This volume marks the 2022 centenary of the first National Programme for Education in the Free State. Central to the outlook of the new educational programme was the position of the Irish language as a marker of Irish national identity and culture. Education was to be the means to revitalise the language and cultural nationalism eroded through…

This article investigates encounters between the two overall language resources -- standard vs. non-standard and regional varieties -- in two linguistic minority communities in Denmark. Concentrating on Turkish and Farsi mother tongue classes, the study departs from two interviews with the parents of mother tongue students. Additional ethnographic…

This paper examines the intersection of heritage-language education advocacy with anti-racist activism in the 1970s and 1980s in Toronto. The province of Ontario initiated the Heritage Languages Program in 1977. By focusing on discontinuities in the policy's implementation, the paper identifies multiple strategies that Black anti-racist activists…

Language is a contextual factor of an education system as it determines the Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT). In order to provide for diversity in South Africa, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, makes provision for 11 official languages and the Language in Education Policy (LiEP) promotes respect for not only these…

With the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, the United States spent millions upon millions of dollars in a largely unsuccessful effort to close the academic achievement gap between American-Indian and some other ethnic minorities and mainstream Americans. NCLB's focus on teacher quality and evidence-based curriculum and…

While references to the Treaty of Waitangi and/or biculturalism are an accepted part of the New Zealand education policy landscape, there is often a lack of consensus around the meaning, and therefore the practice implications, of the term 'biculturalism'. This difficulty can be explained by viewing biculturalism as a discourse that has continued…

Papahana Kaiapuni is a K-12 public school program in which the Hawaiian language is the medium of instruction. In 1987, parents and language activists started the program in response to the dwindling number of speakers that resulted from a nearly century-long ban on the indigenous language. This study examined how participation in this indigenous…

Presents an overview of the contemporary struggle of American Indians to relearn their native languages. Examines the loss of native languages resulting from assimilationist policies at federal boarding schools; bilingual programs of the 1970s that emphasized writing, reading, and "survival" vocabulary; and recent tribal language programs…

A change in philosophy concerning the maintenance of native languages has led to local efforts to revive the French language in the St. John Valley (Maine), including the formation of a community organization and implementation of language programs in which children in all grades receive daily instruction in French. (LP)

Dr. Joshua Fishman, a world renowned sociolinguist and expert on endangered languages, postulates a continuum of eight stages of language loss for indigenous languages. The most-endangered languages are in stage 8 and only have a few elderly speakers. In stage 7 only adults beyond child-bearing age still speak the tribal language. In stage 6 there…

Reports from the Indian Nations At Risk Task Force and the White House Conference on Indian Education identify as a national priority the need to retain American Indian and Alaska Native languages both as central elements in Native cultures and as national resources. A personal narrative of an Alaska Native man who grew up in the 1930s shows the…

Focus groups and interviews with 37 teachers and 4 principals examined their roles and experiences in Papahana Kaiapuni, a K-12 program taught entirely in Hawaiian. Teachers integrated Hawaiian culture into the curriculum and viewed the program as a model of school reform for Native Hawaiians. The program transformed many teachers' views of…

Mainstream media spreads misperceptions that American Indian gaming benefits just a few, is not well regulated, and encourages criminal activity. The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act mandates that gaming revenues fund tribal government programs; now that they have their own revenue, tribes are enthusiastically funding educational programs to maintain…

Native-speaking Northern Arapaho elders produced bilingual booklets for their reservation schools that, due to their ephemeral nature and local context, provided access to intimate information about their producers and contexts. These booklets provide the best example within the culture of how traditional practices of oral performance…

This paper presents some preliminary findings from an opinion survey on the nature and depth of language and cultural studies to be included in school curricula as required by the Navajo Tribe's Language and Culture Mandate (1984). A 10-question survey was sent to 20 elementary and secondary schools in the Navajo Nation in New Mexico and Arizona.…