Language testing, ‘integration’ and subtractive multilingualism in Italy: challenges for adult immigrant second language and literacy education

Abstract

Since Italy's unification in 1861, the establishment and diffusion of the standard Italian language at the expense of all other linguistic varieties has dominated language and education policy discourses. Today, as Italy has transformed from a country of mass emigration to a country of mass immigration, the language learning of immigrants and refugees has become highly politicized. This politicization was exemplified in 2009 and 2010 when Italian law mandated the passing of a mostly written A2 Italian language test for the renewal of legal immigration documents. As a result, formal language learning has become another potentially prohibitory challenge for the already complicated legal status of many immigrants. This paper explores the historical macro-level discourses and policies concerning multilingualism, education and national identity in Italy from unification to the present context of immigration. Then, it discusses the local-level challenges of providing adult immigrant language and literacy education today. I argue that the politicization of immigrant language learning, with its subtractive instead of additive approach to multilingualism, has become a serious obstacle for the legal and educational outcomes of adult students with little or limited formal education and literacy backgrounds.

Migration Policies and Immigrants’ Language Acquisition in EU‐15: Evidence from Twitter

“…The countries in this group have complex language landscapes, with linguistically independent languages being spoken in different regions of the countries or being used for different official purposes1 (Bruzos, Erdocia, and Khan 2018; Love 2015; Sharma 2018; Skourmalla and Sounoglou 2021). In Italy and Luxembourg, policy mechanisms intended to standardize and regulate official language usage were introduced at the beginning of the 21st century.…”

“…In Italy and Luxembourg, policy mechanisms intended to standardize and regulate official language usage were introduced at the beginning of the 21st century. However, these policies created conflict with the communities that spoke different languages (Love 2015; Sharma 2018) and made linguistic integration more difficult for immigrants (Odero, Karathanasi, and Baumann 2016). In the case of Greece, language policies were introduced in the 1970s to homogenize the linguistic and cultural landscape of the country (Skourmalla and Sounoglou 2021).…”

Studying Social Interactions Using Digital Trace Data

“…The countries in this group have complex language landscapes, with linguistically independent languages being spoken in different regions of the countries or being used for different official purposes 1 (Bruzos et al 2018;Love 2015;Sharma 2018;Skourmalla & Sounoglou 2021). In Italy and Luxembourg, policy mechanisms intended to standardize and regulate official language usage were introduced at the beginning of the 21 st century.…”

“…In Italy and Luxembourg, policy mechanisms intended to standardize and regulate official language usage were introduced at the beginning of the 21 st century. However, these policies created conflict with the communities that spoke different languages (Love 2015;Sharma 2018), and made linguistic integration more difficult for immigrants (Odero et al 2016). In the case of Greece, language policies were introduced in the 1970s to homogenize the linguistic and cultural landscape of the country (Skourmalla & Sounoglou 2021).…”