Multilingualism and Migration

We study the processes related to linguistic and cultural diversity from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Research group information

Unit and faculty

Psychology
Faculty of Education and Psychology

Contact information

Research group leader

  • Associate Professor in English Foreign Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy at the University of Copenhagen & Research Fellow of the Research Council of Finland (University of Oulu)
    Nils Jaekel

Researchers

Research group description

In light of continuously increasing human migration and mobility in many parts of the world, linguistic and cultural diversity is growing exponentially across the planet. Many once monolingual societies have become multilingual and multicultural. Yet research on the complex processes and consequences accompanying these changes is scarce. We are a multidisciplinary, international group of scientists who collaborate to answer diverse questions about migration and multilingual development. Our work employs a variety of methodological approaches and toolkits, from evidence-based methods across different studies and large-scale datasets, to focused and creative ethnographic considerations of the everyday lives of language and mobility.

Projects

Project
2023 – 2027

Linguistic distance, language learning, and educational attainment

Selected recent publications

Jaekel, J., Aubert, A., Jaekel, N., Costa, R., Johnson, S., Zeitlin, J., & the SHIPS Research group (2024, in press). Associations of language barriers with very preterm children’s behavioural and socio-emotional problems across Europe. Pediatric Research. DOI: 10.1038/s41390-024-03623-4

Jaekel, J., Jaekel, N., Härtel, C., Göpel, W., Herting, E., Felderhoff-Müser, U., Huening, B. M., & Spiegler, J. (2024). Language barriers and mental health problems of preschool children born very preterm in Germany. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.16132

Huening, B. M., Jaekel, J., Jaekel, N., Göpel, W., Herting, E., Felderhoff-Müser, U., Spiegler, J., & Härtel, C. (2024). Perinatal outcomes of immigrant mothers and their infants born very preterm across Germany. Healthcare, 12 (12), 1211. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/12/12/1211

Jaekel, N., Ritter, M., & Jaekel, J. (2023). Associations of students’ linguistic distance to the language of instruction and classroom composition with English reading and listening skills. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 1-23. DOI: 10.1017/S0272263123000268

External Funding

The Academy of Finland is funding Dr. Nils Jäkel's project Linguistic distance, language learning, and educational attainment: investigating multilingual students’ attainment in Finland and Germany from 01.09.2023 - 31.08.2027.