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This study explores the impact of adult basic education programs aimed at enhancing social inclusion for immigrant learners in the Netherlands. Basic literacy skills are vital for performing everyday tasks and building human capital, which in turn facilitates employment and skill acquisition. Low adult literacy is often associated with social exclusion and poverty, which can have detrimental effects on mental health and further reinforce marginalization. We analyzed two adult education programs (N = 171) conducted in 2019, within the context of lifelong learning policies designed to support adults with low literacy skills. Our findings confirm the positive effects of these educational programs on social inclusion outcomes. Through logistic regression and moderation analyses, we examined how participants' sociodemographic backgrounds influenced their social inclusion outcomes following the program. Key pre-training conditions, such as prior education and employment status, influenced how participants engaged with a positively perceived learning environment. Assertiveness emerged as a significant outcome, affecting changes across various aspects of social inclusion. These results suggest that acquiring new skills empowers participants to reshape their self-perceived literacy identity. This study adds to the body of literature on adult education by emphasizing the importance of training design and sociodemographic factors in fostering social inclusion for immigrant learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies across countries part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) suggest that learners' sense of school belonging is often influenced by their place of birth. However, large-scale assessment studies rarely explore whether differences in belonging scores between nonimmigrant and immigrant learners are due to test bias. This study fills that gap by examining belonging scores in Costa Rican high schools using the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 data, with a focus on test fairness. Utilizing Multiple-group Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analyses and Item Response Theory (IRT) modeling, results show that all items are DIF-free, confirming no test bias. An Independent Samples t-test reveals no significant differences in belonging scores between immigrant and non-immigrant learners, which is a positive finding. It suggests that Costa Rican educational environments foster a shared sense of belonging, regardless of learners’ place of birth. The most discriminating items, identified through IRT modeling, relate to performative or participatory aspects of school belonging. This study highlights the importance of incorporating IRT modeling and fairness protocols in large-scale assessments. By confirming that sense of belonging is not impacted by place of birth, stakeholders can confidently make decisions that further support inclusive educational practices in Costa Rican classrooms, knowing the PISA sense of belonging index provides unbiased, reliable scores.

Language assessment is a central aspect not only of language education in the general population, but also amongst heterogeneous, low-incidence populations. One such population are immigrant deaf and hard-of-hearing learners (IDML) who are bimodal-multilingual and whose languages development often includes the spoken, written, and/or signed languages of the host country in addition to learners’ home language(s) (Cannon and Marx 2024) [“Scoping review of research methodologies across language studies with deaf and hard-of-hearing multilingual learners.” International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 62 (2): 1009–1037]. Language assessment with these learners is complicated due to a lack of expected norms for the population and a lack of appropriate instruments for signed languages in general (Pizzo and Chilvers 2019) [“Assessment of Language and Literacy in Children Who Are d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing.” Education Sciences 9 (3): 223]. This is a major issue for both research and pedagogy. In order to address this in the German context, a comparison of available assessment instruments focusing on vocabulary knowledge in written German and German Sign Language was carried out. The aim of this exploratory study was (1) to examine available language assessments, (2) to test them with a small sample representing the target population in order to determine their convergent validity, and (3) to provide recommendations for researchers and practitioners for their use. The results shed light on the potential for existing instruments to provide necessary and useful information for assessment in research and schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies across countries part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) suggest that learners' sense of school belonging is often influenced by their place of birth. However, large-scale assessment studies rarely explore whether differences in belonging scores between nonimmigrant and immigrant learners are due to test bias. This study fills that gap by examining belonging scores in Costa Rican high schools using the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 data, with a focus on test fairness. Utilizing Multiple-group Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analyses and Item Response Theory (IRT) modeling, results show that all items are DIF-free, confirming no test bias. An Independent Samples t-test reveals no significant differences in belonging scores between immigrant and non-immigrant learners, which is a positive finding. It suggests that Costa Rican educational environments foster a shared sense of belonging, regardless of learners' place of birth. The most discriminating items, identified through IRT modeling, relate to performative or participatory aspects of school belonging. This study highlights the importance of incorporating IRT modeling and fairness protocols in large-scale assessments. By confirming that sense of belonging is