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Studies in the Political Economy of
Public Policy

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The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

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Anna Malandrino

Migrant Languages in Education

Problems, Policies, and Politics
Anna Malandrino
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna,
Bologna, Italy

ISSN 2524-7441 e-ISSN 2524-745X

Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy
ISBN 978-3-031-15793-6 e-ISBN 978-3-031-15794-3
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15794-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

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Preface
This book originates from its author’s interest in language policy and
migrant integration and from an awareness of the importance of public
policies as instruments able to shape social phenomena. It is the result
of circa three years of research at the intersection between the policy
sciences and the applied linguistics domain, and it has been preceded
by the publication by the author herself of several academic articles on
migrant language-in-education policies, as well as on related aspects of
education, such as teacher training and education policy instruments.
The research design and results that form the contents of this
book’s chapters have been discussed in numerous academic fora,
including the Center for European Studies of Harvard University, where
the author was a visiting scholar in 2019 and had the opportunity to
refine the ideas at the core of this book. Both the methods employed in
the underlying research and the findings obtained have been the
subject of further presentations at conferences, workshops, and hybrid
events in which both practitioners (e.g., policymakers and educators)
and academics were involved. The debate that stemmed from each of
these events—a list of which would be too long to provide here—
contributed to shaping this book.
The title is indicative of a specific theoretical choice: the book
adopts the Multiple Streams Framework because the author’s interest
was to explain why certain countries adopted innovative policies that
value migrant languages in education while others—including the
author’s homeland—did not. But the book also has another goal: it aims
to shed light on a topic that, being on the margins of mainstream
political interest, has been so far neglected by the policy sciences. The
topic at the heart of this book—that is, migrant languages and their
preservation through educational interventions—has mostly been the
subject, so far, of sociolinguistic and pedagogic studies. If we consider
that there are countries that are pioneers in Europe in the preservation
of these languages through school education—for example, Austria or
Sweden—introducing this topic into the policy discourse has the value
of trying to raise interest in an important topic that can have
implications for the well-being not only of migrants but also of the host
society and to possibly activate cross-country learning processes.
Anna Malandrino
Bologna, Italy
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as all the
colleagues that provided advice and guidance in different phases of the
book development process. My thanks also go to the key informants
interviewed in this study for their time and availability to provide
crucial information for understanding the policy processes under
examination. Christian Izzo and Sofia Hadjichristidis were of great help
in contacting these key informants as well as in conducting the
interviews. My thanks to them, as well. I am grateful to the series
editors of Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy for accepting
this book into their prestigious collection of scholarly works. Last but
not least, my thanks to the Publishing Editor, Stewart Beale, the
Production Editor, Karthika Devi Ravikumar, and the Project Manager in
charge of production, Selvaraj Ramabrabha, for their precious support
throughout the publication process.
About the Book
The goal of this book is to shed light on the factors and processes that
bring innovation into education policy, namely in the field of language
education in migrant hosting contexts. It speaks to a broad audience.
First, it is aimed at scholars and experts in the policy sciences and in
the scientific areas related to education and language, especially as
means for integration. Scholars from the policy sciences will find here
an application of the Multiple Streams Framework and will read about
the implications of the empirical analysis for the original theoretical
framework. Researchers and experts of education and language will
find in this book themes that are dear to many in those areas, even to
people who do not deal with them in their daily research work: the
valorization of language diversity through the education system and the
preservation of migrant languages as assets for all. Experts of all related
areas are called up not only in their academic role, but also as precious
resources that can bring innovation into the policy world through their
boundary work.
Second, it targets policymakers who want to make a difference in
the education sector. It does so by providing them with an illustration
of a successful experience of education policy design that values
diversity and inclusion. This experience will be compared to a less
innovative experience, to highlight the differences between them and to
explain which were the factors that led the successful experience to be
such, in the hope that the example might serve as an inspiration for
those who want to innovate.
Third, it targets PhD and MA students in the policy sciences and
political science domains, especially those interested in qualitative
methods. These students will find here an application of grounded
theory principles within a circular research process that starts from
theory to set hypotheses and structure the empirical analysis, which
will in turn add new knowledge to refine the theoretical framework of
reference.
Finally, it is aimed at all those who have an interest in policymaking
processes, language, and education, whatever their academic or
professional background is.
Contents
Part I Setting the Context and Framework for the Analysis of
Migrant Language Policies
1 Why Should We Care About Language Policies for Migrants?​An
Introduction to the Context, Design, and Premises of the Study
2 Adopting the Multiple Streams Framework to Understand the
Preconditions of Policy Decisions
Part II Analyzing the Problems, Policies, and Politics of Migrant
Language Education
3 The Problem Stream in Action:​Untangling the Preconditions for
Problem Framing
4 The Policy Stream in Action:​Assessing Technical Solutions for
Migrant Language Education and Their Viability
5 The Political Stream in Action Between Migrant Integration and
Education
Part III Bringing the Streams Together
6 Migrant Language Policy Processes, Change, and Outputs
7 Conclusions
Appendices
Index
List of Figures
Fig.​3.​1 Net migration in Austria and Italy, from the 1960s to the
present day (Net migration, defined as the total number of immigrants
less the annual number of emigrants, has been chosen as an indicator
due to the fact that its availability for a wide timeframe allows to have
an overall picture of the impact of migration flows on the host
population in early decades).​(Source:​UN Population Division (via
World Bank), in Our World in Data)

Fig.​3.​2 Populations without Austrian and Italian citizenship in Austria

and Italy.​(Source:​Eurostat.​Last update 24 March 2022)

Fig.​3.​3 Languages in mother tongue classes in Austria.​(Source:​

translated from Garnitschnig 2009)

Fig.​6.​1 Proportion of students in mother tongue classes among all

students with first languages other than German in Austria:​general
education schools (school years 98/​99 to 07/​08).​(Source:​
Garnitschnig, 2009)

Fig.​6.​2 Proportion of students in mother tongue classes among all

students with first languages other than German in Austria:​Elementary
Schools (school years 98/​99 to 07/​08).​(Source:​Garnitschnig, 2009)

Fig.​7.​1 Languages in mother tongue classes in Austria in ten school

years (1998/​99 to 2007/​08).​(Source:​Translated from Garnitschnig,
2009)
List of Tables
Table 3.​1 Pupils with first languages other than German in Austria:​
general education schools (compulsory schools and general secondary
schools)

Table 3.​2 Languages spoken by foreign citizens in Italy (latest census

available:​2012)

Table 3.​3 Primary and secondary school students by citizenship.​State

schools.​School year 2015/​16.​Numbers and percentages

Table 5.​1 Presence of language minority issues in online

communication across executive cabinets

Table 5.​2 Presence of language minority issues in online

communication across political orientations

Table 6.​1 Pupils in mother tongue classes by federal state in Austria

(school years 98/​99 to 07/​08)

Table 6.​2 Pupils with first languages other than German in Austria:​
general education schools (school years 98/​99 to 07/​08)

Table 6.​3 Synoptic evaluation of stream readiness, entrepreneurship​,

and outputs in Austria and Italy
Table 7.​1 Mother tongue teachers by citizenship and languages
(absolute numbers)

Table 7.​2 Teachers in mother tongue classes in Austria by federal state

in ten years (1998/​99 to 2007/​08)
About the Author
Anna Malandrino
is a postdoctoral scholar in the public policy and public administration
domains. She is affiliated with the University of Bologna and
collaborates with the University of Bern. She conceived the book
concept at the Center for European Studies of Harvard University,
where she has been a visiting scholar.
Part I
Setting the Context and Framework for
the Analysis of Migrant Language
Policies
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
A. Malandrino, Migrant Languages in Education, Studies in the Political Economy of
Public Policy
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15794-3_1

1. Why Should We Care About Language

Policies for Migrants? An Introduction
to the Context, Design, and Premises of
the Study
Anna Malandrino1
(1) Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna,
Bologna, Italy

Migration is one of the most debated phenomena of current times.

