Although Singapore schools are English-medium, Mandarin is a compulsory subject for students of Chinese heritage. As young Singaporeans increasingly speak English at home, the required study of Mandarin has become a source of anxiety for families. Mandarin 'enrichment centers', which provide supplementary language classes, leverage this anxiety in…

The aim of this article is to describe young children's beliefs about language and bilingualism as they are expressed in verbal utterances. The data is from Swedish-medium preschool units in three different sites in Finland. It was generated through ethnographic observations and recordings of the author's interactions with the children. The…

The current study examines bilingual children as language policy agents in the interplay between official language policy and education policy at three Swedish-medium preschools in Finland. For this purpose we monitored nine Finnish-Swedish bilingual children aged 3 to 5 years for 18 months. The preschools were located in three different parts of…

This article analyses how language laws favouring French improved the vitality of the Francophone majority relative to the declining Anglophone minority of Quebec. Part one provides a review of Canadian Government efforts to provide federal bilingual services to Francophones and Anglophones across Canada. Using the ethnolinguistic vitality…