Impact Assemblies

The MultiLX project investigates linguistic practices across diverse educational settings in Europe, exploring what they mean for equity, inclusion, and educational policy. Impact Assembly 1 – “Education and Language Advocacy” brings this research into dialogue with policymakers and other key actors working in language and education across Europe.

The Assembly will bring together evidence and experience from the MultiLX case studies with a focus on education: How can research on multilingualism inform stronger language advocacy and more inclusive and just educational policy? How can arts-based methods contribute to the exploration of linguistic and semiotic resources and advance advocacy? Researchers will share key findings and policy recommendations, creating creative spaces to explore their implications for education systems across different European contexts.

The event brings together the full project consortium, project partners, Advisory Board members, and senior representatives involved in language and education policy. We also warmly welcome researchers, teachers, teacher educators, student teachers, and university students. All participants are invited to contribute actively — through presentations, dialogue, and discussion — to a conversation that aims to move from research evidence to advocacy, and from advocacy to educational change.

Organising committee: Edina Krompák, Clara Seitz, Pascal Schmidt, Victoria Wasner, and Sabina Schönholzer, University of Teacher Education Lucerne, Switzerland.

The MULTILX Impact Assembly on Policy will bring together policymakers, researchers, community organisations, and cultural practitioners to explore how linguistic diversity can contribute to social inclusion, cultural vitality, and sustainable development. Drawing on findings from the Horizon Europe MULTILX project and examples from across Europe, the event will examine how linguistic capital is created and mobilised in multilingual societies and how this knowledge can inform language policy and practice.

Through presentations, policy dialogue, community contributions, and collaborative discussion, participants will identify key challenges, share innovative approaches, and develop recommendations for policymakers. The outcomes of the assembly will inform a MULTILX policy brief and contribute to wider European debates on multilingualism, minority languages, and inclusive governance.

The role immigrant multilingualism can play in mutual belonging, social cohesion, and, hence, democracy has, to our knowledge, not yet been sufficiently addressed. Yet understanding the interplay between these factors is crucial for the European Union in the 21st century. The case study “Migration, Belonging and Cohesion in Multilingual Berlin” has tackled this very need. In our Impact Assembly, we will discuss:

• Where and how multilingual “immigrant” voices begin to be raised at a young age — or not.
• Where and how these voices are heard and taken up — or not.
• How they interact or disconnect.
• How this leads — or does not lead — to mutual belonging.

Our aim is a vibrant exchange on the role of multilingual practices and encounters in mutual belonging, and an understanding of society as a genuinely joint endeavour. Our analyses of personal and institutional interaction will be opened up for discussion with policymakers, activists, educators, parents, artists, young people, and many more.

We regard this project as a very modest contribution to the major issues mentioned above, particularly in times of upheaval, war, and shrinking resources for those called “migrant” and “minority” actors. However, our ambitious aim remains to understand how these very actors can, with very limited means, make a profound and significant difference for all parts of society.

MultiLX Impact Assembly 5 is structured around discussions of language policy that promotes young people’s intercultural encounters in digital spaces, contributing to strengthening European linguistic capital.

The Assembly aims to engage politicians, policymakers, artists, and other interested parties, including academics and educators, in discussing how new knowledge about European young people’s languaging can contribute to addressing tensions in socially, politically, and linguistically divided contact zones. Participants will focus on challenging established, territorial interpretations of European linguistic diversity. The Assembly provides a forum for policy recommendations grounded in the outcomes of the research.

Featuring a variety of activities, such as an interactive Digital Storytelling video exhibition, an ethnographic film screening, roundtable discussions, and beatbox and dance performances by the commissioned artists, the event aims to provide formal and informal spaces for participants to offer their perspectives on the data and ongoing analysis.