Research on migration policies has traditionally been structured
around two issues: immigration policies and integration policies.
Immigration policies concern the regulation of migratory flows, the
conditions of admission and residence in a certain country and,
consequently, the rejection and expulsion of irregular or illegal
migrants (Goodman, 2019). The debate on immigration policies has
prevalently focused on the policy gap between restrictive policy goals
and the achieved outcomes in terms of immigrant arrivals. This gap has
been partly attributed to both contradictory public policies and policy-
independent factors such as the existence of migrant networks that
facilitate the entry of family and friends as well as the demand for
specific types of labor (Caponio, 2020; Castles, 2004). Integration
policies concern the status of foreign citizens admitted to staying in a
certain territory, the set of civil, social, and political rights granted to
them, and the measures and resources to be deployed to integrate them
into the socioeconomic fabric of the host country (Goodman, 2019).
The question of migrant integration conveys both the role of experts,
who elaborate policy prescriptions, and the growing politicization of
the integration issue itself (Caponio, 2020).
This peculiarity of migrant integration calls for analytical
approaches that allow researchers to appreciate both the technical and
the political features of integration policies. This book chooses to
employ Kingdon’s (2011) Multiple Streams Framework, refined by
further scholars (inter alia, Herweg et al., 2015, 2018; Zahariadis, 2016)
as a theoretical framework that distinguishes between problems, policy,
and politics and sees the birth of public policies as the outcome of these
three streams coming together. The book applies this theoretical
approach to one particular type of integration policy, namely language
education policies, and more specifically those that imply the
introduction of migrant languages into educational processes. The
literature on civic integration (e.g., Goodman, 2012, 2013; Jacobs & Rea,
2007; Joppke, 2007, 2017) has so far neglected the value of migrant
languages, focusing—language education-wise—on the initiatives and
courses for learning the host country language as a vehicle for
integration. However, this is only one side of the coin. This book
illuminates the other part of the story. It first explains why migrant
languages (should) matter alongside the host country language and
then proposes to employ the Multiple Streams Framework to analyze
the preconditions for the emergence of public policies that value those
languages. Albeit with different degrees of strength and for different
reasons, such public policies have been already adopted by several
European countries.
Migration involves the presence of multicultural mosaics in host
countries and multiple languages as representative elements of
cultures. In this context, migrant languages—a locution that in this
book is used as a synonym of migrants’ mother tongues and home
languages—represent one of the components that make up the broader
question of migrant integration in the host country. Migrant languages
are defined as languages that are spoken by migrant groups with their
families and that are different from the language(s) of instruction
employed in the host country’s education system (European
Commission, 2019; Meier, 2009). These languages are relevant for
policymakers in relation to the question of whether, why, and how they
should be preserved, maintained, and promoted in the integration
context, as a means of healthy continuity for migrants with their
context of origin amidst the brand-new challenges that open up for
migrants on arrival, but also as a resource for the host country as a
whole. It is indeed a policy issue that stands between the domain of
education policies, on the one hand, and that of migrant integration
policies, on the other hand. As we will see, the problem of migrant
language integration can be defined in different ways (assimilationist
vs. pluralist). Considering the current policy feedback on existing
policies of language integration of migrants would imply the inclusion
of migrant language education in the definition of the problem (and of
the related policy solutions), but this currently happens to different
degrees throughout Europe.
The book is structured as follows. First, this introduction (Chap. 1)
defines the key elements of the book in terms of context and research
design, and elucidates some necessary premises for the reader to better
understand the analytical contents of the book. More specifically, it
explains why migrant languages matter and illustrates the main
policies adopted in Europe to preserve them. Chapter 2 lays out the
theoretical background and presents the core elements of the Multiple
Streams Framework as the analytical lens employed, while at the same
time defining the hypotheses that will be tested with the help of the
available evidence. Then, Chaps. 3, 4, 5, and 6 move on to the
application of this analytical framework to two illustrative country case
studies, respectively on Austria and Italy. More specifically, Chap. 3
deals with the problem stream and illustrates the focusing events that
led to the adoption of the relevant migrant language policies, while
elucidating the question of problem framing between ambiguity and
policy feedback. Chapter 4 focuses on the policy stream, that is, on the
available solutions for integrating migrant languages in education and
on an assessment of those solutions based on evaluation criteria for
their viability. Chapter 5 moves on to the political premises (political
stream) behind the adoption of migrant language education policies,
thus showing the political salience of language-in-education policies in
political discourse. Chapter 6 focuses on the policy processes activated,
the policy outputs achieved, and the dynamics of policy
entrepreneurship in the two countries. Finally, Chap. 7 provides
conclusions, implications for theory, and policy recommendations
based on the analysis carried out in the previous chapters.

1.1 Context and Research Design

Studies on migrant languages and multilingualism in host countries
have been conducted from many different perspectives, namely by
sociolinguists, demolinguists, educational linguists, and psychologists
(Yağ mur, 2017). However, the theme of migrant languages is almost
absent from the public policy area of studies. Moreover, the question of
how knowledge is involved in policymaking has so far been
underestimated as far as migration-related policy issues are concerned
(Capano and Malandrino). This book shows that it is precisely in its
“niche” nature that its greatest value resides for public policy reflection
purposes. More specifically, it will allow the reader to appreciate the
different roles that can be played by experts, on the one hand, and
politics, on the other hand, in relation to non-mainstream policy issues.
The empirical chapters of this book build on a qualitative analysis of
multiple sources: from demographic indicators pointing to the
occurrence of focusing events to the scientific literature and technical
reports that offer technical solutions to redefined problems; from a
systematic study of the online communicative activity of political actors
to the text of the policy decisions adopted; from the literature that deals
with policy process elements to conference and meeting proceedings as
well as interviews conducted with key informants.
There is a plethora of literature and institutional reports (for
instance issued by the European Commission and the Council of
Europe) that deal with migrant language education. In this book, this
documental production has been leveraged to its maximum, as the
research process underlying the book started with the systematic
analysis of a significant quantity of policy papers, articles, and reports
(see Appendix A). However, none of these analyzed elaborations delves
per se into the deep reasons that originated decisions on this issue,
including under the Multiple Streams Framework’s perspective. All in
all, the book confirms the validity of the Multiple Streams Framework
to understand why certain problems come to the fore and therefore
why certain policy outputs are produced. It will show, however, that the
political stream and political entrepreneurship might be weak even in
the case when significant decisions (or non-decisions) are made, but
also that, if the political stream is not “ready” and political
entrepreneurship is lacking, the readiness of the policy stream and
policy entrepreneurship can equally be as well-established as to lead to
the redefinition of a problem and the adoption of measures to tackle it.
This book employs two illustrative country case studies to develop
the analysis of the problem-related, policy-connected, and political
aspects of migrant language education. Illustrative case studies are a
widely accepted tool in the policy sciences, including in studies that
employ the theoretical lens of the Multiple Streams Framework (e.g.,
Abiola et al., 2013; Rozbicka & Spohr, 2016). With regard to the themes
of this book, moreover, using country cases is useful to understand the
genesis of migrant language-in-education policies given that migrant
integration, language and education policies in Europe are still largely
the responsibilities of individual countries (Klatt & Milana, 2020;
Wodak & Boukala, 2015). These two particular national cases were
chosen firstly because of the salience of immigration, migrant
integration, and language policy issues there. Moreover, a comparison
between the two countries is interesting because they have adopted
different policy outputs to regulate the presence of migrant languages
in education. More specifically, Austria was chosen because it has a
comprehensive migrant language education policy that complements
German language education for migrants. Austria is indeed one of the
few countries in Europe to have designed a curriculum specifically for
mother tongue teaching (European Commission, 2019). Conversely,
Italy was chosen because it does not have a comprehensive migrant
language education policy that complements Italian language education
for migrants. In Italy, only non-binding guidelines timidly recommend
taking into account migrant languages in educational processes, and
the related case study will show that this is hardly going to change in
the short run, at least at the policymaking level, since other topics
prevail on the migrant integration policy agenda. The goal of this book
is to evaluate how and why different preconditions—defined as
streams under the Multiple Streams Framework—contributed to the
adoption of these different policy outputs.
 In order to do this, several sources and methods are employed in
this book, underpinned as a whole by a theory-based approach. To start
with, Chap. 2 lays out the analytical scaffolding for the whole book, by
setting the assumptions and pillars of the chosen theoretical
background as well as the core hypotheses to be tested. Chapters 3, 4, 5,
and 6 represent the analytical heart of the book, developed in light of
the analytical framework set out in Chap. 2. Chapter 3 carries out a
qualitative analysis of existing data on immigration and language
diversity. These data have been extracted and elaborated from sources
such as World Bank, Eurostat and national ministerial and/or statistical
databases, and have been complemented by literature and reports that
provide evidence about how integration was problematized in the two
illustrative country cases, for the aim of tracing relevant process
elements. Chapter 4 presents an evaluation, against the criteria set in
the theoretical part of the book, of the extent to which the available
solutions for migrant language education are realistically fit to be made
into policies. Depending on the criterion examined each time, use has
been made of existing legislation, as well as of specialized literature on
education and political economy. In addition to that, process tracing
tools (Collier, 2011) have been employed to collect evidence on the
extent to which policy solutions meeting the set criteria were made into
policies, while the analysis of legal documents has been carried out to
address in particular the internal and external conformity criteria.
Chapter 5, which regards the activity of the political stream for migrant
languages, combines quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis
(Shahbazi & Rezaee, 2017; van Dijk, 1993) with the existing literature
to illustrate the political support for migrant language education. The
former tool was especially used to investigate this topic in the Italian
case, thus filling a gap in the literature. The latter tool was central to the
analysis of the Austrian case, which offers a wider range of literature
tracing the political discourse about immigration and migrant
integration. Moreover, the different timing of the introduction of
migrant language education in the two countries allowed the use of
different sources: the Italian case leverages online political
communication as hosted on the social networking website Twitter,
while the Austrian literature employs mostly press sources. Chapter 6
leverages process tracing to understand the evolution of policy
processes in the two examined countries and to identify hints of any (if
existing) entrepreneurship in those processes. Finally, Chap. 7 attempts
to generate new theoretical propositions based on the empirical
analyses carried out in the previous chapters, thus being inspired by
the grounded theory method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Sebeelo, 2022),
defined as an approach that “brings together elements of multiple
qualitative research methods to create a systematic roadmap whereby
data can be simultaneously, rather than sequentially, processed during
both collection and analysis phases” (Hussein et al., 2020, 4). In-depth
document analysis (cf. Appendix A for a list of the documents
examined) has underpinned the whole study, and semi-structured
interviews with key informants in both Austria and Italy (cf. Appendix
B) have been useful to complement the abovementioned sources with
insider knowledge, especially regarding policy processes and outputs.

