Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Zeitschrift fur Erziehungswissenschaft, cilt.28, sa.3, ss.609-637, 2025 (SSCI, Scopus)
An ideal instructional landscape would allow every student to learn in a language they speak and understand well; however, achieving this goal remains challenging. Preparatory classes in public schools play a pivotal role in providing structured exposure to the destination languages for refugee and migrant children in receiving countries. In this study, I compare the language instruction microsystem in homogeneous (refugee-only) and heterogeneous (mixed-migrant) preparatory classes in lower-secondary education institutions in Türkiye and Germany, with Istanbul and Hamburg as illustrative cases. The study draws on 21 semi-structured interviews with teachers and classroom observation field notes. Instructional strategies and challenges in homogeneous and heterogeneous language preparatory classes revealed similar patterns. The language barrier, commonly identified as the usual suspect, inevitably shapes the instructional trajectory in the early phases of language immersion. Using a diverse linguistic repertoire in the classroom is sporadic, indicating a missed opportunity. The need to establish a learning environment conducive to deliberate differentiated instruction is apparent. While individual student work within a whole class instruction format is a prevalent instruction characteristic in the Istanbul case, the Hamburg case presents a promising environment for differentiated instruction, albeit still configured primarily as isolated individual work. Nevertheless, the greater degree of autonomy in Hamburg public schools—coupled with a language-as-resource perspective and abundant material resources—provides heightened flexibility for teachers and offers scope for further improvement. On the other hand, the rigid monolingual habitus in Istanbul, coupled with a language-as-problem perspective, less integration experience, and limited resources, exacerbates the instruction landscape.