Project Description: The Portuguese Community in London
- A study on academic, social & cultural aspects of children and
teenagers in London.
Starting date: January 1998
End date: January 2003
Supervisor: Prof. Eve Gregory
This project aims to investigate
- how children of Portuguese families, schooled in a language
other than that spoken at home, are affected by their attendance
of mother tongue classes with regard to their academic and
linguistic development and their own identity as well as
- how this commitment affects their families, the child¹s
own identity and the child¹s integration in the community
at different ages: 7, 11, 14 and 16.
The study focuses on the way how children¹s learning in one
language, their acquisition of literacy in mother tongue, affects
their academic performance in the second language. It will also
focus on the individual¹s sociocultural development as a member
of a community. The study aims to inform mother tongue support
policy development and classroom practice and to address questions
that focus on the identity of individuals as members of a community.
It will consider aspects that relate to social inclusion and
exclusion and, therefore, affect work and further education.
An ethnographic approach will be employed, since I am a Portuguese
teacher with several years experience of teaching mother tongue
classes, currently also involved as a Portuguese bilingual support
teacher and have easy access to the community I shall be studying.
Most of the work will take place at schools, both during the
school day (English) and in the evening (Portuguese) but data
will also be collected at the children¹s homes and during meetings
of the Portuguese migrant community centres and associations.
The sample of children will comprise two sub-samples of children
of Portuguese families born and schooled in this country, one
group attending mother tongue classes (Cursos de Língua e Cultura
Portuguesas), the other group not attending, each comprising
of different age groups: 7, 11, 14 and 16 years old, which correspond
to the main assessment and curriculum stages in compulsory education.
Within an ethnographic approach, I shall combine qualitative
methods (participant observation, interviews, case-studies)
generating accounts which will be used for analysis; and quantitative
methods using tasks and test results which will be subjected
to statistical analysis (t-test, analysis of variance).
This project is of prime importance for the teaching and maintenance
of mother tongue. In the case of Portuguese children, this applies
to communities all over Europe, in Canada, USA and South Africa.
Such wide distribution and the lack of studies in this area
have prompted the Portuguese Ministry of Education, who provides
for the Portuguese Mother Tongue Classes, to allow me to dedicate
two days per week to this study. I am also receiving funding
from the UK¹s Economical and Social Research Council (ESRC)
to cover for my study fees at the Goldsmith College. This study
will, therefore, carry important implications for policy development
both in the UK and in Portugal, as well as provide insights
into the development of bilingual children.
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