1.2 Why Do Migrant Languages Matter? The

Implications of Introducing Migrants’ Mother
Tongues in Education
Whether migrant multilingualism is seen as a deficit or a resource
depends on the ideological approach taken. Migrant languages are often
associated with problems such as poverty, educational
underachievement, and lack of integration into the society of residence
(Yağ mur, 2017). Host societies struggle to see potential in the value of
migrant languages. This view fits in a more general trend according to
which societies tend to treat migrants “less as a sustaining resource
than as temporary hyper-extractive labor, potential nuisance, moral
challenge, burden, or threat” (Goldberg, 2015, 120). At the same time, it
is nowadays acknowledged that host country language proficiency
yields social and economic benefits for migrants. These benefits include
the ability to interact with the host country’s citizens and the capacity
to obtain information about—and thus engage with—the most
important facilities and opportunities, such as schools, healthcare,
housing, and employment (Boyd & Cao, 2009). However, this is only a
part of the story. From a different perspective, which is more and more
widespread among experts from a wide range of disciplines, not only
host country languages but also migrant languages can be conceived as
resources (Vedovelli, 2014). According to this perspective, to provide
individuals with effective equal opportunities to achieve a good quality
of life, the state should provide effective support to all linguistic
communities that contribute to the ethnolinguistic composition of the
country, thus substantiating a type of policy that supports
multilingualism (Schmidt, 2006). But why should migrant languages be
conceptualized as assets in host countries? And who are these assets
likely to benefit?
Measures to preserve the linguistic heritage of minorities and
promote and enhance this heritage among speakers of the dominant
language can be useful to raise awareness of the equal dignity of all
forms of linguistic expression among people and thus remove attitudes
of hostility toward individuals or populations that use local languages
(e.g., dialects) or exogenous languages (e.g., migrant languages).
According to this perspective, measures dedicated to migrant languages
as cultural assets should aim at making each individual aware that their
language is only one of the possible forms of expression and that it is
neither better nor worse than the others, thus increasing a spirit of
tolerance and understanding among peoples (Pizzorusso, 1993).
The existence of a variety of languages derives from the creative
capacity of the human brain, and experiencing that variety is important
for people to be tolerant and aware of the intelligence of different
communicative means and possibilities (De Mauro, 1977). From a
different perspective, developing migrants’ mother tongues can
strengthen the self-esteem and identity of migrant students and their
families (Benson & Kosonen, 2013; Bü hmann & Trudell, 2008;
European Commission, 2015) and therefore support the effective
integration of migrant students (OECD, 2019). Indeed, receiving mother
tongue education facilitates literacy and school success in young
learners (Corson, 1995), which are in turn functional to their
socioeconomic development (Bratt-Paulston, 1998).
In light of recent scientific evidence, such a type of education policy
might also help to mitigate language anxiety phenomena. In fact,
migrants’ insufficient linguistic competence leads to the perception of
an inability to express themselves and to a lack of mutual
understanding (Sevinç, 2018). Majority language anxiety may originate
in migrants’ attitudes toward the language and culture of the host
country, the difference in social status between them and non-migrants,
and the fear of losing their identity. Likewise, heritage language anxiety
can be identified in the way people are corrected or criticized when
speaking their language of origin (even by members of the same
minority language community), in the fear of being excluded from the
group and, again, of losing one’s collective ethnic identity, which in this
case is related to migrants’ perceptions of their own potential negative
role in the disappearance of the language of origin (Sevinç & Backus,
2019; Sevinç & Dewaele, 2018).
Learning or enhancing one’s mother tongue is considered an
important step toward integration because it helps children to bridge
the gap between their family and school community, also thanks to the
cultural intermediary role of the mother tongue teacher (Driessen,
2005). Moreover, promoting multilingualism in the classroom can
facilitate the transfer of knowledge from one language to another
(García, 2011) and the so-called metalinguistic awareness (Herzog-
Punzenberger et al., 2017). In turn, plurilingualism, that is, the quality
inherent in those individuals or societies that can use multiple
languages and switch between them depending on the circumstances
within a continuous interaction between those languages (Council of
Europe, 2020), stimulates individuals to become autonomous learners
and motivates them to learn additional languages (OECD, 2019). Not
least, experimental studies (e.g., Coppola & Moretti, 2018) have shown
that valuing heritage languages and translanguaging in the classroom—
that is, the simultaneous use of students’ full linguistic repertoire—
yields better results in language learning itself than dealing with
different languages as silos.
In multicultural societies, characterized by the simultaneous
presence of a plurality of groups (Lanzillo, 2005), multilingualism and
plurilingualism can acquire value as resources both for language
minorities and host communities. Preserving the contact of migrants
with their mother tongues is likely to encourage an increase in the
number of bilingual workers and therefore represents an important
factor of economic and productive growth for host countries (Ruíz,
1984; Vedovelli, 2014). In line with this perspective, linguistic diversity
can be considered as a tangible social good, beyond “moral” or
“naturalness” arguments (Ricento, 2006). The loss of a language can
leave an irreversible void in the cultural heritage of humanity (Crystal,
2002).
However, while individual bilingualism or plurilingualism is usually
seen as an asset when it involves languages such as English, French, or
German, bilingualism in a migrant language and a majority language is
often seen as less prestigious and therefore not always valued (Yağ mur,
2017). In order to make linguistic and cultural diversity a real resource
for Europe—and not a threat—there is a need for adequate policies for
the management of differences, together with programs of language
education, in its broadest sense, and training in interculturality. The
goal is to overcome an abstract, crystallized, closed, and monolithic
vision of the concept of language and culture. And, as a meeting point
for different languages and cultures, schools are one of the privileged
places where linguistic and cultural diversity can be experienced as a
resource (Coppola & Moretti, 2018).

