases impacts on inequality. The effects seem to be mutually entangled and, in terms of educational biographies, they correspondingly differ in their impact on the further educational pathways of different groups of children. Hence, effects can be disadvantageous in various ways and point to the Janus-faced consequences of institutional language policies in felds of education.

### **References**

education and integration]. In: M. Stamm and D. Edelmann (Eds.), Frühkindliche Bildung, Betreuung und Erziehung.  Zürich: Rüegger.

Differenz – Ungleichheit – Erziehungswissenschaft. Verhältnisbestimmungen im (Inter-) Disziplinären (pp. 257–274). Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Pennycook, A. (2010). Language as a local practice. Milton Park: Routledge.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

**Translanguaging in School Education**

### **Translanguaging, (In)Security and Social Justice Education**

### Constadina Charalambous, Panayiota Charalambous, Michalinos Zembylas and Eleni Theodorou

### **Abstract**

This chapter draws on two ethnographic studies in Greek-Cypriot schools, focusing on immigrant children with Turkish as L1, a language that has been stigmatized by a history of confict both in the Greek-Cypriot context and in many of the children's own communities and historical trajectories. Analysing children's silences and self-censoring of their Turkish-speakerness, it examines how language ideologies and discourses of (in)security and confict may pose serious obstacles for enacting translanguaging as a socially just pedagogy.

#### **Keywords**

Translanguaging · Confict · Insecurity · Securitization · Social justice

European University Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
E. Theodorou e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
P. Charalambous Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, Nicosia, Cyprus

M. Zembylas Open University of Cyprus, Latsia, Cyprus e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© The Author(s) 2020 J. A. Panagiotopoulou et al. (eds.), *Inclusion, Education and Translanguaging*, Inklusion und Bildung in Migrationsgesellschaften, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-28128-1\_7

105

C. Charalambous (\*) · E. Theodorou

### **1 Introduction**

The concept of "translanguaging"—referring to "the fexible use of linguistic resources by bilinguals in order to make sense of their world" (García et al. 2015, p. 200)—has recently dominated debates on bilingual education inspiring many projects, conferences, articles, monographs and edited volumes—beyond the present one (García 2009; García and Li Wei 2014; Blackledge and Creese 2014; Jaspers and Madsen 2016, 2019). Coined in 1994 by Cen Williams in the context of north Wales, "translanguaging" has since signifcantly expanded in the work of Ofelia García (Beres 2015) and many others (e.g., García 2009; García and Li Wei 2014; García et al. 2015; Li Wei 2018). The educational benefts of translanguaging have been much celebrated to the extent that it is often seen as "the best way to educate bilingual children in the 21st century" (Beres 2015, p. 103). As a pedagogical strategy, translanguaging can "offer communicative and educational possibilities to all" (García 2009, p. 148), helping bilingual students develop "linguistic security and identity investment" (García 2009, p. 157) and ultimately working towards linguistic equality (García and Li Wei 2014). Within this context translanguaging can also be seen as a type of a socially just pedagogy, as it refers to a conscious pedagogical endeavour to improve the learning and life opportunities of typically underserved students, while equipping and empowering all students working towards a more socially just and inclusive society (Ayers et al. 2009; Kincheloe and Steinberg 1998; King 2005; Ladson-Billings 1994).

However, as the title of the present chapter implies, here we won't focus as much on the positive outcomes of translanguaging, which have been thoroughly documented by many studies (cited above). Instead, we will rather focus on some complications emerging from the processes of confict and insecurity that are increasingly affecting the lives of many students and teachers (see also P. Charalambous et al. 2016, 2019). In other words, our chapter aims to address questions such as: How can translanguaging practices be affected by language ideologies, and in particular, ideologies and discourses of confict? And what are the challenges posed by the increasing (in)securitization processes and practices that "enact our world as if it is a dangerous world, a world saturated by insecurities" (Huysmans 2014, p. 3)?

In order to answer these questions, we draw on data from two ethnographic studies, conducted in diverse schools and classrooms, focusing on students' linguistic practices. Both studies were conducted in Cyprus, a country that has been seriously affected by interethnic confict and has been divided since the 1974 war. Taking into account the dominant discourses of confict in this socio-political context, we will look at classrooms as a "charged space" (Pace 2015) that includes frictions, emotional discomfort and insecurity, and we discuss the role that translanguaging pedagogies may have in such spaces.

In what follows we frst provide an account of how discourses of "security" affect our everyday lives, borrowing the concepts of "securitization" and (in) security from critical International Relation (IR) studies. We then move on to discuss the notion of translanguaging in relation to social justice pedagogies. After we briefy introduce the confict-affected Cypriot context we present the two case studies and we discuss the complications for enacting translanguaging as a socially just pedagogy under conditions of insecurity and confict.

