This article bridges scholarship in global education with elementary classroom teaching by presenting a series of lessons that challenge the idea of national culture as fixed and stable. When teaching about another country other than the United States, teachers tend to rely on misappropriated generalizations around food, holidays, and folktales…

Following the invasion, or colonisation as some prefer to call it, Indigenous Australia has been characterised by plummeting populations, largely as a result of introduced diseases and the movement of peoples, following the theft of their lands and in response to colonial and subsequent Australian state and federal government policies. At times,…

Nico Wijnberg began his work in economic development in The Netherlands as the Dutch government country specialist for Russia and Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan. His job was to assist companies in their efforts to enter the Russian and Kazakhstani markets. In this position, it was important to not only stay aware of the ever-changing…

Language-spread policy (LSP) is policy promulgated by groups seeking to spread their languages to speakers or communicative domains. LSP can be internal or external, overt or disguised, and related in different ways to national policy. Intent may be to increase native-language advantage in international communication, disseminate ideology, create…

This brochure discusses, in lay terms, the degree to which language shapes thought. The first section describes briefly the questions that linguists have addressed in studying this issue, including how things such as location or time may be conceptualized differently in different language groups, offering examples from other languages in addition…

The account of language use in Accra, capital of Ghana, focuses on the social history of language use and on issues of language choice in a multilingual society. The first chapter gives an account of a language dispute that demonstrates both literally and symbolically the historically rooted relationships of the four main languages of Accra: Ga,…

Language shift (shift away from use of one language to use of another) and resulting language death are increasing throughout the world, and this trend can be attributed not simply to the spread of English and other world languages, but to a larger phenomenon, a "new world order." Because of rapid change in language use and because the…

Discussion of the current language situation in Europe looks first at the compelling political changes affecting language policies, then examines progress toward implementation of the modern languages component of the National Curriculum for England and Wales. It is noted that Europe differs from other eastern hemisphere regions in that in most…

This report provides data on standard and non-standard African language varieties occurring in urban areas of South Africa, drawn from nine smaller reports. It illustrates the language use patterns in black urban communities and describes the language varieties spoken in them. It was found that the impact of non-standard varieties on the use of…

The centrality of multilingualism as a world-wide phenomenon is examined, and six issues needing attention are identified: the variable impact of official policies concerning language; contrasting views about multilingualism; scarcity of basic research; language spread and the hegemony of English; lack of attention to languages other than English;…

This book analyzes the evolution of the language situation in Canada over the last 45 years, drawing heavily from census data taken between 1951 and 1996. Chapters discuss: the evolution of the English language in Canada, including the size and distribution of the English native-language population, use of English as a home language, knowledge of…

Responses to the 1990 United States census question concerning languages other than English that are spoken at home are summarized. It was found that in 1990, 14 percent of the population 5 years and older spoke a language other than English at home, as contrasted with 11 percent in 1980. Languages spoken most commonly at home in descending order…