Since the second half of the twentieth century, post-colonial governments have commonly sought to revitalize the indigenous languages their imperialist predecessors hoped to eradicate. Although the impetus to revitalize is shared, the question of excluding or including the non-indigenous majority in the revitalization process, and encouraging them…

Much research has focused on a linguistic view of vernacular or culturally based education programmes, while the political aspects of creating such programmes have been less frequently addressed. Throughout Oceania, formal schooling is linked to the colonial encounter, and although the legacy of colonial education continues to shape current…

In the early 1990s, the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) enacted educational reform. It officially abandoned its English-only policy at elementary school level, in favour of community languages. In response, the Kairak community of East New Britain Province developed a vernacular literacy programme. This paper, based on original fieldwork…

This article examines the various language ideologies and cultural models that inform Hawaiian-language learners' experiences, language practices, and socio-ethnic identity as they attempt to become speakers of their heritage language. While Hawaiian-language education is often noted as a revitalization success story, and certainly is in terms of…

The use of the notion of "decolonization", applied to indigenous people's schooling, is somehow misleading. It refers to a certain period, namely the colonial period, which officially ended in New Caledonia in 1946, then a French colony and now a French overseas territory. It also refers to contemporary efforts to address the colonial…

Argues that the question of the presence of French in former French colonies is not controversial. A study of French in the Francophone world is set in the context of the precoccupations that Francophones themselves have about the importance of the own languages--other than French--that can be defined in their relationship to France only from a…