1.3 Migrant Language-in-Education Policies in

Europe
Despite the increasing awareness of the value of migrant languages
among experts from all disciplines, these languages have so far
struggled to affirm themselves as resources deserving promotion on
the part of policymakers. In Europe, in particular, the promotion of
minority languages has always clashed with the promotion of dominant
languages as functional tools for nation-building processes (Wright,
2011). Language policies have often been adopted with a nationalist
approach functional for organizing national societies (Savoia, 2002).
Toward migrant languages, European countries generally pursue a
linguistic tolerance policy that allows minority communities to use
their languages in their private lives (Heyworth, 2006) but do not
stretch as far as to promote those languages with dedicated activities
and funding—although there are exceptions to this general trend.
Austria, for instance, is a country where a curriculum for mother
tongue education has been adopted at the federal level, and native
language classes are activated and held as optional activities as long as
there is a minimum number of students interested (European
Commission, 2019; Gouma, 2020). Other examples concern migrant
communities whose countries were formerly colonized by their
respective now-host countries (Méndez, 2012, with reference to
England and the Netherlands as host countries). In addition, outside the
area of migrant languages, historical (also called regional or national)
minorities, defined as groups of people who have lived in each territory
longer than migrant communities and are numerically smaller than the
population speaking the dominant language (Extra, 2017), are also a
target for specific distributive measures. Examples of these European
historical language minorities are those who speak Finnish, Sami,
Romani, Meä nkieli, or Yiddish in Sweden (Atikcan, 2010) and those
who speak Croatian in Austria (Čagalj et al., 2020). Likewise, in Italy,
Law no. 482/1999 provides resources to preserve the language and
culture of the Albanian, Catalan, Germanic, Greek, Slovenian, and
Croatian populations who reside in the country and of populations who
speak French, Franco-Provençal, Friulian, Ladin, Occitan, and Sardinian.
The scope of this Italian law does not extend to migrant languages,
which do not possess the two basic requirements to be classified as
historical minority languages: historicity and territoriality (Paciotto,
2009). The historicity requirement applies when a language minority
has been ancestrally present in the Italian territory and has had a
relationship with the Italian community for an (undefined) long time
(Bonetti, 2016). Territoriality refers to the fact that language minorities
in Italy receive the special treatment defined in the law only in the
geographical areas where they have historically resided (Piergigli,
2017). Hence, migrant language minorities do not benefit from funding
for language promotion activities as established in the law, as they do
not fulfill either of these requirements.
More generally, throughout Europe, migrant language communities
benefit way less from specific policies than historical language
communities. However, the absence of dedicated policies for migrant
languages is not at all due to the low numerical relevance of migrant
minorities, also called new minorities, in European countries. In fact,
the presence of these new minorities and their linguistic heritage has
been consolidating in Europe for several decades (Ceccorulli et al.,
2021). Examples include minorities who speak Turkish in Austria
(European Commission, 2019) or minorities who speak Chinese or
Arabic in Italy (Barni & Bagna, 2008). According to Eurostat,1
2.7 million migrants entered the European Union from non-European
Union countries in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic altered
migration patterns (Rajan, 2020). To this datum, we have to add intra-
European Union migrations. In the face of the ensuing linguistic
diversity, most countries primarily promote the learning of the host
country language, in line with the main direction indicated by the
European Union legal framework (Harte et al., 2016).
Only a few countries in Europe promote migrant language
education through generalized mechanisms. In Sweden, for example,
migrant students have the right to mother tongue education if there is a
minimum number of interested students (European Commission,
2019). In Austria, mother tongue education is provided across school
levels as an optional subject and conducted on the basis of a curriculum
that is the same for all migrant languages, thus allowing for flexibility in
the languages that can be taught (Bundesministerium fü r Unterricht et
al., 2008a, b). While the original drive for mother tongue education was
not always the promotion of language pluralism—as we will see in this
book—policies such as the Swedish and the Austrian ones are
nowadays supported by a view that sees languages as resources to be
promoted (Vedovelli, 2014). Unlike Sweden or Austria, Italy is one of
those countries where no generalized policies are established for
migrant language education. On the one hand, ministerial guidelines
recommend valuing migrant languages in education with tools to be
chosen and adopted by schools. On the other hand, migrant students
are entitled to migrant language education provided that international
agreements are signed with the countries of origin of migrants—a tool
whose usage has always remained limited (Calvi, 2020; European
Commission, 2019; Malandrino, 2021).
The existence of formal policies for mother tongue preservation—
rather than generic institutional statements about the value of language
diversity and intercultural education—does not only have
administrative or financial implications. Indeed, it contributes to
shaping social phenomena (in this case, migrant integration) and the
way people see them. However, countries in Europe have framed
migrant integration as a process in which migrants especially need to
learn the dominant language of the host country, while overlooking the
benefits of preserving the composite linguistic heritage that migrant
minorities bring to their host countries. After all, this approach is in line
with the “one nation, one language” equation that has traditionally
been a basis of nation-state building processes (Wright, 2011). In this
regard, Gogolin (2013, 2016) argues that education systems in Western
countries reflect a monolingual habitus that is derived from Bourdieu’s
concept of habitus (Bourdieu, 1977), which refers to the embodiment
of social structures that are reproduced through social practices. This
habitus contributes to maintaining assumptions about language and
learning that lead to the idea of a national language (Hawlik, 2021).
Bourdieu’s concept of habitus would thus explain why European
countries have traditionally adopted a monolingual approach to
education, notwithstanding the factual presence of a multitude of
languages in their territories. From the second half of the twentieth
century, many European countries have become destinations for
migrants (Boswell, 2018). These migration flows have brought with
them considerable linguistic diversity, which has been dealt with by
host country governments through two main policy approaches, which
have to do respectively with assimilation and pluralism promotion.
While assimilation is imbued with the idea that cultural differences
“should and will disappear over time in a society which is proclaimed to
be culturally homogeneous from the majority point of view” (Extra et
al., 2009, 11), pluralism promotion considers linguistic differences as
resources to society (Ricento, 2020).
These two policy approaches imply the use of different policy
instruments. The assimilationist view, with the policy goal of
assimilating minority language groups into the language and culture of
the majority as quickly as possible, involves unilateral integration
efforts for newly arrived migrants and no role for migrant languages in
education. Governments that adopt an assimilationist view frame the
acquisition of the host country language by migrants as crucial for their
integration. To this aim, they set host country language requirements
for the obtainment of residency permits and citizenship rights. They
might promote additional host country language courses for migrant
students, or they might employ a submersion (“swim or sink”)
approach. This latter approach comes from the idea that migrant
students will learn the host country language through their
participation in the regular school curriculum together with students
and teachers who speak the language. Ó Riagá in and Lü di (2003),
however, affirm that the submersion approach often has negative
consequences for migrant children: they risk losing contact with their
mother tongues (which in the submersion approach play no role) and
achieve worse results in academic subjects. Conversely, governments
that adopt a language pluralism view will provide equal and effective
support for each ethnolinguistic component of a country (Schmidt,
2009). Unlike in the assimilation case, this often requires multilateral
tasks for all inhabitants in changing societies (Extra et al., 2009), who
might be involved in intercultural education activities. It also implies
the valorization of migrants’ mother tongues through dedicated
activities and courses targeting migrants or the whole student
community. However, the policy instruments that respond to
assimilationist or pluralistic logics are not mutually exclusive. Austria is
a typical example of a country that, while promoting the acquisition of
German (the dominant language) by migrants, also provides the
opportunity for migrant students to learn and improve knowledge in
their mother tongues through government-funded courses. Vice versa,
Italy is a country that has in place mostly assimilationist policy
instruments. However, recently there have been developments in the
ministerial guidelines on the integration of foreign students, which call
for a greater role of mother tongues in daily school activities. It will be
useful, hence, to present in more detail the main policies in place for
migrant languages in education in the two countries chosen as
illustrative cases in this book. These policies are to be conceptualized
here as endpoints of the multiple streams processes that culminated
with the opening of windows of opportunity for migrant languages to
make their way into formal policy documents.
The Austrian government implemented directive 77/486/EEC on
education for European Union migrant workers’ children through a
multiplicity of acts, including two federal laws, respectively on school
organization and compulsory education.2 These laws do not make
express reference to migrant languages, despite the fact that the
European Union directive concerned not only the acquisition of the
host country language but also the preservation of mother tongues in a
view to facilitating the reintegration of migrants and their children into
their home countries. In the 1970s, however, the Austrian government
started to provide migrant language courses aimed at migrants for the
purpose of facilitating their return to the sending countries, based on
bilateral agreements with Turkey and the former Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, whose governments also provided teachers and
books (Lehne & Berka, 2015). Later on, in the early 1990s, the Austrian
general school curriculum was complemented by a section on mother
tongue education, whose introduction was facilitated by the experts
who managed to convince the ministerial bureaucracy of the value of
migrant languages (Herzog-Punzenberger, 2003). Today,
plurilingualism in Austria is highly valued both in official documents
(e.g., Bundesministerium fü r Unterricht et al., 2008a, b; Gouma, 2020)
and among educators, according to the interviews carried out with our
key informants3 and the studies conducted so far (Hawlik, 2021;
Otterup & Fleck, 2018). In Austria, the ministerial administration
expresses a high consideration for the development of plurilingual and
reflective intercultural personality in students as a goal of language
education, a civic virtue, and a means to facilitate later job mobility.
Languages, including migrants’ mother tongues, are generally seen as
part of Austria’s linguistic capital. When reflecting on the domestic
experience in migrant student education, the Austrian ministry of
education has also expressed that mother tongues should nonetheless
be more fully exploited and seen not only as a means to facilitate
instruction in German but as an end in itself (Bundesministerium fü r
Unterricht et al., 2008a). On the whole, Austria has in place both
assimilationist and pluralistic policy instruments: it recognizes the
importance of providing linguistic support to immigrant students in
terms of both German language acquisition and mother tongue
development (OECD, 2010). This does not mean that the Austrian
system for the language education of migrant students is free from
limitations. Nusche et al. (2010), for instance, acknowledge that the
effectiveness of mother tongue support should be improved and made
uniform across school levels. Moreover, the Austrian system is imbued
with a deficit-oriented approach that tends to see students with
insufficient knowledge of the German language as nonregular students.
Italy transposed the abovementioned directive on education for
European Union migrant workers’ children through a presidential
decree (no. 722/1982). As we have seen, besides host country language
acquisition, the directive prescribes the activation of mother tongue
courses for purposes of reintegration into the country of origin. The
Italian presidential decree established that mother tongue education is
arranged by means of agreements between the Ministries of Foreign
Affairs and Education and the diplomatic representations of the
students’ countries of origin (Art. 4). These provisions are still in force
at the time of writing. Subsequently, Law 943/1986 applied the
provisions for the education of European Union migrants’ children to
non-European Union students, thus extending to them the teaching of
their mother language and culture (cf. also Liddicoat & Díaz, 2008).
The provisions on mother tongue education in Law 943/1986 have
been repealed and transposed into the consolidated act on immigration
(Legislative Decree no. 286/1998 and subsequent amendments), which
concerns inter alia the education of foreign citizens in Italy. The act
encourages the school community to welcome linguistic and cultural
differences in order to contribute to a foundation of mutual respect,
cultural exchange, and tolerance. This should be done (Art. 38) by
encouraging initiatives that protect migrants’ cultures and languages of
origin and by promoting common intercultural activities. In light of the
Italian schools’ autonomy (Decree of the Italian President of the
Republic no. 275/1999), school heads are the actors who can play a key
role in the promotion of these activities (Paciotto et al., 2020). At the
same time, the consolidated act on immigration establishes the
obligation for educational institutions to promote and implement
Italian language courses, while the national and subnational
governments (regions and local authorities) must guarantee the right
to study the Italian language. The same act establishes that Italian
regions must support migrant language initiatives and provide
supplementary courses in the languages and cultures of origin of
migrants. As remarked by one of the key informants interviewed,
however, “The most important governmental document that schools in
Italy refer to in order to arrange migrant student education is the
Ministry of Education’s guidelines for the reception and integration of
foreign students.”4 This document covers several aspects of the
education of migrant students, including the enrollment process, the
required documentation, the evaluation of students’ achievements,
teacher training, and language education for migrant students (point 6).
After dealing with the Italian language learning activities for newly
arrived students, the guidelines contain a short section on
plurilingualism and the valorization of language diversity (point 6.3).
This section, however, merely recognizes the spontaneous efforts made
by some schools in the country to value diversity and hence
recommends that all schools adopt practices such as using bilingual
storytelling and glossaries, emphasizing the presence of loanwords in
the Italian language and, lastly, organizing courses of the most
widespread migrant languages during extracurricular hours, which
should be open to both Italian-speaking and native students. The
following year, the ministry of education—under the guidance of the
then minister, Stefania Giannini, a linguist—published the ministerial
document Diversi da chi? (“Different from whom?”). This document
emphasizes the importance of language diversity and recommends best
practices such as the activation of optional migrant language courses in
schools, the recognition and promotion of the forms of bilingualism
present among students, and the training of teachers on linguistic
diversity and multilingualism. An interview with a ministerial officer
among our key informants revealed that the ministry of education was
recently in the process of formulating a document aiming to update the
2014 guidelines. In the framework depicted both at the document’s
formal presentation event and in the document itself,5 migrant
languages are considered in light of their importance for migrants’
identity but do not constitute a fundamental part of the updated policy
framework. Moreover, at the implementation level, the interviewed key
informants affirm that migrant languages are hardly ever considered in
the daily operation of schools (cf. also Calvi, 2020).
The two paragraphs above have sketched in brief the main policies
adopted for the language education of migrant students in our two
illustrative country cases, that is, Austria and Italy. In general, migrant
language-in-education policies (Paciotto et al., 2020) present different
challenges compared to policies that concern “indigenous” minority
languages, which are often more stable in terms of both geographical
location and numerical composition, as is the case for instance with
historical language minorities in Italy, which fulfill criteria of historicity
and territoriality (Paciotto, 2009). While historicity means that a
language minority has consolidated its presence in the Italian territory
and its relationship with the Italian-speaking community over a
relatively long time (Bonetti, 2016), territoriality refers to the fact that
historical language minorities are such if they have historically resided
in certain geographical areas (Piergigli, 2017). Conversely, migrant
languages tend to not meet either of these two criteria and are more
diverse and less concentrated in specific locations. As a result, the
extent to which policies are adopted for preserving migrant languages
varies considerably across different geographical contexts. Language-
wise, it is more common for public policies to address migrant
integration by pursuing the acquisition of the host country language. In
order to help countries face these challenges and to assist them in
developing plurilingual and intercultural education policies, the Council
of Europe has developed some policy guidelines. Most of the Council of
Europe’s recommendations contain mainly programmatic objectives
but some others—such as Recommendation No. R (98) 6 of the
Committee of Ministers on modern languages and the Recommendation
Rec (2005) 3 of the Committee of Ministers on teaching neighboring
languages in border regions—also propose measures for student
education as well as for initial teacher education (ITE) and in-service
teacher education, including policies that introduce the teaching and
use of the languages of neighboring countries (McPake et al., 2007). The
Council of Europe also draws upon resources developed by the
European Commission (cf. the Green Paper on “Migration & mobility”,
listed in Appendix A) and identifies the new opportunities opened up
by media and internet contact with the country of origin as facilitating
conditions of migrant language preservation, which may for instance
foster e-twinning experiences between schools of host and sending
countries (Council of Europe, 2009).
Institutions such as the Council of Europe indicate ways forward for
member states to promote plurilingualism and language diversity, but
education and migrant integration remain policy areas that are mainly
the subject of national policymaking. It is therefore important to
understand the paths conducting to the adoption of the policy
measures that introduce migrant languages into education. To this aim,
as mentioned above, this book employs the Multiple Streams
Framework, a theoretical scaffolding that allows us to better grasp the
conditions that lead to the opening of opportunity windows for policy
ideas and measures to make it into policymakers’ agendas and
ultimately into the formulation and adoption phases of the policy cycle.
Inter alia, this will allow us to explain why the examined countries have
adopted different policies on the same subject and in response to the
same policy problem(s), and the factors that have ultimately led to the
related policy outputs.