### **2 Everyday (In)Securitization**

Since 9/11, "security concerns" and discourses of threat, fear and suspicion have become much more pervasive in everyday life, signifcantly impacting educational institutions. Schools, nurseries, universities and youth community centres are becoming sites of security surveillance as teachers have to deal with undocumented students, and students from what are seen as "suspect communities" (C. Charalambous et al. 2018; Figueroa 2017; Khan 2017; Nguyen 2016).

For example, in the UK the *Prevent* policy consists of a comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy which includes local authorities, education from early child care providers to higher education, and health services. Within this policy, educational institutions are obliged to report any children who might be radicalized or "at risk", with Muslim students portrayed as potential terrorists and teachers as de facto security professionals (C. Charalambous et al. 2018). Similarly as Nguyen (2016) describes in the US context, the FBI has warned of the "vulnerability" of high school students for recruitment by violent extremists calling out to educational institutions to report children/individuals who might be radicalized or "at risk" by observing and assessing behaviors and communication.

In order to account for the increasing presence of security discourses in education and their impact on language education and bilingualism, the notion of "securitization" (Emmers 2013; Stritzel 2007) emerges as a helpful one, and indeed it has recently been widely used, beyond the feld of IR and the Copenhagen School of Security Studies, where it was initially coined (see P. Charalambous et al. 2017; Rampton and Charalambous 2020). Securitization, in the way it has been used in IR, refers to authoritative institutional processes in which existential threats are identifed, and in response to this potential danger, issues can be moved away from the realm of ordinary politics into the realm of exceptional measures, where normal political rights and procedures are suspended. Throughout this process, discourse plays a crucial part, both in declaring a particular group, phenomenon, or process to be an existential threat, and in persuading people that this warrants the introduction of special measures to ensure "security" (P. Charalambous et al. 2017).

However, a question worthwhile asking is to what extent we can separate "security" from "insecurity". For example, does the image of armed soldiers in public places produce security or insecurity to people present? Using the metaphor of a "mobius strip" where the two sides of the string cannot be separated, Bigo and Mc Cluskey (2018) argue for the "consubstantiality of security and insecurity" (p. 126), suggesting instead the use of the parenthetic "*(in)*" and accordingly the terms "*(in)security*" and "(*in)securitization*" to highlight that what is considered security for some might be insecurity for others, depending on the point of view. Following the conceptualization of "(in)security" as everyday practice, Rampton and Charalambous (2020) emphasise the need to understand the "lived experience of (in)securitisation as an intensifying apprehension of institutionally authorised vulnerability and existential threat, produced (and received) in communicative practice in a range of social settings" (p. 6). In order to do so here, we turn to the communicative practice of translanguaging and the social setting of a classroom.

### **3 Translanguaging & Social Justice**

Translanguaging theory and research emerged within more general critique of ideologies of "fxity" in conceptualisations of language, belonging and social identity and a shift of emphasis to the more fuid and hybrid nature of linguistic practices—especially in urban, globalised and culturally diverse social contexts (e.g., Jaspers 2005; Madsen et al. 2016; Rampton 1995). In this context, concepts such as "crossing", "translanguaging", "polylanguaging" etc. (Creese and Blackledge 2010; García 2009; Jørgensen 2008; Rampton 1995, 2006) have been introduced to describe various heteroglossic practices and their social and pedagogial implications.

Translanguaging, in particular, refers both to (a) more general habitual discursive practices of multilingual speakers, *and* (b) to a particular pedagogic approach for the teaching of both language and content (Canagarajah 2011; Creese and Blackledge 2010; García 2009; for a more detailed account see P. Charalambous et al. 2019). In the last two decades, translanguaging has been taken up and further developed by a number of educators (García 2009; García and Li Wei 2014; see also Beres 2015) as a pedagogical strategy that can contribute to a socially just world:

a process by which students and teachers engage in complex discursive practices that include ALL the language practices of ALL students in a class in order to develop new language practices and sustain old ones, communicate and appropriate knowledge, and give voice to new sociopolitical realities by interrogating linguistic inequality. (García and Kano 2014, p. 261)

Socially just pedagogies are generally understood as those pedagogical practices that actively address issues of oppression and privilege in the classroom with the purpose of addressing social inequalities and contributing to a more socially just society (Kincheloe and Steinberg 1998; King 2005; Ladson-Billings 1994). Although socially just pedagogies in and by themselves will not eradicate structural inequalities, they can make a contribution to recognising and critically interrogating the issues that perpetuate these injustices. Teachers who enact social justice pedagogy in their classrooms acknowledge their role as agents of social change and aim to equip their students with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to transform society into a place where social justice can exist. Basically, then, a social justice framework in pedagogical practice is driven by the determination to resist and take action against unfairness and inequity, while enhancing freedom and possibility for all students (Ayers et al. 2009).

