Conference Program

In today’s increasingly multilingual and mobile societies, educational spaces gather individuals whose identities, languages and knowledges are shaped by complex historical and personal trajectories. Despite such heterogeneity, a monolingual paradigm (Gogolin, 2008) still prevails within many European school systems—i.e., the assumption, rooted in assimilationist, deficit-oriented and implicitly (neo)colonial ideologies, that schooling should operate through one dominant standard language. Such habitus continues to structure educational practices and the very ontology of what counts as legitimate knowledge. This contributes to the reproduction of vulnerability through forms of epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007), whereby knowledges associated with dominant language communities are prioritized, while the linguistic repertoires and epistemic bases of minoritized and migranticized (Dahinden 2025) communities are marginalized and misframed.

From the perspective of critical and decolonial applied linguistics (e.g., Menezes de Souza 2025), this contribution interrogates how these hierarchies operate as mechanisms of epistemic exclusion. It does so by connecting theoretical and critical considerations with a reflection on our experiences as researchers in the multilingual context of Alto Adige/Südtirol. Here, a growing number of minoritized and migranticized languages coexist alongside the three official languages (German, Italian, Ladin). The latter constitute the foundation for a strict separation into three distinct educational systems. The intersection of historical and more recent forms of multilingualism makes Alto Adige/Südtirol a particularly revealing site, as it highlights structural conditions that can crystallize inequalities. Forms of such inequalities are evident in the persistent epistemic imbalance between dominant and non-dominant languages, whereby perceived economic value and cultural desirability contribute to positioning some speakers and groups in more vulnerable positions within the educational system (Guarda, 2025; Wand, 2023).

Against this backdrop and following Causevic et al. (2020)’s invitation to show how epistemologies in conditions of vulnerability can be actively and critically (re)centered, this contribution presents insights from two research projects: an ethnographic study with families experiencing the transition from kindergarten to primary school, and a participatory action research project with primary school teachers. Both projects aim to reposition linguistically minoritized and migranticized students and families as competent knowers and speakers. Building on relational pedagogy (Gravett et al., 2021; Huzar, 2025), translanguaging (García & Li Wei, 2014), and transknowledging (Ennser‑Kananen et al., 2024), the presentation explores possibilities for (re)constructing educational and research relationships in ways that foster connection and reciprocity, and where multiple languages and knowledges can co-exist without being appropriated or hierarchized. In particular, it will exemplify the potential of an approach that, starting from the assumption of intellectual equality among all subjects (Huzar, 2025), recognizes linguistic and epistemological diversity as a resource and fosters transformative practices capable of challenging linguistic hierarchies that generate vulnerability, promoting connections based on increased solidarity and understanding (Badwan, 2022).