Exploring Teacher Agency in Response to Emergent Multilingualism & The Ecology of Heritage Language Maintenance
Presentation 1: Exploring Teacher Agency in Response to Emergent Multilingualism: An Ecological Study
Anna Szczepaniak-Kozak/ Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
The main assumption of our presentation is that teachers play a particularly significant role in the lives of pupils with migration backgrounds and may have a tangible impact on their linguistic capital. However, until recently, little attention has been paid to how the admission of larger groups of such pupils affect schools, specifically regarding the role and response of teachers in such context. Our research focused on the Polish teachers’ agency in response to the increased number of refugee pupils in Polish schools that followed the war in Ukraine. From February to May 2022, these circumstances prompted Poland to accommodate 3.37 million refugees from conflict zones, which significantly diversified the predominantly monolingual landscape of Polish schools. Given the uniqueness of this situation and Poland's historical mono-national and monolingual context, our study aimed to determine how teachers’ agency was activated during this crisis and to identify determinants influencing their actions and decisions. For this purpose, we adopted an ecological approach (Bronfenbrenner 1992) and primarily draw on the Ecological Model of Teacher Agency advanced by Priestley and colleagues (2016).
To understand this situation, we designed a qualitative study drawing on three focus group and 10 individual interview reports, all of which were recorded and transcribed. Altogether, we surveyed 37 school staff members and other professionals involved in education and teacher training. To analyse our data, we employed situational analysis (Clarke et al., 2020). The findings reveal that the newly emergent multilingual turn in Polish schools has rarely been seen as an asset by school personnel, including teachers, who are accustomed to monolingual classes and unprepared to work with multilingual pupils. Yet, despite teachers’ inexperience and lack of preparation for the new educational context, they responded quickly to the emerging challenges. This is exemplified by teachers’ collaboration in material design and their willingness to participate in courses that address migrant students’ needs (e.g., linguistic, educational, or emotional).
The application of the ecological theoretical framework accentuated the individual and situational dimensions of agency, which manifest within a specific temporal context, shaped by a combination of past experiences, future aspirations driven by personal ambitions and values, and the available tangible and intangible resources in the given situation (Szczepaniak-Kozak and Wąsikiewicz-Firlej 2024).
References:
- Bronfenbrenner, U. (1992). Ecological systems theory. In R. Vasta (Ed.), Annals of Child Development. Six theories of child development: Revised formulations and current issues (pp. 187–249). London: Jessica Kingsley.
- Clarke, A. E., Washburn, R., and Friese, C. (2022). Situational Analysis in practice: Mapping relationalities across discipline (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
- Priestley, M., Priestley, M. R., Biesta, G., and Robinson, S. (2016). Teacher Agency: An Ecological Approach. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
- Szczepaniak-Kozak, A., and Wąsikiewicz-Firlej, E. (2024). Teacher agency in the times of crisis: a situational analysis of school environment after the 2022 Russian invasion in Ukraine. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1382403. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1382403
Presentation 2: The Ecology of Heritage Language Maintenance: Insights from the Polish Community in Galicia (Spain)
Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej / Anna Szczepaniak-Kozak
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
Our presentation focuses on the dynamics of heritage language (HL) maintenance among the Polish diaspora in Spain, a significant yet underexplored topic in current literature. Specifically, we analyze the reasons behind and strategies for preserving the Polish language in multilingual families in Galicia, Spain, where at least one parent speaks Polish as their first language. We concentrate on the relational aspects inherent in HL maintenance efforts and seek to contribute to a deeper understanding of what it means to sustain authentic relationships in such communities. Adopting an ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner 1992), we examine micro-level factors like family influences, alongside exo- and macro-level elements of the linguistic ecosystem under study, including language policies in Galicia where Spanish and Galician share official status. Our research also delves into how children are socialized holistically in their HL, focusing on the Polish community’s role and institutional support.