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Footnotes
1 Eurostat, Migration and migrant population statistics. Data extracted in March
2021. Last accessed 30 July 2021. https://​ec.​europa.​eu/​eurostat/​statistics-explained/​
index.​php?​title=​Migration_​and_​migrant_​population_​statistics

2 Bundesgesetz ü ber die Schulorganisation (Schulorganisationsgesetz), zuletzt

geändert durch das Bundesgesetz BGBl. Nr. 512/1993. Bundesgesetzblatt fü r die
Republik Osterreich, Nr. 242/1962; Bundesgesetz ü ber die Schulpflicht
(Schulpflichtgesetz 1985). BGBl. Nr. 513/1993, zuletzt geändert durch das
Bundesgesetz fü r die Republik Osterreich Nr. 513/1993.

3 IA1, IA2, and IA3 (see Appendix B).

4 II1 (see Appendix B).

5 See document titled Orientamenti interculturali, in Appendix A.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
A. Malandrino, Migrant Languages in Education, Studies in the Political Economy of
Public Policy
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15794-3_2

2. Adopting the Multiple Streams

Framework to Understand the
Preconditions of Policy Decisions
Anna Malandrino1
(1) Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna,
Bologna, Italy

The Multiple Streams Framework first appeared in the book entitled

Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, by John W. Kingdon (1995).
Compared to previous models for understanding policymaking, the
Multiple Streams Framework emphasizes the dynamic and irrational
nature of the policy process, which derives from ambiguity in the
reality of policymaking environments (Zahariadis, 2003). Conversely,
traditional models see policymaking as a systematic, linear process that
leads to rational decisions (Chow, 2014; Nutley et al., 2007). According
to rationalist scholars, policymaking processes linearly proceed from
problem identification to the examination of alternatives and,
eventually, to the adoption of policy solutions. This way of interpreting
policy processes might not, however, provide an accurate picture of real
policymaking situations (Albæk, 1995; Teodorović, 2008), as not all
policymaking processes are rational in nature (Monaghan, 2011).
Namely, it could overlook factors such as timing or political ideologies
(Black, 2001), as well as ambiguity in the definition of the problem to
be tackled. The Multiple Streams Framework addresses these
shortcomings and, as an elaboration of the garbage can model of
policymaking (Cohen et al., 1972; March & Olsen, 1976; Nutley et al.,
2007), it contributes to a paradigm shift in the field of policy studies.
The Multiple Streams Framework is based on a number of
assumptions, including ambiguity, time constraints, undefined policy
preferences, unclear technology, fluid participation, and stream
independence. This last assumption, as we shall see later on, refers to
the structural elements of the Multiple Streams Framework, which are
identified in three streams: the problem stream, the policy stream, and
the politics (or political) stream. These streams are theorized to
combine into the opening of a policy window (or window of
opportunity), which is leveraged by policy entrepreneurs to achieve
their intended goals.

2.1 Behind the Multiple Streams Framework:

Underlying Assumptions
Herweg et al. (2018) elucidate both the assumptions and the structural
elements of the Multiple Streams Framework by complementing their
original elaborations with the existing literature about the covered
concepts. Let us start with the fundamental concept of ambiguity. Based
on Feldman’s definition as “the state of having many ways of thinking
about the same circumstances or phenomena” (Feldman, 1989, 5),
ambiguity can be referred primarily to as the definition of policy
problems, and consequently as the definition of the solutions to those
problems. At the basis of the Multiple Streams Framework is, indeed,
not only the negation of the existence of a rational solution to a given
problem but the problematic nature of the very definition of problems
and their constitutive elements. As we shall see in this book, this
ambiguity can be particularly pronounced in the case of problems
whose conceptualization depends on ideology—which is often the case
when migration is involved. More specifically, applied to the topic at the
core of this book: do migrant languages represent an issue to be tackled
or an asset to be valued? And, on the level of solutions: should we adopt
homogenizing (education) policies that require the mere adaptation of
migrants to the hosting language context, or should we adopt pluralistic
(education) policies that require the recognition and promotion of each
linguistic component that is present in a given migrant hosting context?
Another random document with
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summer months, give us the means whereby some of the plans we
cherish may be carried out.
 “House in the Woods.”

It would be inconsistent with settlement theories if these country

places did not express refinement and beauty,—the beauty that
belongs to simplicity,—not only in the buildings, but also in the
service and housekeeping. It has seemed to us, therefore, worth the
additional expenditure of effort to have small, distinct household
units wherever practicable. People who live in crowded homes, walk
on crowded streets, ride on crowded cars, and as children attend
crowded classrooms, must inevitably acquire distorted views of life;
and the settlement is reluctant to add to these the experience of
crowded country life. Valuable training in housekeeping is possible in
a household even of from fifteen to twenty-five persons,—a small
unit according to New York standards,—and tactful direction can
often be given toward acquiring those manners generally recognized
as “good.” Many of the children who come to us know only foreign
customs and foreign table-manners; and the extreme difficulty of
maintaining orderly home life in the tenement makes it important to
supplement the home-training or to supply what it can never give.
Indeed, we recognize in this desire to protect our children from being
marked as peculiar or alien because of non-essential differences the
same reason that urges the careful mother to insist on “manners,”
that her children may not be discredited when they mingle with the
fastidious.

The ideal of limitation as to numbers cannot always be carried out,

and naturally it does not apply to the camp, where a freer and less
conventional life attracts and satisfies boys and young men.
The older members of the settlement, who are earning money, use
the camp and country places as clubs, paying for the privilege and
conforming to the regulations which they have had a share in
establishing.
 Those who have promoted the various Fresh-Air agencies
throughout the country may not realize that physical benefit is not all
that has been secured. We are persuaded that opportunity to know
life away from the city is in part the explanation of the increasing
number of city boys who elect training in agriculture and forestry.
Formerly, when careers were discussed, the future held no
happiness unless it promised a profession—law or medicine.
If I appear to lay too much stress upon the importance of play and
recreation, it may be well to point out that it is one way of recognizing
the dignity of the child. The study of juvenile delinquency shows how
often the young offender’s presence in the courts may be traced to a
play-impulse for which there was no safe outlet.
Perhaps nothing more definitely indicates the changed attitude
toward children and play than the fact that last summer (1914) the
police officers of the precinct called to enlist our co-operation in
carrying out the orders of the city administration that during certain
hours of the day traffic was to be shut off from designated streets,
that the children might play there. The visit brought to mind years of
painstaking effort to secure the toleration of harmless play, and the
hope we had dared to express, despite incredulity on the part of the
police, that some day the children might come to regard them as
guardians and protectors, rather than as a fear-inspiring and hated
force. One captain of the precinct, at least, had proved the
practicability of our theory, and when he was transferred we lost a
valuable co-worker. The Governor of New York, campaigning for re-
election in the fall of this year (1914), advocated that public schools
should be surrounded by playgrounds at “no matter what cost.”
Tremendous impetus has been given to the playground movement
throughout the entire country by individuals and societies organized
for the purpose. Wise men and women have expounded the social
philosophy of play and recreation, pointing out that these may afford
wholesome expression for energies which might otherwise be
diverted into channels disastrous to peace and happiness; that clean
sport and stimulating competition can replace the gang feud and
even modify racial antagonisms. The most satisfactory evidence of
this conviction is, of course, the recognition of the child’s right to play,
as an integral part of his claim upon the state.
 CHAPTER V
EDUCATION AND THE CHILD

