Intra-national student mobility: Ticinese students and their challenges and coping strategies when studying in German-speaking Switzerland

Martina Zimmermann | PH Luzern

Der Beitrag gibt Einblick in die Studierendenmobilität vom Tessin in die Deutschschweiz. Er zeigt auf, wie GymnasiastInnen ihre bevorstehende Studienortswahl darlegen und illustriert, wie Tessiner Studierende trotz des lokalen Universitätsangebots ihre Entscheidung begründen, fürs Studium in die Deutschschweiz zu dislozieren. Weiter wird dargelegt, welche Herausforderungen die Studierenden anführen, wenn sie sich an den Studienbeginn in ihrer neuen Umgebung erinnern und welche Rolle dabei  Schweizerdeutsch/Standarddeutsch zukommt. Basierend auf ethnographischen Daten und Interviews wird zudem die Frage gestellt, inwiefern die mehrheitlich einsprachige Sprachpolitik an Tertiärinstitutionen mit der mehrsprachigen Identität der Schweiz zu vereinbaren sei. 

‘In the beginning I felt really discouraged!’ This is what Veronica, a young Italian-speaking woman, told me when looking back at her start at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (henceforth: ETHZ) (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) some months ago. When I asked her in what ways she felt discouraged, she talked about her high school in Lugano, a city situated in the Italian-speaking Ticino, with about 1000 students of which she knew the majority. She reported that she was not shy at all and was used to interacting with everybody. Upon her arrival in Zurich, however, she did not know anybody; she could not follow the lectures in Standard German and she did not understand what the other students were talking about during coffee breaks, as they spoke Swiss German. Crucial e-mails sent to her by the department were written in German and she had to forward them to her older sister based in Basel, who helped her translate them into Italian. […]