The Importance of Schools with Italian as the Language of Instruction on the Coast for Preserving the Vitality of the Italian National Community

In this year’s professional development project, we expanded upon the research we conducted in 2021 to gain a broader understanding of attitudes toward the Italian language in education. We included 9th-grade students from four elementary schools in our study with the aim of examining attitudes toward the Italian language, which is taught as a second language (L2) in Slovenian schools in the ethnically mixed environment of Slovenian Istria. In the ethnically mixed region of Slovenian Istria, the Italian language has equal status with the Slovenian language, and Italian is a required subject starting in the 1st grade.
The study found that students do not use Italian outside the home (for example, in stores, at the doctor’s office, in sports clubs, etc.), but instead communicate mostly or exclusively in Slovenian.