Protecting and stimulating plurilingual identities in learners in Europe via inclusive policies and classroom practices

Project Information

Pluridentities

Grant agreement ID: 101178914

DOI

10.3030/101178914

EC signature date 2 October 2024

Start date 1 November 2024

End date 31 October 2028

Funded under

• Culture, creativity and inclusive society

Total cost

€ 2 695 006,25

EU contribution

€ 2 695 006,25

Coordinated by

VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Pluridentities (Protecting and stimulating plurilingual identities in learners in Europe via inclusive policies and classroom practices)

Reporting period: 2024-11-01 to 2025-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Europe’s linguistic diversity is a key part of its shared identity and a source of cultural richness, social cohesion, and innovation. Yet this “linguistic capital” faces pressure. The Pluridentities project explores how education can protect and promote Europe’s multilingualism amid English dominance, migration, and digital technologies.

English as a global lingua franca reduces the visibility of other languages in schools and learners’ motivation to study them. Heritage languages are often undervalued, affecting pupils’ sense of belonging. Meanwhile, translation tools and AI systems such as ChatGPT transform language learning, creating both opportunities and risks.

Pluridentities brings together partners from Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Aruba, and the Netherlands to understand these challenges and co-develop sustainable educational responses. The project has three main objectives:

1) Educational policies and multilingualism: to identify how policies foster or hinder multilingualism and how technology can be integrated responsibly.

2) Multilingual programmes and attitudes: to study how multilingual education affects language attitudes and identity, with a focus on heritage and non-European languages.

3) Technology and motivation: to examine how new technologies influence language learning and provide practical tools for teachers.

Together, these objectives aim to strengthen Europe’s linguistic capital by fostering inclusive, multilingual, and digitally informed classrooms.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Since its start, Pluridentities has built a solid foundation for research and collaboration across five countries. In WP1, five National Advisory Boards met between April–July 2025, while the International Advisory Board will convene in December, ensuring regular feedback. Ethical and methodological coherence was secured via Data Management and Ethics Plans, approved by ethics committees in all partner countries. Following an educational action research design, Phase 1 (analysis and exploration) is nearly complete. In WP3, 4 and 5, the consortium developed a framework connecting languages, identity, policy, and technology. Surveys and qualitative tools were implemented in all partner countries, collecting data from 465 teachers, 3 346 pupils, 70 teacher interviews, and 36 pupil focus groups. Desk research mapped multi-level language policies and produced a scorecard visualised through heat maps, forming the basis for the language policy dashboard.

Phase 2 will explore policymakers’ perspectives in WP3, while WP4 and WP5 will pilot Research–Practice Partnerships (RPP) and "broker" trainings in schoolyear 2025-2026.

Overall, the project has created an ethically robust, interdisciplinary basis for the next phase of in-school research, focus groups, and co-creation workshops.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Once Phase 1 is fully completed, Pluridentities advances multilingual education by linking policy, pedagogy, and technology in a multilevel framework connecting macro policy with classroom practice. It supports EU priorities on plurilingualism and identity (Council Recommendation 2018), viewing European identity as dynamic and multilayered.

Focusing on adolescents (14–18), the framework combines four dimensions: (i) linguistic capital, (ii) learning environment, (iii) language policy, and (iv) technology. Its novelty lies in analysing their interaction across governance levels and school contexts—an underexplored relationship.

By combining surveys, interviews, and focus groups across five countries, the project fills a gap in research on multilingual adolescents outside English-dominant settings, identifying both national and cross-national trends in language use, motivation, and identity.

Pluridentities also pioneers research on AI and digital tools in language education, evaluating how systems like ChatGPT and machine translation affect motivation and teaching practices, and offering guidance for responsible, creative classroom use. Through theoretical innovation, empirical evidence, and practice, it moves beyond the current state of the art and strengthens EU ambitions for multilingual, inclusive, and digital education.

Visual representation of the theoretical framework