PLURIBO – Plurilingual bottom-up approaches: how to promote the linguistic integration of migrant children in educational settings

PLURIBO aims to investigate the linguistic integration of pupils with a migrant background in Italian schools, focusing on the role of bottom-up plurilingual practices in the classroom and community interpreting services in real educational contexts. The project pursues four main objectives: 1. To examine Italian and European policies on the linguistic integration of pupils with a migrant background and identify potential challenges in their implementation in school settings. 2. To investigate how teachers, pupils, and language and cultural mediators perceive language policies, interpreting services (where available), and bottom-up plurilingual practices that emerge spontaneously in the classroom, such as peer translation, the use of lingua francas, and multimodal resources. 3. To analyse authentic classroom interactions in order to examine how pupils deploy their linguistic resources to accomplish learning and participation in situated interaction, even when their proficiency in the language of schooling is still developing. The project also investigates interpreter-mediated interactions in schools, a domain that remains largely under-researched in educational settings. 4. To co-produce guidelines for schools and policymakers aimed at supporting inclusive and effective practices in educational settings characterised by high linguistic diversity.