Also committed to empowering all students, translanguaging encourages "the deployment of a speaker's full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defned boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages" (Otheguy et al. 2015, p. 3), going thus against the powerful monolingual paradigm and the nationalist "dogma of homogeneism" (Blommaert and Verschueren 1992). As such, translanguaging pedagogy emerges as an inherently "political act", (Flores 2014 as cited in García and Lin 2016, p. 8) within a broader "sociocritical approach to teaching" (García and Li Wei 2014, p. 92 f.), closely connected with education for social justice (García and Leiva 2014) and human rights (García and Li Wei 2014, p. 116). According to García and Li Wei (2014, p. 13) translanguaging practices "enact a political process of social and subjectivity transformation which resists the asymmetries of power that language and other meaning making-codes associated with one or another nationalist ideology, produce".

Within this context, the deployment of students' full linguistic repertoires is seen as creating a "third space" "where alternative representations and enunciations can be generated because buried histories are released and alternative, conficting knowledges are produced" (García and Leiva 2014, p. 204). According to García and Li Wei (2014) translanguaging as pedagogy promises to "liberate" and empower minoritised bilingual students that have been "silenced" (p. 101), "oppressed" (p. 42) and ostracised by "giv[ing them] back the voice that had been taken away by ideologies of monoglot standards" (p. 105).

Hurst and Mona (2017), for example, propose translanguaging pedagogies as a socially just alternative to colonial monolingual and anglonormative practices of continued reliance on English as the medium of education in South Africa, which disadvantages many students whose home language is not English. Indeed in post-colonial contexts translanguaging can provide recognition to languages that are usually ignored, empowering students and promoting social justice.

However, as with any educational attempt to run against powerful and hegememonic ideologies, translanguaging may produce resistance, discomfort and negative emotional reactions (P. Charalambous et al. 2016, 2019) and in this paper we focus on these instances, and the implications for teachers, learners and (socially just) pedagogy when discourses of (in)security and processes of (in) securitization affect the classroom.

Before turning to the examples from the two studies, it is worth describing the Cypriot context and the ways in which it is affected by discourses of threat.

### **4 The Cypriot Context**

Cyprus has suffered a long history of interethnic confict between the two major ethnolinguistic communities, Greek- and Turkish- Cypriots. As both ethnic groups had political claims over the island's identity—"Greek" and "Turkish" respectively (Bryant 2004)—, interethnic violence (1963–1967) broke out soon after the establishment of the independent Republic of Cyprus in 1960 and the confict culminated with Turkey's military operation in 1974. Since 1974, Cyprus has been de facto divided, with Turkish-Cypriots residing in the north—considered "under Turkish occupation" by the UN—and Greek-Cypriots residing in the southern government-controlled areas of the Republic of Cyprus. Up until 2003 communication between the two parts was almost impossible.

Despite ongoing negotiations for reaching an agreed settlement, the so-called "Cyprus Issue" remains unresolved, leaving open many legal but also emotional questions (e.g., property rights, missing people). This "open wound" has contributed to the cultivation of a strong ethnocentric orientation in Greek-Cypriot society, with Turks being represented as an imminent threat that poses sincere security concerns.

In this context, language has played a signifcant role in perpetuating the confict, as both communities viewed their language as a salient part of collective identity and as crucial for ethnolinguistic survival (Karoulla-Vrikki 2004). It is for this reason that, even though both Greek and Turkish are offcial languages of the Republic, Turkish was only introduced in Greek-Cypriot education in 2003, as a "foreign language" and a "measure for building trust" between the two communities. Still, studies showed how Turkish continued to invoke the "enemy" and the historical traumas of war and displacement; Greek-Cypriot students of Turkish were often called "traitors"; while teachers systematically tried to avoid references to the local contexts of Turkish language use (C. Charalambous 2012, 2014).

At the same time, the Greek-Cypriot society has been witnessing (since 90s) a diversifcation with signifcantly increasing migration and the last census estimated migrants comprising about 23% of the population (e.g., Greek-Pontian expatriates, Eastern Europeans migrants from South East Asia, and political or war refugees from Syria, Iran etc.). As a result, in 2001, Intercultural Education was frst introduced in state schools and, despite considerable progress, research points to challenges posed by the hegemony of confict narratives on the implementation of intercultural education (P. Charalambous et al. 2016; Theodorou and Symeou 2013).

Another notable change in the ideological orientations of Greek-Cypriot education has been the introduction of a peace-related policy in 2008 aiming at the promotion of a "culture of peaceful coexistence" between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. This initiative caused ferce public and educational debates, as many teachers considered the policy incompatible with the dominant culture and inconsiderate of local sensitivities. Although a signifcant step in introducing peace education in Greek-Cypriot offcial rhetoric, in actual practice the initiative resulted in relatively poor implementation outcomes (see also Zembylas et al. 2016). The second case study described here involves a teacher's attempt to implement the new peace-related policy in 2010, in a classroom where the majority of students had Turkish as home language.

In what follows we present the two case studies conducted in multilingual classrooms, and we show how confict discourses and processes of (in)securitization created unfavourable ecologies in the schools and classrooms for performances of Turkish speakerness.

