Prof. Dr. Gabriele BUDACH

Gabriele Budach is an Associate Professor for Teacher Education, Learning and Diversity. She joined the Faculty for Humanities, Education and Social Sciences at the University of Luxembourg in 2014.

She trained as a philologist (in French, Italian and Russian) at the University of Leipzig, and first engaged in historical linguistics, analyzing autobiographic writings by craftsmen in 18th Century France (MA thesis).

Introduced to sociolinguistics in Leipzig and Rouen/France, she began focusing on language as a lens into understanding social relations. As an invited researcher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE, Toronto/Canada), she trained as an ethnographer and developed research in a range of multilingual settings since then. Her PhD was on Adult literacy education in French Canada, followed by a long-term school ethnography in a bilingual Italian-German primary program in Frankfurt/Main/Germany that investigated bi-literacy teaching and learning as a social/pedagogical practice. In her work with urban Inuit in Ottawa/Canada on culturally sensitive and ethically appropriate practices of teaching, learning and curriculum, she developed a strong commitment to collaborative ethnography . The context fostered her understanding of multimodal pedagogies and made her connect with post-human epistemology and new materialist perspectives in educational research.

As a researcher and teacher, she commits to a collaborative approach that values the contribution of students and research participants. Her current teaching and research focuses on issues of identity and belonging in heterogeneous, multilingual environments which she explores through art-based methodologies, such as digital storytelling and stop motion animation.

Since she joined the University of Luxembourg, she has been acting as co-director of the Master Program in Learning and Communication in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts (MultiLearn) (since February 2015), and as director of this program (since September 2019). In July 2015 she joined the UL Research Priority Education: Focusing on Multilingualism and Diversity , as a member and was appointed to lead its sub-strand “Language trajectories, migration and informal learning”. Since October 2018, she is a member of the MIS (Migration and Inclusive Societies) key research area of the Faculty.