ERIC Number: EJ1468026
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0950-0782
EISSN: EISSN-1747-7581
Available Date: 0000-00-00
How Do Teachers View Multilingualism in Education? Evidence from Greece, Italy and the Netherlands
Jasmijn E. Bosch1,2; Konstantina Olioumtsevits3; Solange A. A. Santarelli4; Federico Faloppa4; Francesca Foppolo5; Despina Papadopoulou3
Language and Education, v39 n2 p337-356 2025
As an increasing number of multilingual children are enrolled in European schools, it is important to gain more insight into teachers' attitudes towards multilingual approaches in education. The goal of this study is to investigate the attitudes of primary school teachers in Greece, Italy and the Netherlands, three countries that have a highly multilingual student population but differ with respect to the migration context and language policies. Using an online questionnaire, we assessed teachers' attitudes towards multilingualism in the school environment and their adherence to monolingual ideals. We aimed to compare the three countries and investigate which factors related to the teachers' background and school characteristics predict teachers' beliefs. The results suggest that teachers in Greece are significantly more positive towards multilingualism than teachers in Italy and the Netherlands, despite great individual variation. Moreover, for all three countries, we found that having received training on multilingualism had a positive effect on teachers' attitudes. In the Netherlands, we found that teachers who taught a greater proportion of multilingual students on average showed more positive attitudes towards multilingualism. We discuss the implications of these findings for educational language policy, highlighting the importance of evidence-based training on multilingualism for all teachers.
Descriptors: Teacher Attitudes, Multilingualism, Foreign Countries, Teacher Education, Elementary School Teachers, Educational Environment, Monolingualism, Regional Characteristics, Teacher Background, Institutional Characteristics
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Greece; Italy; Netherlands
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 2Educational and Family Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 3Department of Linguistics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece; 4Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Reading, Reading, UK; 5Department of Psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy