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Description:
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Bilingualism and Multiculturalism in Greek Education investigates the
factors affecting language maintenance/shift among second-generation
Albanian and Egyptian migrant pupils in Athens. Using a combined
quantitative and qualitative methodology, it explores the influence of
three sets of variables on language maintenance. These are a)
ethnolinguistic vitality, defined by the demography, status and
institutional support of each group in Greece, as well as migrant and Greek
pupils’ perceptions regarding these factors; b) migrant parents’ attitudes
to language maintenance and their role in language transmission in the
home; and c) the attitudes of teachers and the institutional approaches of
mainstream Greek education to linguistic and cultural diversity. Results
indicate that: knowledge of Greek is common among today’s children of
Albanian and Egyptian immigrants and preference for that language is
dominant; bilingualism varies slightly between Albanian and Egyptian
second-generation pupils with Egyptians being more dominant in the parental
language, due to their higher degree of identification with their ethnic
group in comparison to the Albanian pupils; the school context plays a
significant role in the ability of second-generation youths to achieve and
maintain bilingual fluency.
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