### **5 The Two Studies**

### **5.1 Case Study 1: Immigrant Children Identity Negotiation in a Greek Cypriot Primary School**

This was an ethnographic study that sought to explore identity negotiation processes among immigrant students in Cyprus. It was conducted by Eleni Theodorou over a period of eight months in 2007 (January–August) and it included interviews with students, teachers, parents and members of the ethnic communities existent at the school, as well as document analysis. In addition, daily full-day observations were carried at the school both during school hours as well as after, during social events such as football games, school festivals, and graduation ceremonies, at a nearby public youth club, children's homes, and the surrounding community throughout the duration of the feldwork.

The school which consisted the primary site of the study was a small urban public primary school with fewer than 150 students that was chosen because of its high concentration of non Greek-Cypriot students. Thirty-three percent (33%) of the school population were non-Cypriots. Of the non-Cypriot population at the school, half were children with parents from Georgia, 21% with parents from other former Soviet Union countries, such as Russia and Bulgaria, 21% were Greeks from Mainland Greece, 4% had parents from countries of the Middle East, and another 4% from countries in Asia. The great majority of the immigrant children were Pontian whose parents had been born and raised in Georgia. It is important to note that Pontian families who originated from Georgia spoke Turkish at home (children could also communicate in Russian). At the backdrop of the sociohistorical context of Cyprus, this fact proved to be highly consequential for the way Turkophone children at the school crafted their space and positioned themselves therein and beyond, as explained below.

One of the central fndings of the study was the revelation of the extent of the educational and social marginalization immigrant children suffered at the school contrary to teachers' perceptions of social integration which they often based on the relative absence of volatile and blatantly racist incidents. Indeed, on a frst glance the school appeared to be one of peaceful coexistence of different cultures, languages, and backgrounds. Closer looks however revealed that immigrant children received such strong messages of assimilation that in fact one of the strategies they deployed to negotiate their positionalities at the school was hiding and passing. Depending on the spheres and contexts they traversed, this was a twofold process of associating and disassociating with a particular social identity, in order to avoid otherization. Passing mainly consisted of asserting Greekness. Hiding was a multi-layered process which involved *hiding the status of foreignness*, *concealing Pontianness*, *and distancing* one's self *from Turkishness*. This was mainly manifested in the way immigrant children at the school often resorted to concealing aspects of their identities, including their native language, the language(s) they spoke at home and their parents' home country. For the purposes of this discussion, we will be focusing on processes of distancing from one's Turkishness when at school or in public (for a discussion on how immigrant children navigated public and private see Theodorou 2008), precisely to highlight the necessity of understanding processes of translanguaging (and identity negotiation) as intricately enmeshed in felds of power which unfold in the midst of social interaction and in particular sociohistorical contexts.

As stated above, the language of the private sphere within the Greek diasporic community of Pontians from Georgia was Turkish. For Pontian children, the frictional relationship between dominant notions of Greekness and Turkishness in the Cypriot context raised issues of ethnic identity, loyalty, and patriotism all at once. As a result, Pontian children, wary of possible repercussions "because Turks did that other thing…[and] some get angry for sure, they don't like [that you speak Turkish]" (Katerina, female, Greek,1 immigrant), opted to keep their native tongue a secret, as exemplifed in the excerpt of an informal conversation Eleni Theodorou had with a Pontian girl in the school yard during recess below:

Popi (f., im.): {I will be} Here {during the summer}. I don't want to go to Greece, they don't watch Turkish channels there over. They have them but they don't watch them. Eleni/Researcher: Whereas here you watch them? Popi: Yes. Eleni: Do you like it? Popi: Yes, I like Turkish very much. Eleni: Do you tell your classmates too that you know Turkish? Popi: *Noooo!* ((emphasis in original)) Eleni: Why? Popi: Did they ever ask or anything? Eleni: If they did, would you tell them? Popi: *Noooo!!* ((emphasis in original)) Eleni: Why? Popi: ((She does not respond and looks at me with a nervous smile))

<sup>1</sup>Pseudonyms and ethnic self-identifcation were provided by children participants themselves.

Eleni: If they asked you what languages you know, what would you say? Popi: Greek ((pauses)) and Russian. Eleni: Only? You would not bring up Turkish? Popi: No. (Field notes by Eleni Theodorou, 13th June 2007)

Acts of direct and spontaneous admittance regarding Turkish, such as the above, occurred only in private, outside the formal structural environment of the classroom, and in the intimacy and safety of small friendship groups in the yard out of earshot of their classmates. The fear of exposure which drove all these efforts to take precautionary measures against a potential public exposure was by no means ungrounded and could not have been mitigated simply through what may well have been well-intended yet naïve efforts on behalf of teachers to encourage multilingualism in the classroom. Without a more nuanced reading of these silences, their (hi)stories, and historicities, efforts to promote (celebratory rather than critical) translanguaging in the classroom may be rendered not only ineffective (as seen in the example below) but damaging, even, for those most vulnerable.