not impacted by place of birth, stakeholders can confidently make decisions that further support inclusive educational practices in Costa Rican classrooms, knowing the PISA sense of belonging index provides unbiased, reliable scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While having served to help immigrant children develop a sense of ethnic identity and belonging, heritage schools have also been documented to reproduce an essentialised understanding of heritage culture by teaching heritage culture as fixed, stable, and homogenous. To help students move beyond an essentialised conception of heritage culture, the authors collaboratively developed a curriculum engaging students with an alternative understanding of heritage culture and implemented it in a Korean heritage school in New York City. By documenting how the teacher encouraged children to explore the fluid, hybrid, and heterogeneous nature of heritage culture, this study not only provides practical implications for teaching heritage culture but also shows a possibility of making heritage schools a transformative space in which the boundaries of heritage culture and identity are constantly revisited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thanks to technological advances, migration, and globalization, English has become the language of internationalization. Therefore, many schools prioritized learning English to ensure and sustain international communication. However, in order to communicate well with individuals all around the world, bestowing English language learners with intercultural competence is also required in the teaching and learning of English. In Türkiye, one of the countries that host many immigrants, the experiences of foreign language teachers regarding intercultural issues might provide many insights into intercultural language learning and teaching. Therefore, this study aimed to expose EFL state schoolteachers' perceptions and practices regarding intercultural language teaching and having foreign students in their classrooms. The methods that teachers adopted to promote intercultural competence in their classes were also explored. The semi-structured interviews were carried out with 30 English language teachers in middle and high schools in Türkiye. For data analysis, the computer program MAXQDA was benefited to categorize the codes and reveal the common themes. The findings revealed certain teacher practices that might contribute to students' intercultural competence development and challenges experienced during that process. It can be concluded that teachers are in need of professional guidance and resources to further develop their learners' intercultural competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada ranks high among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in terms of advanced education with 66% of Canadians having completed some form of postsecondary education. Yet, students from indigenous and immigrant backgrounds face several psychosocial and institutional barriers that hinder their academic progress. The current study used a qualitative approach to examine the experiences and challenges faced by indigenous and immigrant learners who were enrolled in a postsecondary human services program in Western Canada. Findings suggest that despite 40 years of a multicultural approach to education these students continue to experience several barriers to continuing their study programs. The need for radicalizing teaching by using alternate critical decolonizing discourses and pedagogy is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper draws draw on conceptualisations of language as heteroglossic to examine whether and how multilingual practices and plurilingual pedagogies are enacted as instructional strategies in two multilingual English-medium universities in western Canada. Multilingual educational contexts have the potential to comprise 'translanguaging spaces' [Li, W. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics, 39(1), 9–30. doi:], wherein educators and students mobilise a range of semiotic resources for teaching and learning purposes. From a monolingual paradigm, such practice is often seen as interference or deficit; however, from a multilingual paradigm, this practice is seen as legitimate and unrestricted, with students free to use their linguistic resources as they wish to their own benefit. To conceptualise and analyse engagement with multilingual practice, we draw on Cenoz and Gorter's [(2017). Minority languages and sustainable translanguaging: Threat or opportunity? Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 38(10), 901–912. doi:] distinction between 'spontaneous' and 'intentional' translanguaging. To assist faculty to observe, act and reflect on implementation of plurilingual pedagogies, we propose a three-dimensional matrix comprising axes of (1) faculty- and student-initiated; (2) planned and spontaneous engagements with plurilingualism; and (3) plurilingualism as either a scaffold or a resource for curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an action research project that aimed to increase opportunities for multilingual literacy engagement and identity investment for newly-arrived immigrant students in Norway. A language teacher and a researcher jointly developed a cross-curricular, multilingual module focusing on identity texts written in three languages: English, Norwegian, and each student's home language. Fourteen adolescent students speaking 15 different home languages participated. To assess the effectiveness of the multilingual pedagogical practices, the data collected included a language use questionnaire, student reflection logs, students' identity texts, lesson plans, and the teacher's notes and reflections. The results suggest that explicit emphasis on including all languages in students' linguistic repertories can help build inclusive classroom spaces and foster learners' multilingual identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population displacements have occurred in tremendous amounts in the last few decades due to the collapse