The Italian community in Brussels: A closer look at factors that determine parents’ decisions regarding the bilingual education of their children.

Abstract

The purpose of our research is to identify what factors determine parents' decisions in relation to the linguistic development of their children in the context of multilingual families within the italian community in Brussels. Do they make conscious choices involving seeking information on bilingualism? As a preliminary step, it was necessary to define what is meant by bilingualism and multilingualism, and verify whether these terms are familiar to the average person. We thus paid particular attention to common or false assumptions related to this topic. We chose to focus our research on the Italian community residing in the city of Brussels, where the headquarters of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union (EU), are located. We set out to determine whether there are any public or private Institutions that provide information and support to families who find themselves making difficult decisions about linguistic and cultural matters. Such decisions inevitably have very important repercussions in terms of their children's culture and sense of identity. Given that such Institutions exist, how do they interact with the families? To answer these questions about the Italian community in Brussels, we created and distributed a Questionnaire to a sample of families with bilingual children and/or teenagers at least one of whose parents was an Italian citizen. The questions included establishing the background of the family (origin, age, level of schooling) and the strategies devised by the parents for the language education of their children. We also tried to ascertain whether the families felt that they were adequately supported by the Institutions and if so, how. We have therefore collected data and formulated conclusions on the real situation of families and the need for the Institutions to provide more support to them as part of a policy for promoting the Italian language and culture abroad.