The Internationalisation of Veneto schools: Addressing a growing superdiversity. A mixed-method study on the impact of Erasmus+ short-term mobilities and eTwinning virtual projects on the linguistic, intercultural and digital dimensions of internationalisation in secondary schools.

Recent studies on the topic of internationalisation (Deardorff, 2020; Baiutti, 2019) mostly focus on higher education (HE) or long-term mobilities of school staff and students, while short term mobilities (from 5 to 30 days), as well as virtual and blended partnerships, are less considered, even though they represent the majority of international experiences in schools, especially upper secondary ones, particularly after the two years of stop due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As noticed by Yemini (2014), the dimensions of school internationalisation developed in the HE sector cannot fully apply to elementary and secondary schools, since the contexts are quite different. However, a systematic literature review retrieved a limited number of studies on the topic, mostly relevant to the Asian and American areas. Therefore, there seems to be a need for updated research on school internationalisation, especially as far as intercultural, language and digital education is concerned, from a specific local perspective (Humphreys, 2023). The Italian region of Veneto, presently facing the new challenges posed by globalization, such as an increasing superdiversity (Vertovec, 2007) seems to be the perfect location. Therefore, building on European and National school internationalisation programmes, the present study aims to answer the following research questions: • How has the internationalisation of primary and secondary schools changed in the specific Italian region of Veneto in the last five years in the three main dimensions of students’ intercultural, plurilingual and digital competences development? • Which experiences led to a significant development of intercultural, plurilingual and digital competences in high school students and can be considered as best practices? • How are these developments assessed? The research paradigm is pragmatic (Dewey, 1920-2008) in the definition of both the problem and the research design, and the methodology used to investigate the topic and try to find answers to the research questions has been the Explanatory sequential mixed-method design (Younas et al., 2019). Data were collected through three online questionnaires and two in-depth case studies. Outcomes presentation was carried out through a series of joint displays (Creswell & Plano-Clark, 2018). Results from data analysis point towards a substantial potential for further development in the internationalisation of schools, and the development of new approaches in teaching and learning English, especially as far as CPD of teachers in concerned. Conclusions drawn from research show that Erasmus+ short term mobilities can enhance both students’ and teachers’ linguistic, intercultural and digital competences, and that the combination of physical mobilities with eTwinning virtual collaboration and innovative ways of teaching English can help students’ assessment being blended in the curriculum.