Perhaps nothing makes a profounder impression on the newcomer

to our end of the city than the value placed by the Jew upon
education; an overvaluation, one is tempted to think, in view of the
sacrifices which are made, particularly for the boys,—though of late
years the girls’ claims have penetrated even to the Oriental home.
One afternoon a group of old-world women sat in the reception-
room at the settlement while one of the residents sang and played
negro melodies. With the melancholy minor of “Let My People Go,”
the women began crooning a song that told the story of Cain and
Abel. The melody was not identical, but so similar that they thought
they recognized the song as their own; and when a discussion arose
upon the coincidence that two persecuted peoples should claim this
melody, the women, touched by the music, confessed their homesick
longing for Russia—for Russia that had dealt so unkindly with them.
“Rather a stone for a pillow in my own home,” said one woman on
whom life had pressed hard. “Would you go back?” she was asked.
“Oh, no, no, no!” emphasizing the words by a swaying of the body
and a shaking of the head. “It is not poverty we fear. It is not money
we are seeking here. We do not expect things for ourselves. It is the
chance for the children, education and freedom for them.”
 The passion of the Russian Jews for intellectual attainment recalls
the spirit of the early New England families and their willingness to
forego every comfort that a son might be set apart for the ministry.
Here we are often witnesses of long-continued deprivation on the
part of every member of the family, a willingness to deny themselves
everything but the barest necessities of life, that there may be a
doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher among them. Submission to bad
housing, excessive hours, and poor working conditions is defended
as of “no matter because the children will have better and can go to
school—maybe college.” Said a baker who showed the ill-effects of
basement and night work and whose three rooms housed a family of
ten: “My boy is already in the high school. If I can’t keep on, the Herr
Gott will take it up where I leave off.”
 A painful instance was that of a woman who came to the
settlement one evening. Her son was studying music under one of
the most famous masters in Vienna, and she had exiled herself to
New York in order to earn more money for him than she could
possibly earn at home. Literally, as I afterwards discovered, she
spent nothing upon herself. A tenement family gave her lodging (a
bed on chairs) and food, in return for scrubbing done after her day’s
work in the necktie factory. The Viennese master, not knowing his
pupil’s circumstances, or, it is possible, not caring, had written that
the young man needed to give a concert, an additional demand
which it was utterly impossible for her to meet. She had already
given up her home, she had relinquished her wardrobe, and she had
sold her grave for him.
One young lad stands out among the many who came to talk over
their desire to go through college. He dreamed of being great and,
this period of hardship over, of placing his family in comfort. I felt it
right to emphasize his obligation to the family; the father was dead,
the mother burdened with anxiety for the numerous children. How
reluctant I was to do this he could not realize; only fourteen, he had
impressed us with his fine courage and intelligence, and it was hard
to resist the young pleader and to analyze with him the common-
place sordid facts. He had planned to work all summer, to work at
night, and he was hardly going to eat at all. But his young mind
grasped, almost before I had finished, the ethical importance of
meeting his nearest duties. He has met the family claims with
generosity, and has realized all our expectations for him by acquiring
through his own efforts education and culture; and he evinces an
unusual sense of civic responsibility.
 Those who have had for many years continuous acquaintance
with the neighborhood have countless occasions to rejoice at the
good use made of the education so ardently desired, and achieved
in spite of what have seemed overwhelming odds. New York City is
richer for the contributions made to its civic and educational life by
the young people who grew up in and with the settlements, and who
are not infrequently ready crusaders in social causes. A country
gentleman one day lamented to me that he had failed to keep in
touch with what he was pleased to call our humanitarian zeal, and
recalled his own early attempt to take an East Side boy to his estate
and employ him. “He could not even learn to harness a horse!” he
said, with implied contempt of such unfathomable inefficiency.
Something he said of the lad’s characteristics made it possible for
me to identify him, and I was able to add to that unsatisfactory first
chapter another, which told of the boy’s continuance in school, of his
success as a teacher in one of the higher institutions of learning, and
of his remarkable intelligence in certain vexed industrial problems.
Such achievements are the more remarkable because the
restricted tenement home, where the family life goes on in two or
three rooms, affords little opportunity for reading or study. A vivid
picture of its limitations was presented by the boy who sought a quiet
corner in a busy settlement. “I can never study at home,” he said,
“because sister is always using the table to wash the dishes.”
Study-rooms were opened in the settlement in 1907, where the
boys and girls find, not only a quiet, restful place in which to do their
work, but also the needed “coaching.” The school work is
supplemented by illuminating bulletins on current topics, and the
young student is provided with the aid which in other conditions is
given by parents or older brothers and sisters. Such study-rooms are
now maintained by the Board of Education in numerous schools of
the city,—“Thanks to the example set by the settlement,” the
superintendent of the New York school system reported.
The settlement children are given instruction in the selection of
books before they are old enough to take out their cards in the public
libraries. Once a week, on Friday afternoon, when there are no
lessons to be prepared, our study-room is reserved for these
smallest readers. The books are selected with reference to their
tastes and attainments, and fairy tales are on the shelves in great
numbers. Of course, no settlement could entirely satisfy the
insatiable desire for these.
 One day when the room was being used for study purposes a wee
neighbor sauntered in and said to the custodian, “Please, I’d like a
fairy tale.” Although reminded that these books were not given out
excepting on the special day, the child lingered. She saw a boy’s
request for “The Life of Alexander Hamilton” and a girl’s wish for
“The Life of Joan of Arc” complied with. Evidently there was a way to
get one’s heart’s desire. The child went out, reappeared in a few
moments, and with an air of confidence again addressed the
librarian, this time with, “Please, I’d like the life of a giant.”

It is easy to excite sympathy in our neighborhood for people

deprived of books and learning. One year I accompanied a party of
Northern people to the Southern Educational Conference. We were
all much stirred by the appeal of an itinerant Southern minister who
told how the poor white natives traveled miles over the mountains to
hear books read. He pictured vividly the deprivation of his neighbors,
who had no access to libraries of any kind. When I returned to the
settlement and related the story to the young people in the clubs,
without suggestion on my part they eagerly voted to send the
minister books to form a library; and for two years or more, until the
Southerner wrote that he had sufficient for his purpose, the clubs
purchased from their several funds one book each month, suited to
different ages and tastes, according to their own excellent
discrimination.

The first public school established in New York City (Number 1) is

on Henry Street. Number 2 is a short distance from it, on the same
street, and Number 147 is at our corner. Between their sites are
several semi-public and private educational institutions, and from
School No. 1 to School No. 147 the distance is not more than three-
quarters of a mile.
It is not unnatural, therefore, that the school should loom large in
our consciousness of the life of the child. The settlement at no time
would, even if it could, usurp the place of school or home. It seeks to
work with both or to supplement either. The fact that it is flexible and
is not committed to any fixed programme gives opportunity for
experimentation not possible in a rigid system, and the results of
these experiments must have affected school methods, at least in
New York City.
Intelligent social
workers seize
opportunities for
observation, and almost
unconsciously develop
methods to meet needs.
They see conditions as
they are, and become
critical of systems as
they act and react upon
the child or fail to reach
him at all. They reverse the method of the school teacher, who
approaches the child with preconceived theories and a determination
to work them out. Where the school fails, it appears to the social
workers to do so because it makes education a thing apart,—
because it separates its work from all that makes up the child’s life
outside the classroom. Great emphasis is now laid upon the
oversight of the physical condition of children from the time of their
birth through school life; but the suggestion of this extension of
socialized parental control did not emanate from those within the
school system.
Cooking has been taught in the
public schools for many years, and
the instruction is of great value to
those who are admitted to the
classes; but appropriations have
never been sufficient to meet all the
requirements, and the teaching is
given in grades already depleted by
the girls who have gone to work, and
who will perhaps never again have
leisure or inclination to learn how to
prepare meals for husband and
children,—the most important
business in life for most women.
The laboratory method employed in
the schools never seemed to us sufficiently related to the home
conditions of vast numbers of the city’s population; and, therefore,
when the settlement undertook, according to its theory, to
supplement the girls’ education, all the essentials of our own
housekeeping—stove, refrigerator, bedrooms, and so on—were
utilized. But neither were single bedrooms and rooms set apart for
distinct purposes entirely satisfactory in teaching domestic procedure
to the average neighbor; and the leader finally developed out of her
knowledge of their home conditions the admirable system of
“Housekeeping Centers” now sustained and administered by a
committee of men and women on which the settlement has
representation.
A flat was rented in a typical Henry Street tenement. Intelligence
and taste were exercised in equipping it inexpensively and with
furniture that required the least possible labor to keep it free from dirt
and vermin. Classes were formed to teach housekeeping in its every
detail, using nothing which the people themselves could not procure,
—a tiny bathroom, a gas stove, no “model” tubs, but such as the
landlord provided for washing. Cleaning, disinfecting, actual
purchasing of supplies in the shops of the neighborhood, household
accounts, nursing, all the elements of homekeeping, were
systematically taught. The first winter that the center was opened the
entire membership of a class consisted of girls engaged to be
married,—clerks, stenographers, teachers; none were prepared and
all were eager to have the homes which they were about to establish
better organized and more intelligently conducted than those from
which they had come. When one young woman announced her
betrothal, she added, “And I am fully prepared because I have been
through the Housekeeping Center.”
Other centers have been established by the committee in different
parts of the city. Dr. Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools, always
sympathetic and ready to fit instruction to the pupils’ needs, has
encouraged the identification of these housekeeping centers with the
schools. Whenever an enterprising principal desires it, the teachers
of the nearby housekeeping center are made a part of the school
system. Perhaps we may some day see one attached to every public
school; and I am inclined to believe that, when institutions of higher
learning fully realize that education is preparation for life, they too will
wonder if the young women graduates of their colleges should not,
like our little girl neighbors, be fitted to meet their great home-making
responsibilities.
Out of the experience of the originator of the housekeeping
centers “Penny Lunches” for the public schools have been
inaugurated, and provide a hot noonday meal for children. The
committee now controlling this experiment has inquired into food
values, physical effects on children, relation to school attendance,
and so on.
The schools in a great city have an additional responsibility, as
many of the pupils are deprived of home training because of extreme
poverty or the absence of the mother at work, and a measure of
failure may be traced to an imperfect realization of the conditions
under which pupils live, or to a lack of training on the part of some of
the teachers. The Home-and-School Visitor, whose duties are
indicated in her title, is charged to bring the two together, that each
may help the other; but there are few visitors as yet, and the effect
upon the great number of pupils in attendance (over 800,000 in New
York) is obviously limited.
We are not always mindful of the fact that children in normal
homes get education apart from formal lessons and instruction.
Sitting down to a table at definite hours, to eat food properly served,
is training, and so is the orderly organization of the home, of which
the child so soon becomes a conscious part. There is direction
toward control in the provision for privacy, beginning with the
sequestered nursery life. The exchange of letters, which begins with
most children at a very early age, the conversation of their elders,
familiarity with telegrams and telephones, and with the incidents of
travel, stimulate their intelligence, resourcefulness, and self-reliance.
Contrast this regulated domestic life
with the experience of children—a
large number in New York—who may
never have been seated around a
table in an orderly manner, at a given
time, for a family meal. Where the
family is large and the rooms small,
and those employed return at irregular
hours, its members must be fed at
different times. It is not uncommon in
a neighborhood such as ours to see
the mother lean out of the fourth- or
fifth-story window and throw down the
bread-and-butter luncheon to the little
child waiting on the sidewalk below—
sometimes to save him the exertion of climbing the stairs, sometimes
because of insufficient time. The children whose mothers work all
day and who are locked out during their absence are expected to
shift for themselves, and may as often be given too much as too little
money to appease their hunger. Having no more discretion in the
choice of food than other children of their age, they become an easy
prey for the peddlers of unwholesome foods and candies (often with
gambling devices attached) who prowl outside the school limits.
Even those students who are
better placed economically, or
who have the perseverance to
go on into the higher schools,
may have had no experience
but that of a disorganized
tenement home. Emil was an
instance of this. He supported
himself while attending school
by teaching immigrants at
night. We invited him to a party
at one of our country places
and instructed him to call in the
morning for his railroad ticket.
He failed to appear until long
after the appointed hour, not realizing that trains leave on schedule
time. Apparently he had never consulted a time-table or taken a
journey except with a fresh-air party conducted by someone else.
Next morning he returned the ticket, and I learned that he had not
reached the farm because he did not know the way to it from the
station. Somewhat disconcerted to learn that he had taken fruitlessly
a trip of something over an hour’s duration, I asked why he had not
telephoned to the farm for directions. This seventeen-year-old boy, in
his third year in the high school, had not thought of a telephone in
the country. Moreover, he had never used one anywhere.
Happily, there is a growing realization among educators of the
necessity of relating the school more closely to the children’s future,
and it is not an accident that one of the widely known authorities on
vocational guidance has had long experience in settlements.[4]

