Conference Program

This contribution examines how educational policies and guidelines shape the conditions under which Heritage Language Education (HLE) can either challenge or reproduce inequalities affecting students with family trajectories of migration. Drawing on preliminary findings from the international project "VOICES of Heritage Languages – Researching the Interplay of Heritage Language Education and Social Cohesion", this talk focuses on how HLE is framed within national and sub‑national policy discourses in three post‑migrant (Foroutan 2019) and post‑multilingual (Li 2018) contexts: South Tyrol (Italy) and the Swiss cantons of Bern and Lucerne. The overarching aim is to assess how far current policy frameworks enable - or limit - the development of more equitable and inclusive educational environments where all linguistic resources are actively sustained to support learning and positive identity development.

Responding to recent calls for more comparative analyses of HLE policy (Wang & Hatoss 2024; Messina‑Dahlberg & Gross 2024), the study employs a qualitative thematic analysis of approx. 50 national and sub-national policy documents, guidelines and educational frameworks. Through this methodological approach, the research team sought to identify how institutional discourses across the two states and the three regions construct the role, purpose and legitimacy of HLE, and whether and how these constructions interact with broader goals of social cohesion and educational equity.

Preliminary findings reveal marked cross‑contextual differences and common patterns in the institutionalisation and legitimisation of HLE. In the Italian context, and particularly in South Tyrol, policy discourses emphasize the valorisation of linguistic diversity, yet such recognition remains largely symbolic, with no clear operational guidelines as to how to support HL teaching and learning in the mainstream educational system. Similar tensions, though manifested differently, also emerge in the Swiss contexts. Such ambivalent position towards HLE has the effect of further prioritising the learning of the institutionalised language(s) of schooling, thus reinforcing existing hierarchies between dominant and non-dominant languages and failing to offer concrete institutional measures capable of reducing inequalities.

By comparing three regions with distinct governance traditions, this talk contributes to critically reflect how macro‑level policy discourses may or may not shape the possibilities for HLE to function as a tool for social cohesion, with real-life implications for students’ access to equitable educational opportunities.