About us

The meta-project Language Education in an Immigrant Society accompanies the funding directive of the same name of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The aim is to link the work of the funded projects, to network groups of actors, to carry out own research on multilingualism and transfer, and to disseminate project results to the target group.

Linguistic skills are a key factor in determining educational success, social participation, and further opportunities in the labour market. Simultaneously, linguistic and cultural diversity in Germany is steadily rising. Studies show that an increasing number of children and young people in this country are growing up multilingually. However, multilingual resources of learners are used far too rarely in educational contexts. Promoting the linguistic abilities of all children and young people in the best possible way, regardless of their social and cultural background, is therefore a central task of language education and contributes to more equal opportunities in the education system.

There is already a body of empirical evidence on which language education approaches are effective and how multilingual resources can be used for content and language learning. But how can such approaches be best transferred to educational institutions? What do successful forms of teaching and learning in the context of multilingualism look like? How can all children and young people benefit from this? Where do robust findings on language education already exist and where are research gaps that need to be filled?

These and other questions are addressed by the meta-project Language Education in the Immigrant Society. From July 2022 to September 2028, it will accompany the funding directive of the same name of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), in which currently 21 sub-projects nationwide will deal with research questions on language education from the elementary level to adult education.