“Polydromo” came out of a need to combine our academic interests with our personal needs and wishes, but also from our need to communicate with the wider community of teachers and migrant and non-migrant parents on issues of bilingualism and multiculturalism. Each one of us who participates in this initiative is seeking ways to understand and explore matters such as children’s bilingualism, intercultural communication, the socio-political aspects of linguistic and cultural heterogeneity, identity issues, with the aim to inform interested educators and parents of migrant and Greek background, who can, thus, communicate with each other via this publication.
Therefore we are mainly addressing parents and teachers, who, besides the information they will be receiving through our issues and our website (currently under construction), they will have the opportunity to contact us and raise any topic and question in relation to language contact and bilingualism, which we will attempt to address in the following issue. Therefore, apart from a theoretical part, Polydromo includes an interactive part, where parents, children and educators participate, and, thirdly, an informative part, with useful information on matters and news of special interest to us. The majority of the articles will be written in Greek, Albanian, Russian and English and, whenever this is possible, in other languages, in order for us to be able to communicate with the largest possible number of members of migrant communities living in Greece.
At the same rime, we are addressing fellow colleagues (academics and teachers) who would like to publish some of their views with the aim to reach the communities in question.
We welcome you to this first issue of ‘Polydromo’ with the wish that you will support this initiative, either through your subscription, or any other way you choose, thus rendering it a fertile forum for the discussion of issues of bilingualism and multiculturalism in and out of the contemporary Greek school.
With the opportunity of this first issue, I would like to express my gratitude to all the friends and colleagues who responded to my call, all the members of the editorial committee, the authors, the translators and the subscribers who made this issue possible. Last but not least, I would like to especially thank little Nikolas whose beautiful drawing became our emblem.