### **5.2 Case Study 2: "Researching the Obstacles and Limitations for Reconciliation, Multiculturalism and Social Justice"**

The second study was a two-year ethnographic project (2009–2011, funded by the Open University of Cyprus) which set out to explore the challenges and opportunities involved in the Greek-Cypriot 2008 educational initiative for "Peaceful Coexistence".2 The study was conducted by the frst three authors and involved three phases: (1) participant observations, recordings and interviews in 6 focal classrooms for 3 months; (2) a series of 6 3-hour training seminars on Peace, Reconciliation & Social Justice in which all focal teachers participated; (3) observations and lessons designed and implemented by focal teachers based on the training they had received on peace pedagogies. The data in this paper derive from this third phase after the focal teacher, Thalia (a pseudonym), had completed her training on peace pedagogies.

Thalia was a teacher in her late 30s with 15 years of teaching experience and considerable postgraduate studies. She had been teaching at the school for the past four years and was teaching the same group for the second year. Hence,

<sup>2</sup>For a detailed description of the project and its overall results see Zembylas et al. (2016).

classroom relations were strong and students appeared very fond of their teacher, keen to participate and generally enjoyed their time in class. Thalia described her students as "good kids", though "mediocre to bad" in terms of achievement, and she reported modifying her teaching considerably to meet their needs. Thalia also appeared quite knowledgeable of her students' out-of-school lives (migration histories, residence, family circumstances, interests etc.) and her teaching often sought to incorporate this in the classroom.

The small primary school where Thalia worked was located close to the buffer zone dividing the old city centre in Nicosia, and belonged to the Zones for Educational Priority (ZEP), a special intervention programme (at the time) for addressing social inequalities in education. 95% of the students were of migrant working-class backgrounds, with complex migration trajectories. Teachers often described the school as "special", "very different" and sometimes "diffcult". In addition to their various ethnolinguistic backgrounds, students had also varied levels of communicative and academic competence in Greek.

Turkish had a signifcant presence in the school as students of Turkishspeaking Pontian backgrounds formed the biggest ethnic group (about 40% of the population), with the majority originating from Georgia and Western Russia. According to teachers, most Pontian families had migrated to Cyprus in the late 1990s, often after having spent several years in Greece as repatriate Greeks. Therefore, Pontian students tended to be more confdent in Greek, some of them had attended Greek education since their early childhood, and Turkish was used in their home environments mostly for oral communication. Other Turkish-speaking students in the school had Bulgarian, Roma, Turkish and Turkish-Cypriot backgrounds. Although these groups used different varieties of Turkish, teachers reported that Turkish-speaking students seemed to manage basic understanding across these varieties. Nonetheless, Greek remained the preferred language of communication between all students in the school.

Thalia's group consisted of 11 students (3 girls, 9 boys) between 8–9 years old, of which only one was Greek-Cypriot. The remaining students had Greek as a second language, while Turkish was the home language of six students, fve with Pontian and one with Turkish-Bulgarian backgrounds. Emil was by far the most fuent speaker of Turkish in class and he had also basic literacy skills, acquired through chatting online with his uncle in Bulgaria. Thalia characterised Emil (who will be the protagonist in the example below), as a "quiet but very good kid", who was "still struggling with Greek" because, in contrast to most students, he had only entered Greek-Cypriot education a year ago, while his family could not speak Greek at all.

During our ethnographic observations it emerged that many Turkish-speaking students in Thalia's class had considerable out-of-school experiences with Turkish people and culture. Nevertheless, our research collected evidence for the suppression of students' Turkish-speakerness in school in various ways, similarly to case study 1. Generally Turkish-speaking students tended to refrain from speaking Turkish in school, especially in more formal contexts like the classroom, or in front of the researcher. According to Thalia, Pontian students seemed to carry from home "a guilt mixed with fear" for being Turcophone, and they often felt the need to clarify that "I speak the language but I'm not Turkish".

 He also appeared "uncomfortable" during classroom discussions about Muslims and Turks and tried to conceal his family's relations with the Turkish-speaking north.

In contrast, Thalia's own classroom practices did not, in any way, encourage monolingual norms. In line with the suggestions in the translanguaging literature discussed above, with which she was familiar from her studies, she generally embraced her group's diversity and encouraged students' use of home linguistic repertoires to ensure understanding and maximise communication. Thus, she often invited students to offer synonyms of Greek words in their home languages or use home languages to explain aspects of the lesson to peers, which resulted in hybrid constructions that combined different linguistic features.

However, when Thalia tried to formally encourage linguistic performances of Turkish she met considerable resistance, as her sincere and well-intended educational attempt ran against powerful ideologies of (in)securitization and confict. This ideological clash becomes obvious in the extract that we present and discuss below (for an extended discussion of this episode see P. Charalambous et al. 2018). This extract comes from a series of 3 lessons that Thalia designed during the training education workshops, and involved teaching positive Greek-Turkish relations within the framework of peace education. To this end, Thalia chose a story that thematized Greek-Turkish relations, included Turkish characters and Greek-Turkish bilinguals, and contained Turkish lexical items.

