Attila Papp Z., Eszter Kovács & András Kováts (2023): Unpacking the functions of institutions in an emerging diaspora: Hungarian weekend schools in the UK. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, DOI: 10.1080/15595692.2022.2164271

The paper outlines the functioning of Hungarian weekend schools in the United Kingdom, which are key institutions in emerging diaspora communities. The paper interprets Hungarian weekend schools in two paradigms: it approaches them as diaspora institutions, and also as Anglo-Saxon supplementary schools. One of the paper’s main conclusions is that, in addition to the manifest functions of Hungarian weekend schools (e.g., preservation of national identity, mother-tongue education, community engagement), latent functions are also essential, such as the psychological need of belonging to a community, the support of children’s educational attitudes, the consciousness of bilingualism, the enhancement of social capital, and integration into the host community. Thus, weekend schools are not only sites for knowledge transfer, but they also provide space for the institutionalization of diaspora as cultural community-building institutions.