"New" Greek family migration and Greek community schools: Syncretising fixed and fluid representations of Greek language, identity and community, by Dr Vally Lytra (Goldsmiths)

Speaker introduced by Alexandra Georgakopoulou-Nunes, King’s College London.

For many families, Greek community schools are regarded as important educational spaces for fostering their children's Greek language, culture and identity in the diaspora. They are also important sites for the circulation and consolidation of what counts as "legitimate" Greek language, culture and identity in accordance with Greek national educational agendas (Lytra 2014, Charalambous 2019). In the aftermath of the 2009 financial crisis, Greek schools have been called upon to educate an increasingly heterogeneous pupil population with diverse and complex language abilities and aspirations, family backgrounds and migration biographies. New mobilities raise questions about how the different social actors involved in Greek language education abroad might redefine their schools' mission, curricula and pedagogy.

Taking the case of a newly established Greek school in francophone Switzerland, I explore how social actors syncretise fixed representations of Greek language, identity and community with more fluid ones to strategically reposition the school from an insular ethnic space to one with multiple interconnections with the broader Swiss society across timescales. I draw on reflective discussions, participant observations of school celebrations and documentary data from the school's website to illustrate how social actors negotiate but also contest this discursive repositioning. I conclude with some thoughts about how the case study can contribute to the emerging field of "new" Greek family migration and Greek language education abroad (Chatzidaki et al forthcoming 2019).

Charalambous, M. 2019. Negotiating and Constructing a Reflexive Multiliteracies Pedagogy in a Greek Complementary School in London. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Goldsmiths: University of London.

Chatzidaki, A., Kirsch, C., Panagiotopoulou, A, and L. Rosen (eds) Forthcoming 2019. New Migration of Families from Greece to Europe and Canada – Experiences and Interpretations of Family Members within the Context of Different Migration Societies and Educational Systems. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.

Lytra, V. 2014. "Revisiting discourses of language, identity and community in a transnational context through a commemorative book project". Multilingua. 33(5-6): 551-574. DOI 10.1515/multi-2014-0028

 

About the speaker:

Vally Lytra is Senior Lecturer in Languages in Education at Goldsmiths, University of London. Before joining Goldsmiths, she lectured at other London Universities and at the English Department, University of Bern, in Switzerland. She was Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College London from 2003 until 2015. A common thread running through her research, practice and community engagement has been the investigation of bilingualism and biliteracy in schools, homes and communities that have experienced diverse migration flows. Her publications have focused among others on pedagogy and teacher/learner identities, language practices and language ideologies, and the interplay of language, ethnicity and faith. Her most recent book Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities: Religion in Young Lives (with Dinah Volk and Eve Gregory) was published in 2016. She is currently working on a research project documenting established and newer forms of Greek language education abroad for children and adults learners across three European countries (Switzerland, the UK and France).