During the frst lesson, in which Emil was absent, Thalia introduced the story, and the class discussed the bilingualism of the Greek protagonist (who was using many Turkish words) comparing it to their own bilingualism, whether it involved Turkish or not. Thalia also shared with students the fact that her own grandfather was bilingual because he had been living and working with Turkish Cypriots. Thalia then attempted to elicit some Turkish phrases from students but they resisted, and there were references to Emil as a more competent bilingual.

The next lesson started with a brief revision of what they did last time. Taking advantage of Emil's presence, Thalia told him that they needed him last time to compose a note that would be sent to the fctional Turkish character of the story.

1 2 3 4 5 6 **THALIA:** ok, Emil should tell us now, in case you found Meltem ((*fctional character*)), what would you tell her in Turkish, because she lost her slipper and so on and so on **Emil:** miss I would tell he::r-**Maria:** in Turkish! **Yorgos:** not in Greek!

(Classroom recording, feldnotes taken by Panayiota Charalambous)

a English translation: I found your (slipper) in the sea

As evident in the episode above, despite the fact that a large group of students had at least some level of competence in Turkish, and despite Thalia's best intentions, the attempt to encourage students to perform their home linguistic repertoires was met with considerable resistance: pauses (lines 12, 15, 17, 26), hesitation (e.g., lines 4, 10, 15), and silence (lines 26–27). Throughout the extract both Thalia and the students are supportive and encouraging (e.g., lines 5, 6, 12, 13,) whilst Emil seems very willing to perform the task (which was constructed as "helping the class"—line 14) and please Thalia; in fact, he does not abandon the attempt and tries to deliver the content of the task (a message to Meltem). It's only in line 18 that Thalia realises that the problem is the medium in which the task was supposed to be delivered and she therefore recommends a change (frst in Greek and then in Turkish). Indeed, Emil responds immediately to this change and without a hesitation tries in line 22 to perform the task in his L2 even with some audible diffculties in constructing the sentences and choosing the right Greek words. When he fnally attempts to translate the message to his L1 and home language there are again hesitations and pauses, and he leaves the task unfnished. After a whole 12s pause, Thalia steps in and changes the task to relieve the tension.

So, how can we interpret the "sensitivities" and the "silences" that emerge, despite the teacher's efforts and good intentions? In order to do so, we need to consider how wider collective narratives, historical trajectories, sociopolitical processes, and larger ideologies may impact classroom interaction, and specifcally the ways in which linguistic diversity is "voiced"—or not.

We do so in the discussion section that follows, where we refect on how the two case studies can help us rethink concepts such as "translanguaging" and their relation to social justice pedagogies.

### **6 Discussion and Implications**

A socially just pedagogy involves pedagogical strategies that encourage critical questioning and resistance against systems of oppression and normalisation, and inspire social action that challenges injustice (Ayers et al. 2009; Kincheloe and Steinberg 1998; King 2005; Ladson-Billings 1994). A translanguaging pedagogical approach involves pedagogical strategies that are designed to empower, liberate and "give voice" to students to express their marginalised full linguistic repertoires. However, in both the case studies we discussed, rather than recording creative polylingual performances we evidenced silence and inarticulateness. As this chapter has shown, strong (in)securitization discourses may have complicated the enactment of translanguaging as socially just pedagogy.

Despite students' linguistic practices at home, as well as linguistic competences, students' public performance of their home linguistic repertoires in educational settings seemed to cause emotional discomfort, and hesitation resulting in self-censorship. This urges us as researchers and educators to rethink and interrogate our concepts and practices. How easy is to avoid associations with named languages? Can we escape linguistic ideologies and how? And to what extent can we transcend language as a powerful index of ethnonational belonging? Furthermore, how can we rethink translanguaging as a socially just pedagogy when issues of (in)security are involved?

These questions become more pressing in contexts where language is unavoidably part of a "conficted heritage" which students have to negotiate in their everyday lives (C. Charalambous 2019) and which may pose a risk and create severe insecurities. Indeed, in students' home communities (Pontian, Bulgarian) we can fnd narratives of confict with Turks and histories of oppression of Turkish language use. With the political situation in Cyprus remaining unresolved, the issues raised in this chapter continue to create complications and other recent studies also discuss their emotional and political complexities (Zembylas et al. 2017, 2019a, b—the frst in the context of religious education, the second in Holocaust education and the third in human rights education). But issues of (in)security are not unique for Cyprus. With the increase of (in)securitization processes that was described in the beginning of this chapter minority languages in different countries might also be (in)securitized, and their public performance in the classroom may be seen as threatening. Khan (2017) describes such processes taking place in the UK, whilst Zakharia (2016) describes the impact of (in)securitization processes on Arabic education in NYC.

