Language Support and Institutional Discrimination: Insights into School Leaders’ Experiences

Educational policy and schools play a significant role in shaping educational processes, sometimes resulting in unintended student inequity. While the language support program introduced in Austria in the 2018/2019 school year was said to support equity, both researchers and educators criticized the program as it does not align with evidence-based practice in language education. Furthermore, the program also constitutes institutional discrimination since it only affects multilingual learners. The current study investigates the effects of this program and relies on interviews with primary school leaders (N = 15). The results suggest that the language support program manifests itself in different dimensions of institutional discrimination. Beginning with the legislation and extending to the assignment of students with migration biography to this program, the associated grade repetition and the phenomenon of student “overage,” both direct and indirect forms of institutional discrimination could be identified. The results show that policymakers must prioritize the elimination of this discriminatory law as it significantly disadvantages children’s educational trajectories. Additionally, securing long-term financial and personnel resources for German language support and implementing evidence-based, content-integrated language learning programs across all subjects are critical steps toward equitable education.