Social language, identity and school inclusion in teachers' discourse

The widespread incidence of school failure in some minority groups can only be understood from a multidimensional approach. This article addresses one of these dimensions: the role of school context on identity construction. To do so, from an ecological and cultural perspective, the Bakhtinian concept of social languages is adopted and their privilegiation processes in school are analysed. This research study examines teachers' talk about their students -in schools where half or more of the children are Roma- and the rest come from immigrant families. The material obtained from focus groups is analysed using the software tool ATLAS.ti. The results showed there were two types of discourse: one which privileges only one social language and another which does not; and their different impacts on the inclusion of intercultural education in school are discussed. © 2012 Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje.