Promuovere un’educazione plurilingue parlando a casa di cose di scuola: esiti da una ricerca-azione

The positive effects of multilingual education are hindered when some languages in one’s repertoire do not develop beyond the level of primary socialization, as is often the case in children of immigrant families: on the one hand, monolingual use at school leaves limited sociolinguistic functions for home languages; on the other, inadequate parental competence in the language of schooling hinders their involvement in scholastic practices at home. Starting from these presuppositions, the paper describes a research project aimed at promoting multilingual communication related to school matters and practices within immigrant families of children attending Italian primary schools. Enhancing the use of heritage languages can promote parental participation in homework interactions and thus CALP-related practices within the family.