in civil order of the neighbouring countries of Turkey. This situation not only created a need for researchers to deal with the social, psychological and economical aspects of this forced mobility, but also with the acculturation process of the refugees who left their home owing to serious human rights violations. Because they do not occupy a great space in the policy agendas, they are an 'invisible' group. This poses a major problem that there are no specific theories regarding the second language acquisition process of refugees, because they are considered together with all immigrants although their experiences distinguish them from other groups. Thus, feeling the need to be the voice of this unvoiced group with their SLA experiences and witnessing the swiftly changing dynamics in the world, the Middle East in particular, and its impact on the sociocultural context, this paper concentrates on the perceptions of Syrian refugees about the L2 (Turkish) and the target language group (Turkish people). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research was to explore the schooling experiences of academically highfunctioning immigrant learners in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The participants were six female immigrant learners (age range: 13-18 years) in Grades 8 to 11. The research tradition was narrative inquiry. Data generation involved open-ended interviews and a participatory research technique, photovoice. The findings revealed the resiliency and agency of the young learners as they navigate schooling in South Africa. It was apparent that they took on a positive stance despite the struggles they have experienced in the host country, including language and cultural barriers, social isolation and exclusion, and bullying and discrimination that heightened their vulnerability in schooling spaces. The study revealed their strong sense of self-efficacy, responsibility and self-discipline, determination to succeed, commitment to their studies, and to make the best of valued opportunities in South Africa. Social capital emerged as a key protective influence that shaped the schooling experiences of the learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A partnership between a university program and an urban public school was created to help the school respond to the significant increase in the school's population of immigrant, English language learners. School staff and university faculty established an agenda to learn about local immigrant families, improve communications with the families, and provide responsive instruction to the children. Over a two-year period, a series of graduate courses were offered to teachers, focusing on culturally responsive curriculum, second language instruction, and Spanish language learning. In addition, the university faculty provided ongoing consultation with teachers in classrooms, as well as a series of parent workshops with the school families. Dedicated to embracing the immigrant community and children, more than twenty teachers and the school principal participated in the graduate courses and used the experience to change the school culture, promote school-community relationships, and improve classroom instruction for the English language learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substantial amount of research regarding L2 learners' beliefs has been conducted in recent years. However, less attention has been paid to the interactions among the three constructs: learners' beliefs, learning strategies and language learning achievements. This longitudinal case study investigated changes in two Chinese migrant learners' beliefs and learning strategy use, and gains in their achieved proficiency in New Zealand. Through the triangulation of various data sources, this study revealed both learners changed the beliefs they held to varying degrees. Common to both learners were changes in their beliefs about approaches to language learning from an initial analytical approach to a later more experiential one. In addition, a new belief about collaborative learning emerged after the learners had been exposed to new approaches to language teaching in New Zealand. Like beliefs, the learners' strategies also evolved. Both learners started employing social strategies which they had not attempted in China. Although both learners' language did improve, there was a noticeable variation in the extent to which their language proficiency was achieved. The results suggested the complex relationship between learners' beliefs and learning strategies and challenged the linear relationship between the two variables as suggested by previous quantitative studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to describe how xenophobia is experienced by a small selection of immigrant participants in five inner city schools in Johannesburg. The May 2008 xenophobic violence prompted the investigation. Theoretically, the article is also concerned with ways to combat xenophobia in schools with a view to bringing about fundamental social change aimed at deconstructing ‘anti-xenophobia education’, as the term has been coined. The methodology for the qualitative inquiry took the form of a triple-layered case study: the layers consist of the various groups of participants: immigrant learners, South African learners and educators. Sixteen semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted and the main method of data analysis was content analysis using Tesch’s (Creswell, 1994: 155) method of sorting the content of communications. The findings support the need for anti-xenophobia education in the schools under scrutiny. The immigrant participants reported very little compassion, rather humiliation and degradation in the form of unjust stereotyping, prejudice, bias and discrimination. Although cosmopolitanism featured, ‘otherness’ is far from being incorporated into an all-embracing ‘us’. Distrust between immigrant and South African learners emerged and both groups stereotyped the other as violent, although lack of trust and fear as pervasive issues seemed to underlie the stereotyping.

