The orientation towards multilingualism of future Italian teachers: perceptions and attitudes in the Humanities and STEM fields

Friuli Venezia Giulia is a multilingual region in northeastern Italy, where recent migratory flows create phenomena of contact between Italian, historically present minority languages, and the languages and dialects spoken by nuovi cittadini, the ‘new citizens’. School classes host significant percentages of minors with a migration background, and attention to multilingualism, its visibility, and its enhancement from a future European perspective is high. In this context, teacher training is a central theme, as the statements and positions of adults can directly affect the perceptions and attitudes of the minors entrusted to them. This study presents the results of a survey conducted through a sociolinguistic questionnaire as part of the initial training of future Italian teachers. The research, which complements previous works and studies in the literature, aims to assess the perceptions of new teachers regarding multilingualism, both in general and in relation to teaching in multilingual classrooms, and working with multilingual students. The information provided by the subjects engaged in humanistic disciplines is compared with the corresponding statements from colleagues in technical and scientific areas, with both a theoretical descriptive goal and an applied focus on possible future teachers’ training on the job and professional development paths.