CfP Panel “Narratives of Belonging from Heritage Language Education”, 2026 ECPR General Conference

Call for Papers for Panel: “Narratives of Belonging from Heritage Language Education”, 2026 ECPR General Conference, 8-11 September 2026, Jagiellonian University, Kraków

Panel to be included in Section S16 “Contemporary Approaches to Migration Governance and Inclusion: Policies, Actors, and Everyday Practices”

Panel chairs: Johanna Mitterhofer and Marta Guarda, Eurac Research

In today’s postmigrant and postmultilingual societies (Foroutan 2019; Li 2018) educational settings are key spaces where belonging is continuously constructed, contested and imagined. Such negotiations frequently unfold within institutionalised contexts that marginalize the languages, identities and knowledge bases of minoritized and migrantized communities, often under the guise of assimilation and integration policies.

This panel brings together scholars examining how narratives of belonging emerge, are negotiated, and at times are denied within the context of Heritage Language Education. Drawing on perspectives from teachers, students, caregivers, and policymakers, contributors explore how heritage language education can serve as a vital site for fostering (multiple) belonging(s) and agency. How do educational spaces shape or constrain multilingual subjectivities? What forms of belonging are made possible when heritage languages are centered rather than sidelined in mainstream education? Conversely, how do institutional practices and language policies reproduce exclusion and hierarchies of legitimacy and belonging? Through ethnographic, narrative, and policy-oriented analyses, the panel interrogates the tensions between inclusion and exclusion, recognition and erasure, in postmigrant and postmultilingual societies. The panel invites a critical rethinking of multilingual education beyond competence or integration. It foregrounds instead belonging as an affective, social and political process that demands attending to the lived experiences and voices of those whose languages and identities are often marginalised.

We invite papers that address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• The role of teachers, families, and communities in shaping heritage language identities and in fostering belonging and agency
• Emotional, affective, and embodied dimensions of heritage language learning and teaching
• Comparative analyses of heritage language policies and practices
• Narratives of resistance, resilience, and transformation within heritage language education
• Methodological reflections on doing research on belonging with/in heritage language communities

We welcome contributions from researchers, practitioners, and community members across disciplines such as education, sociolinguistics, anthropology, cultural studies, and migration studies. Both theoretical reflections and empirical studies are encouraged.

Please submit an abstract of max. 500 words (incl. references), with title and author affiliation(s), to johanna.mitterhofer@eurac.edu and marta.guarda@eurac.edu by Thursday, 18 December 2025.

We will inform you of the selection outcome by 5 January 2026 and submit our panel for review by the ECPR conference committee. Panel and Paper proposers will be notified of the outcome of their submission on or before 3 February 2026.