This qualitative study examined children's concept formation and writing emergence from the perspective of graphical multi-signification by observing the free drawing activities provided by four girls and six boys, aged four to five, in a Chinese class at a Chinese heritage language school in the USA. Children's capacity for graphical multi-signification may develop in a consistent transition process, first producing pictographic symbols and then consistently transitioning to the use of ideographic symbols for multi-signification, with children's contingency association, focus variation, and extension chain characterising their formation of concepts and complex thinking. To enhance children's learning, a child's drawing may be transformed into a teaching-appropriate two-part conceptual structure, with the first part depicting the child's operations of a within-group and between-group extension chain and the second part presenting the conceptual sequential extensions with respect to literal, contextual, and extensive signification embedded in the child's drawing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study examines the experiences of Korean-American students, parents and teachers in a newly instituted 50/50 Korean–English dual language immersion programme, where the majority of the students are of Korean descent. Based on home and school observations, as well as interviews with six Korean-American students and their parents and teachers, the data provided insights into the perceived benefits and challenges of participation in a dual language immersion programme. Although parents and children recognised the potential of the programme to develop bilingualism and biculturalism and foster stronger ethnic identity, they also perceived inequities in the ways in which the programme was organised and instruction was executed. The characteristics of the programme brought forth tensions for the parents and teachers in terms of expectations for language development in Englishvs. Korean, academic outcomes of bilingualvs. English-only education, parental involvement among Koreanvs. non-Korean parents and instructional needs of Koreanvs. non-Korean students. Furthermore, the analysis highlighted both shared perspectives as well as perspectives that were unique to children, parents and teachers arising from their different roles in the school. Implications for improved practices and policies for dual language immersion programmes for the less commonly taught languages are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this research was to explore thoroughly the perceptions of dispersed immigrant professionals and their bilingual and bicultural children regarding the place of new media technology in their lives. Open-ended interviewing and autoethnography were used to explore families' perceptions of the role of media technology in their children's development and maintenance of heritage language (HL) skills, relationships with relatives in the heritage country, and cultural identity. The voices represented are those of two Hungarian immigrant professionals and their families. The families found media technology beneficial in all three areas explored: the development and maintenance of HL, relationships with relatives, and heritage culture. Adult family members also repeatedly pointed out the significance of their own active involvement in the process, and their responsibility in selecting appropriate resources and in being available to support children in their optimal use of media technology. The study provides important insights for immigrant families and practitioners for nurturing children's heritage language and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the influence of Korean ethnic churches on the maintenance of heritage language (HL) and culture among Korean-Canadian students. The ethnographic and qualitative study on which it is based involved participant observation over a 4-month period, group discussions, interviews, and a questionnaire. Participants were 15 immigrant students aged 13-19, who live in Montreal and attend a Korean ethnic church. Results indicate that these churches play an important role in the maintenance of the HL and cultural identity. It is argued that immigrant students would benefit from being more aware of the linguistic and cultural maintenance role that these churches play and of the importance of taking advantage of the institutional resources they provide: the opportunity to interact with other Koreans, to use the language and improve their proficiency, and to become immersed in the Korean cultural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

