Unveiling discourses on interculturality and identity construction in primary schools in Italy: a study based on translanguaging pedagogy

ABSTRACT This work aims at describing results drawn from a data corpus collected in a translanguaging-based research project named L’AltRoparlante, carried out since 2016 in four multilingual schools in Northern and Central Italy, in order to promote and support inclusive multilingual education. In this contribution, we will focus on the analysis of a corpus of interviews conducted with the teachers (11) and the students (146) of two schools involved in the project. All the interviews were analyzed and coded with NVivo 11 Pro, applying the principles of Grounded Theory and Qualitative Content Analysis. Aiming at combining the research on translanguaging pedagogy with that on multicultural discourses, our work sheds light on two main issues: (1) teachers’ discourses on students’ sociolinguistic repertoires, and the promotion of inclusive education and interculturality at school; (2) emergent bilingual students’ legitimization of their plural linguistic identities, and the promotion of their heritage cultures as a resource for the whole class.