“Classe multietnica o internazionale? Categorizzazioni e educazione linguistica”

Internationalisation of education is approached here from the angle of actors – learners – seen as both a collective entity (the classrooms) and individual subjects. This paper problematises, in the (Italian) academic discourses, the use of the word international, which is restricted to higher educational domains, but quite rarely applied to schools, where multiethnic is the word used. Yet still, it is learners’ heterogeneity (in native language, culture, geographical origins…) to be basically at stake, in both cases. Conceptions underlying these usages are deconstructed, also by exemplifying categorizations analyses of learners. The ultimate goal is to highlight implications for language education.