In many countries, global mobility and migration create a more diverse society. This shift in population also reflects in schools. However, pupils have great diversity in terms of ethnicity, talents, beliefs, and language skills; we see that Flemish schools still apply a monolingual language policy. Whereby Dutch is considered to be the standard language of instruction, and minority languages are often seen as a deficit. As a result, many Flemish schools completely ban the home language of pupils.
This study aims to look at the school's language policy dynamics and how they influence each other (on a micro-, meso- and macro-level). During this ethnographic research, an intervention takes place, 2 classes of a Flemish secondary school are observed, and interviews are conducted with teachers, pupils, management, and language teachers throughout the different phases of the research. During the intervention, teachers follow a workshop in which they learn to work with Functional Multilingual Learning and are guided to apply this in the classroom. This research aims to investigate how teachers' perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors towards multilingualism change in the classroom after they implement FML in their own classroom. We want to look at how FML affects the school's language policy and how students react to the use of their home language in classroom practice.