Conference Agenda

Recent Italian guidelines on the inclusion of students with a migrant background (MIM, 2022) highlight linguistic and cultural mediation as a key support during the reception phase for newly arrived students. However, mediation services are typically non-continuous and external to the classroom (Machetti, Siebetcheu, 2017). Additionally, these guidelines, reflecting recent international approaches to linguistic diversity, including éveil aux langues (Candelier, Kervran, 2018) and translanguaging pedagogy (Sato, García, 2023), emphasize the importance of valuing students’ native languages as resources for social inclusion and identity affirmation.

This study examines a case of language planning (Spolsky, 2009) in a northern Italian municipality where over 60% of students have a migrant background. Over the past three years, this municipality has introduced an extensive linguistic and cultural mediation service in schools. The most innovative aspect of this initiative is the integration of mediation services within an education project based on translanguaging pedagogy, with consistent in-class interventions by linguistic-cultural mediators alongside teachers.

The study aims to reveal how linguistic and cultural mediation can support translanguaging practices in plurilingual preschool and primary school classrooms, as well as the attitudes of teachers and mediators toward this initiative, and the instructional practices that emerge.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with local administration officials, mediators, and teachers. Data also include video recordings of classroom activities involving mediators and teachers. Qualitative analysis of the interviews (Mayring 2000) shows how the initiative is perceived in terms of socio-political agency and how increased awareness among teachers and mediators regarding mediation as an integral part of learning (Piccardo, 2022). Classroom interaction analysis indicates that mediation has evolved from a communicative bridge to a resource for co-constructing meaning in a plurilingual and multimodal way, promoting collaborative tasks among students, resulting in greater inclusion and motivation, and encouraging conceptual mediation by teachers (Council of Europe, 2020).