Resumen de How do refugee children perceive their plurilingualism?: Exploring children’s representations of their linguistic repertoires through language portraits

Fani Morali, Peggy Manoli

• Contemporary phenomena, such as increasing migration and globalization, has brought into contact various languages and cultures rendering classrooms highly heterogeneous. But how do children perceive their plurilingualism? In this context, the present research seeks to explore refugee children’s linguistic repertoires through qualitative research methods, interviews, and creative, visual methods, language portraits. The research participants were seven refugee students aged from 7 to 12 residing in a camp of Northern Greece. The study shed light on students’ plurilingual repertoires corroborating the effectiveness of visual methodologies to unveil individuals’ plurilingualism and highlighting their need to move across separately named languages depending on a given socio-cultural context. Simultaneously, the analysis of the language portraits indicated patterns of language placement according to personal attachment and language knowledge. The study aspires to contribute to pertinent research by providing insights and suggestions both for policymakers to implement a plurilingual and intercultural type of education and educators to transform the invisibility of student plurilingualism into an obvious advantage for the whole class aiming at a more inclusive educational and social basis for all children.