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Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in Greek Education: Investigating Ethnic Language Maintenance among Pupils of Albanian and Egyptian Origin in Athens
Author: Nikos Gogonas
Date Of Publication: Jul 2010
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-2138-4
Isbn: 1-4438-2138-1
Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in Greek Education investigates the factors affecting language maintenance/shift among second-generation Albanian and Egyptian migrant pupils in Athens. Using a combined quantitative and qualitative methodology, it explores the influence of three sets of variables on language maintenance. These are a) ethnolinguistic vitality, defined by the demography, status and institutional support of each group in Greece, as well as migrant and Greek pupils’ perceptions regarding these factors; b) migrant parents’ attitudes to language maintenance and their role in language transmission in the home; and c) the attitudes of teachers and the institutional approaches of mainstream Greek education to linguistic and cultural diversity. Results indicate that:

• knowledge of Greek is common among today’s children of Albanian and Egyptian immigrants and preference for that language is dominant;

• bilingualism varies slightly between Albanian and Egyptian second-generation pupils with Egyptians being more dominant in the parental language, due to their higher degree of identification with their ethnic group in comparison to the Albanian pupils;

• the school context plays a significant role in the ability of second-generation youths to achieve and maintain bilingual fluency.

Nikos Gogonas holds a DPhil in Linguistics from the University of Sussex. He teaches Bilingualism and Intercultural Education at the Universities of Athens and Thessaly.

“A brilliant synthesis of ethnolinguistics, migration studies and in-depth fieldwork, this comparative study of Albanian and Egyptian pupils in Athens deserves wide readership. Located in one of Europe’s newest countries of mass immigration, it is a sensitive investigation of second-generation language use based on interviews with teenagers, parents and teachers.”

—Professor Russell King, Department of Geography, Sussex Centre for Migration Research, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton

"This book focuses on two migrant communities in Greece and their 'other' languages, Albanian and Arabic. It is the first ethnolinguistic vitality study in the Greek context. Its originality lies in its unprejudiced approach to migrant languages: rather than 'glossing over' them in order to focus on migrants' Greek language learning -like a lot of studies of this kind- it highlights the importance of their maintenance and transmission, and criticises their marginalisation in mainstream Greek education."

—Spiros A. Moschonas, Assistant Professor of Linguistics, University of Athens

"This book tries to accomplish a difficult task: to shed light on issues of language and inter-group relations among second-generation immigrant pupils and their Greek classmates, not on a theoretical approach, but based on the results of a study.

Given the new Law 3838/2010 in Greece, according to which second generation immigrant pupils, onwards, are considered to be Greek citizens with equal rights, this book offers valuable insights for policy makers in the direction of the education and teaching towards new groups of immigrant pupils who arrive in Greece."

— Dr. Nektaria Palaiologou, Assistant Professor School of Education, University of Western Macedonia www.nured.uowm.gr/nekpalaiologou International Education Journal, Editorial Board

Price Uk Gbp: 39.99
Price Us Usd: 59.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

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