The UK’s shifting diasporic landscape: negotiating ethnolinguistic heterogeneity in Greek complementary schools post-2010

Abstract

An estimated 65,000 Greek citizens migrated to the UK in 2010–2016, many of whom with the prospects of long-term settlement and with a view to provide better socioeconomic and educational opportunities to their children. Their arrival was felt across many sections of life both within and beyond the country’s pre-existing Greek-speaking communities. In this article, I present findings on how the arrival of Greek pupils, parents and qualified teachers diversified Greek complementary schools, which were previously run primarily by and for the Greek Cypriot community, and on the critical role language played in the process. Drawing on data from a set of semi-structured interviews with teachers and placing my investigation against the historical backdrop of migration from Greece and Cyprus to the UK, I show how teachers portrayed post-2010 migration as a much needed, albeit not always welcome, boost in ethnocultural vitality; how it helped to perpetuate the hierarchisation of standardised and non-standardised varieties of Greek and the stigmatisation of the multilingual and multidialectal repertoires of people with a Greek Cypriot background; and, how it put a strain on the ties that have historically brought the Greek and Greek Cypriot communities together in the context of the UK diaspora.

Language skills in Greek-English bilingual children attending Greek supplementary schools in England

“…Our findings, together with previous research on heritage/Greek language education abroad on this emergence of a new emigration wave (e.g. Aravossitas and Sugiman 2019;Baros, Sailer, and Moutsisis 2019;Karatsareas 2021aKaratsareas , 2021bVoskou 2021), highlight the need for further investigation of this understudied and constantly changing Greek-speaking population. This significant rise in the emigration of couples and families from Greece after the 2010 crisis (Pratsinakis 2019) underlines how important it is to explore what the opportunities and challenges are that 'new' Greek migrants create to Greek language education abroad.…”

“…From July 2018 to June 2019, the estimated number of Greek nationals who were residents in the UK was 74,000 (Office for National Statistics 2020), 43,000 more compared to 2009, a rise which was primarily a result of the 2010 government-debt crisis in Greece (Karatsareas 2020(Karatsareas , 2021a. By the end of 2020, 102,330 applications from Greek citizens residing in the UK were approved for the EU Settlement Scheme in order to obtain settled and pre-settled status (Pratsinakis, Kafe, and Serôdio 2021).…”

“…Though vocabulary and grammar skills have been assessed in several bilingual populations speaking a majority and minority language (e.g. Hoff 2018) in relation to a number of associated variables such as age, language exposure and socioeconomic status (SES), and despite this rise in Greek nationals and their children in the UK (Karatsareas 2021a(Karatsareas , 2021b, to the best of our knowledge, no other study has explored the role of the exposure to a supplementary educational setting on the Greek and English language skills of Greek-English bilingual children.…”

Where two worlds meet: language policing in mainstream and complementary schools in England

“…Interviews with teachers showed that it is reproduced within the complementary school network as an unwritten but powerful rule. Justification for adhering to it is often given in terms of academic achievement and the instrumentalist use of the language qualifications, which are among the main reasons for students to attend the schools (Karatsareas 2021;Karatzia-Stavlioti and Louca-Crann 1999). If you do the A-level, it will help you get into university.…”