Using qualitative triangulation, including focus groups, individual interviews, and ethnographic investigations (online/on-site), we apply Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development to comprehensively analyze our data. Our findings highlight that children's acquisition of Polish depends on multiple factors. Parents play a critical role in enhancing motivation through contextualized language use and fostering meaningful interactions with first language speakers, often facilitated by extended family and Polish community ties. Community schools also significantly support HL maintenance, especially before adolescence. This underscores the need for the official recognition of the contribution such organisations make to HL maintenance and adding them to language politics as stakeholders at least. In conclusion, our study (Wąsikiewicz-Firlej and Szczepaniak-Kozak 2025) contributes to the discourse on HL maintenance by illuminating the complex interplay of multiple factors influencing language sustainability and diversity among the Polish diaspora in Galicia, offering insights that can inform effective HL maintenance strategies and policies.
References:
- Bronfenbrenner, U. (1992). Ecological systems theory. In R. Vasta (Ed.), Annals of Child Development. Six theories of child development: Revised formulations and current issues (pp. 187–249). London: Jessica Kingsley.
- Wąsikiewicz-Firlej, E., Szczepaniak-Kozak, A., and Lorenzo-Modia, M. J. (2025). The ecology of heritage language maintenance in the Polish community in Galicia: an ecolinguistic study. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2025.2450023
About the presenters
Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej (D.Litt. in Linguistics, Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics) is an Associate Professor in the School of languages and Literatures at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Her research interests include ecolinguistics, professional and intercultural communication, and, more recently, multilingualism and family language policy. She has published over 60 academic papers in applied linguistics, including four monographs.
From 2020 to 2023, Emilia Wąsikiewicz-Firlej was involved in the international project MaMLiSE – Majority and Minority Languages in School Environment (mamlise.amu.edu.pl), funded by the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Programme in the school education sector. The project focused on developing training materials for teachers educating children with migration experience and providing guidelines for parents to help shape family language policy with respect for the entire linguistic repertoire of the family. Currently, she is engaged in the Horizon Europe project “Fostering Linguistic Capital: Strategies for Reversing the Diversity Crisis and Activating Societal Benefits in Europe” (https://www.facebook.com/Fosterlang.Europe), where her research focuses on language and educational policies.
Emilia Firlej has delivered over 50 presentations at national and international conferences and has given guest lectures abroad, including in Australia, Germany, Italy, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Vietnam, the UK and USA. Before joining the university, she worked as a marketing and public relations specialist.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4457-9715
Email: emilia.wasikiewicz-firlej@amu.edu.pl;
Anna Szczepaniak-Kozak (D.Litt. in Linguistics, Ph.D. in English Linguistics) is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Applied Linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland, where serves as the Vice-Director for Research and the Deputy Editor-in-Chief at Glottodidactica (link), a Scopus-indexed journal publishing research relevant to language learning and teaching.
Currently, Anna Kozak’s primary research interests lie in multilingualism and diversity in education, interlanguage pragmatics and discourse analysis, including studies of offensive language, hate speech and radicalisation. This is visible in her research tasks in two projects: the Horizon Europe project FOSTERLANG (Fostering Linguistic Capital: Strategies for Reversing the Diversity Crisis and Activating Societal Benefits in Europe, https://www.facebook.com/Fosterlang.Europe) with focus on language and educational policies, and the British Academy project ODOU (Online Discourse On Ukrainians In The UK And Poland – A Comparative Study), carried out at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, UK), for which she also serves as a research co-leader.
From 2020 to 2023, she was the main coordinator of the MaMLiSE project (Majority and Minority Languages in School Environment, mamlise.amu.edu.pl). Funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ Programme, MaMLiSE aimed to foster and expand international collaboration to address the challenges posed by migration. The project supported school personnel in delivering effective instruction in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms and facilitated cooperation between schools and parents.
Anna Kozak is the author of six books, the co-editor of seven monographs and more than 60 papers and book chapters. She has also delivered over 50 presentations at national and international conferences and has given guest lectures abroad, including in Australia, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Nepal, the Netherlands, Spain, Vietnam, the UK and USA
Email: annkozak@amu.edu.pl
ORCID: 0000-0002-5549-6862