A friend has recently given to me the letters which I wrote regularly

to her family during the first two years of my life on the East Side. I
had almost forgotten, until these letters recalled it to me, how often
Miss Brewster and I mourned over the boys and girls who were not
in school, and over those who had already gone to work without any
education. Almost everyone has had knowledge at some time of the
chagrin felt by people who cannot read or write. One intelligent
woman of my acquaintance, born in New York State, ingeniously
succeeded for many years in keeping the fact of her illiteracy secret
from the people with whom she lived on terms of intimacy, buying the
newspaper daily and making a pretense of reading it.
We had naïvely assumed that elementary education was given to
all, and were appalled to find entire families unable to read or write,
even though some of the children had been born in America. The
letters remind me, too, of the efforts we made to get the children we
encountered into school,—day school or night school, public or
private,—and how many different people reacted to our appeals. The
Department of Health, to facilitate our efforts, supplied us with virus
points and authority to vaccinate, since no unvaccinated child could
be admitted to school. We gave such publicity as was in our power
to the conditions we found, not disdaining to stir emotionally by our
“stories” when dry and impersonal statistics failed to impress.
Since those days, New York City has established a school census
and has almost perfected a policy whereby all children are brought
into school; but throughout the state there are communities where
the compulsory education law is disregarded. The Federal Census of
1910 shows in this Empire State, in the counties (Franklin and
Clinton) inhabited by the native-born, illiteracy far in excess of that in
the counties where the foreign-born congregate.
Wonderful advance has been made within two decades in the
conception of municipal responsibility for giving schooling to all
children. Now the blind, the deaf, the cripples, and the mentally
defective are included among those who have the right to education.
When in 1893 I climbed the stairs in a Monroe Street tenement in
answer to a call to a sick child, I found Annie F⸺ lying on a
tumbled bed, rigid in the braces which encased her from head to
feet. All about her white goods were being manufactured, and five
machines were whirring in the room. She had been dismissed from
the hospital as incurable, and her mother carried her at intervals to
an uptown orthopedic dispensary. A pitiful, emaciated little creature!
The sweatshop was transfigured for Annie when we put pretty white
curtains at the window upon which she gazed, hung up a bird-cage,
and placed a window-box full of growing plants for her to look at
during the long days. Then, realizing that she might live many years
and would need, even more than other children, the joys that come
from books, we found a young woman who was willing to go to her
bedside and teach her.
Nowadays children crippled as Annie was may be taken to school
daily, under the supervision of a qualified nurse, in a van that calls
for them and brings them home. One of these schools, established
by intelligent philanthropists, is on Henry Street; the instructors are
engaged and paid by the Department of Education. There are also
classes in different sections of the city equipped for the special
needs of cripples, to give them industrial training which will provide
for their future happiness and economic independence.
 CHAPTER VI
THE HANDICAPPED CHILD

Educators have only recently realized the existence of large

numbers of pupils within the schools who are unequal to the routine
class-work because of mental defects. It was one of our settlement
residents, a teacher in a Henry Street school, who first startled us
into serious consideration of these children. In the year 1899 she
brought to us from time to time reports of a colleague, Elizabeth
Farrell, whose attention was fixed upon the “poor things” unable to
keep up with the grade. She had, our resident declared, “ideas”
about them. We sought acquaintance with her, and we felt it a
privilege to learn to know the noble enthusiasm of this young woman
for those pupils who, to teachers, must always seem the least
hopeful.
The Board of Education permitted her to form the first class for
ungraded pupils, in School Number 1, in 1900, and the settlement
gladly helped develop her theory of separate classes and special
instruction for the defectives, not alone for their sakes, but to relieve
the normal classes which their presence retarded. We provided
equipment not yet on the School Board’s requisition list, obtained
permission for her to attend children’s clinics, secured treatment for
the children, and, finally, and not least important, made every effort
to interest members of the School Board and the public generally in
this class of children.
The plan included the provision of a luncheon. For this we
purchased tables, paper napkins, and dishes. The children brought
from home bread and butter, and a penny for a glass of milk, and an
alert principal made practical the cooking lessons given to the older
girls in the school by having them prepare the main dish of the
pupils’ luncheon—incidentally the first to be provided in the grade
schools. Occasionally the approval of the families would be
 expressed in extra donations,
and in the beginning this
sometimes took the form of a
bottle of beer. Every day one
pupil was permitted to invite an
adult member of his family to
the luncheon, which led
naturally to an exchange of
visits between members of the
family and the teacher.
Among the pupils in this first
class was Tony, a Neapolitan,
impossible in the grade class
because of emotional outbursts
called “bad temper,” and an
incorrigible truant. When defects of vision were corrected the
outbursts became less frequent, and manual work disclosed a latent
power of application and stimulated a willingness to attend school.
Tony is now a bricklayer, a member of the union in good standing,
and last spring he and his father bought a house in Brooklyn.
Another was Katie. Spinal
meningitis when she was very young
had left her with imperfect mental
powers. Careful examination
disclosed impaired control, particularly
of the groups of smaller muscles. She
has never learned to read, but has
developed skill in clay-modeling, and
sews and embroiders very well. She
makes her clothes and is a cheerful
helper to her mother in the work about
the house. Last Christmas she sent to
the school warm undergarments
which she had made, to be given to
the children who needed them. Her
intelligent father feels that but for the discriminating instruction in the