Educational trajectories at the crossroads: The making and unmaking of multilingual communities of learners

This article investigates the educational trajectories of young multilingual
learners in Germany. Drawing on previous ethnographic research in a primary
bilingual German-Italian Two-Way-Immersion classroom, this study examines
the continuity and fragmentation of multilingual learning as they occur
in the transition from primary to secondary education. Scrutinizing conditions
and ideologies which underlie these processes, I argue that, in this context,
multilingualism as an educational resource undergoes a fundamental meaning
shift. While in primary school multilingualism is valued as capital for social
inclusion, permitting the emergence of a temporary, spatio-temporally confined
bilingual community of practice (Budach 2009), secondary education emphasizes
multilingualism as a form of capital for social mobility and individual
distinction, which undermines the conditions for a joint multilingual endeavor.
The paper demonstrates how multilingual learners cope with this educational
and societal imperative, locating their own position and navigating educational
options available to them.