As Jaspers and Madsen (2019) remind us, language socialisation literature has long argued that from very early on children socialise into language ideologies, and power asymmetries between different "named languages" and that this metapragmatic awareness always shapes to an extent their language use. This is also the case with (in)securitization processes and children in both case studies knew that performing Turkish in the classroom could potentially put them at risk.

The examples discussed here do not undermine the pedagogical potential of translanguaging practices. They do though urge us to carefully examine the discursive, historical, ideological and cultural constraints that frame classroom interactions, as well as students' insecurities, in order to design not only socially just but also *sensitive* pedagogies—including translanguaging. In this endeavour the concept of "inarticulateness" maybe as useful as "translanguaging". According to McDermott (1988) inarticulateness should not be approached as the product of individual inability of linguistic defciency but rather bound to social situations, roles, and social structures that condition what is sayable (McDermott 1988). In this way inarticulateness may serve as "an invitation to listen in a new way". The call for socially just pedagogies in conditions of (in)security requires attention to silences (Rampton and Charalambous 2016; Spyrou 2016) and inarticulateness as much as to issues of recognition, voice and polylingual creative performances.

This can help educators to seriously take into consideration the emotional and political complexities and the students' precarious positionings.

### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

### **'We Learn Together'—Translanguaging within a Holistic Approach towards Multilingualism in Education**

### Joana Duarte and Mirjam T. Günther-van der Meij

### **Abstract**

Within two multilingual education projects in the north of the Netherlands a holistic model for multilingualism in education is being tested. This is done through design-based interventions in which in- and pre-service teachers, teacher trainers and researchers co-develop and evaluate multilingual activities for different school types. Results show that through experimenting in a safe environment teachers gradually embraced their pupils' multilingualism. This contradicts earlier fndings on teachers strongly favouring monolingual instruction and viewing migrant languages as a defcit.

#### **Keywords**

Translanguaging · Holistic approach · Multilingual education · Design-based research

J. Duarte (\*)

University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
M. T. Günther-van der Meij

© The Author(s) 2020

NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
J. A. Panagiotopoulou et al. (eds.), *Inclusion, Education and Translanguaging*, Inklusion und Bildung in Migrationsgesellschaften, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-28128-1\_8

### **1 Introduction**

Since the rise of modern nation-states, dominant monolingual language ideologies have perpetuated in much of the industrialized world—with Europe being no exception. In particular, over the past two decades, academic success for those who fnd themselves speaking a plurality of languages, has been pressured by monolingual standards in dominant languages (Pulinx et al. 2017). These ideologies have failed to comprehend and cater for the rich complexities of human collective existence and thus, at times have been implemented as weapons in ever persisting battles for nationalistic control. As the world undergoes processes leading to superdiversity through the intensifcation of migration (Vertovec 2007), it is unlikely that nation building tactics from the past, such as the continuation of a monolingual habitus (Gogolin 2002), will be able to manage the composition of modern states. This is already evident across a plethora of institutional platforms, where multilingual identities are often denied full participation, contributing to the degradation of intercultural existence and equality. One such platform capable of moulding shared beliefs, expectations and norms is the school, which behaves as a microcosm for its surrounding environment and can provide an insight into future societal operations.

Nowadays, pupils from minority language backgrounds face a gap between their academic achievement and that of their majority speaking peers (Samson and Lesaux 2015). Typically, in explaining this gap, educators take a defcit approach to multilingualism, where insuffcient linguistic capabilities in the dominant language of the school are seen as the key cause for poor academic performance (Pulinx et al. 2017; Young 2014). Conversely, those within the scientifc community have seen the vast benefts of multilingualism as a resource to learners and classrooms, if fostered in an appropriate way by the teaching staff (Tolbert and Knox 2016). Currently however, the special linguistic and cognitive benefts available to multilinguals are typically allotted mostly to children belonging to a socially privileged background, where the transnational human capital offered by migration is commonly acknowledged (Fürstenau 2016). Equally, students deriving from socially disadvantaged migrant families, often presenting multilingual skills in languages low on the linguistic hierarchy, are seen as problematic or worse—a threat (Angelis 2011; Fürstenau 2016; Pulinx et al. 2017).

The current study is set in the offcially bilingual Province of Friesland, in the North of the Netherlands. In this region the minority language Frisian and the dominant language Dutch are spoken next to other minority and migrant languages. Friesland has known a growing number of migrants in the last decade (CBS [Central Bureau voor de Statistiek] 2016). Language maintenance of Frisian is of high importance for the region, especially because of the high interference of Dutch (Gorter et al. 2001). This has led to strict language separation in education (Duarte and Günther-van der Meij 2018a). With the arrival of other minority and migrant languages, schools are nowadays faced with a new challenge: incorporating these languages into their everyday practice. This is the motivation behind recent multilingual education projects based on a holistic model for multilingualism in education (Duarte and Günther-van der Meij 2018b) that aims at acknowledging and using both migrant and minority languages of pupils in education, next to the majority and foreign languages and is suitable for different school types (e.g., trilingual, mainstream, newcomer schools). Offcial or pedagogical translanguaging is one of the approaches of the model (Duarte 2018).

The aim of the present chapter is to shed light on the potentials of (offcial) translanguaging as a part of a holistic approach for multilingualism in education (Duarte 2017; Duarte and Günther-van der Meij 2018b), in which also other approaches for the use of multiple languages in education are featured. It looks at translanguaging at two levels: classroom practices and professional development of pre- and in-service teachers. Further, it wishes to address the following research questions:

### **2 Translanguaging (Functions) and the Holistic Model**

According to Li Wei (2017), "the term translanguaging seems to have captured people's imagination" (p. 9). As such, it has almost shifted from a descriptive label for the fexible use of pupils' linguistic repertoires to make meaning (García 2009) to a prescriptive concept that researchers and practitioners in education should be using as a theoretical lens proposing an alternative view of biand multilingualism (Vogel and García 2017). The term has been widely applied to pedagogy, but also to the analysis of everyday social interaction, cross-modal communication (Gort 2015), linguistic landscape, visual arts, music, and transgender discourse (MacSwan 2017; Li Wei 2017). García and Kano (2014) refer to translanguaging in education as

a process by which students and teachers engage in complex discursive practices that include ALL the language practices of ALL students in a class in order to develop new language practices and sustain old ones, communicate and appropriate knowledge, and give voice to new socio-political realities by interrogating linguistic inequality. (p. 261)

In terms of the use of the concept in pedagogical settings, a plethora of studies has examined multiple advantages of a translanguaging lens on how teachers act multilingually and how learners acquire and use their respective languages in classroom settings. Concrete examples of studies looked at how learners use two languages in small group activities to support bilingual learning (Childs 2016; Martin-Beltrán 2009), the co-construction of knowledge in content classes (Duarte 2016), interaction of emergent bilinguals in school settings (Gort 2015), the general use of two languages in classroom settings (Palmer et al. 2014; MacSwan 2017), the effects of using two languages for the teaching of reading (Soltero-Gonzalez et al. 2016), within science classrooms (Jørgensen 2008), as a means of balancing the power-relations among languages in the classroom (Canagarajah 2011), in promoting minority languages (Cenoz 2009), for raising participant confdence and motivation (Creese and Blackledge 2010), as a maximiser of learning literacy skills (Hornberger and Link 2012), and for general empowerment and early language learning (Latisha and Young 2017).

Duarte (2018) described translanguaging spaces, in which various interaction practices serve different functions depending on a) whether the aim of the teachers is to acknowledge or actively use the different languages; b) whether the teachers are profcient in the languages involved in the translanguaging moment, and c) the types of languages involved. Instances of offcial translanguaging (see Tab. 1) with a *symbolic function* are aimed at recognizing and valorizing migrant languages within mainstream education and require no profciency in those languages from the teacher. A *scaffolding function* is achieved when temporary but systematic bridges towards other languages are incorporated in everyday teaching attributing equal value to all languages. Teachers require no knowledge of migrant languages to do this, as long as pupils are perceived as the experts for their own family languages. Similar aims can be reached by scaffolding the acknowledgement of various instruction languages present within the teaching

**Tab. 1** Functions of offcial translanguaging. (Note. Adapted from Duarte 2018, p. 13.)

model (such as Dutch, Frisian and English). Jones and Lewis (2014) also refer to "scaffolded translanguaging" in the context of bilingual education. Finally, offcial translanguaging can likewise fulfl an *epistemological function* when the different languages are actively used to enhance both content- and language knowledge. This is appropriate for exploring migrant, minority and foreign languages in their full potential as learning instruments. However, a teacher profcient in those languages is needed to interact with the pupils.

Criticism to translanguaging pedagogies stresses its lack of empirical verifcation in terms of measurable effects on educational outcomes. In addition, teachers often complain that its goal is too philosophical and it lacks a clear defnition in terms of pedagogical tools (Ticheloven et al. 2019). Conteh (2018) also delivers a critical review of translanguaging as pedagogy, claiming that the emphasis of research has so far been on understanding processes of interaction rather than on exploring its pedagogic potential. Jaspers (2018) states that the implementation of translanguaging at school is likely to be less transformative and socially critical than implied, as research a) has much in common with the monolingual ideologies it criticizes, b) trades on causality effects that cannot be taken for granted, c) is becoming a dominating rather than a liberating force.

In sum, although enjoying positive echoing in research and, to a certain extent, pedagogical practice, the implementation of translanguaging as a pedagogy does not yet belong to the pedagogical *status quo* across schools in Europe. On the one side, a translanguaging pedagogy clashes against prevailing monolingual ideologies often translated into immersion models for language teaching which lead to strict language separation. On the other side, ideas of teachers in relation to the value and functions of pupils' other languages lead translanguaging practices to be perceived as 'illegitimate' in mainstream education (Kamwangamalu 2010).