READ 180 is a reading program primarily designed for both struggling readers and English language learners (ELLs) in the United States. In this paper, we report findings from a qualitative study that investigated how four adolescent ELLs responded to using READ 180, particularly in relation to their cultural needs. Findings from the study showed that READ 180 provided some culturally responsive interaction and activities, principally in terms of thematic units, but was unable to respond to the unique cultural needs and background knowledge of each ELL to facilitate reading development. We discuss the implications of these findings for culturally responsive pedagogy and curriculum planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a contribution to the field of French immersion studies by examining student attitudes towards the secondary French immersion curriculum. Some of the students had made the decision to stay engaged with the programme while others had become disengaged from it. Drawing on the results of interviews with 23 students in a high school in Ottawa, Canada, the study reveals that the attitudes of engaged and disengaged students were informed by the everyday realities of their respective linguistic and academic situations. Students referred to their family backgrounds and interests in learning and using French inside and outside of school, to their learning styles, to the marks they obtained in school, and to their educational experiences. At times, engaged and disengaged students also shared overlapping attitudes, informed by factors such as language, class, culture and race. This paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of the study for the future curriculum development of French immersion programmes in Canada and in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the conception, goals, highlights, and outcomes of a four-week study-abroad seminar in the Dominican Republic (DR) for pre- and in-service teachers of English language learners from the New York metropolitan area. The seminar was designed to have teachers experience first-hand the phases and challenges of second language learning, and enhance understanding of their immigrant students' culture with a view to transform such an experience into culturally responsive pedagogy. The 17 seminar participants all lived with host families while engaging in intensive Spanish language study at a university in the DR and simultaneously taking a graduate course on second language acquisition. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of data sources, including language questionnaires, an intercultural development inventory, culture portfolios, and post-seminar evaluations and interviews showed that participants developed empathy for immigrant students' linguistic struggles, developed a better understanding of the language-learning process, and came to appreciate the complexity of culture and cultural adaptation. The study also underscored the need for teacher education curriculum to be more culturally responsive to the rapidly increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in the student population today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study investigates attitudes toward heritage language (HL) maintenance among Chinese immigrant parents and their second-generation children. Specific attention is given to exploring (1) what attitudes are held by the Chinese parents and children toward Chinese language maintenance in the USA, (2) what efforts are engaged in by the Chinese parents in promoting children's HL maintenance, and how do the second-generation children respond to these efforts? Data for this paper are drawn from participant observations in two Chinese local communities in Philadelphia and ethnographic interviews with 18 Chinese immigrant families in the communities. Analysis of the data indicates that while the Chinese parents value their HL as a resource and take positive actions to maintain the HL in the next generation, the children fail to see the relevance of HL learning in their life and often resist parents' efforts in HL maintenance. The results of the study suggest that American mainstream schools should work together with immigrant parents and HL schools to incorporate children's HL in the official school curriculum and create a supportive environment for HL learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Council of Europe’s educational projects have always been designed to support its political purpose, which is to promote and defend human rights, democratic governance and the rule of law. This article traces the fluctuating fortunes of the Council’s engagement with the educational concepts of autonomy and autonomisation with reference to three main phases of its work: (a) the adult education project of the 1970s, which was the context in which Henri Holec wrote his ground-breaking report Autonomy and foreign language learning; (b) the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and its companion piece the European Language Portfolio (ELP), developed in the 1990s and launched in 2001; and (c) the concept of plurilingual and intercultural education as outlined in the CEFR and further developed in the 2000s in the project Languages in Education, Languages for Education, which offers a basis for the educational inclusion of migrants and minority-language students. The article argues that although the adult education project of the 1970s provided an enduring conceptual framework, the hope that the ELP would lead to the widespread autonomisation of language learners foundered on the absence of appropriately receptive pedagogical traditions. However, a radical interpretation of the so-called plurilingual approach to education returns autonomy and autonomisation to centre stage.