Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programs have expanded rapidly in a large Northeastern urban school district in the United States in recent years, but multilingual families, particularly those from immigrant backgrounds, receive limited information about program offerings from school websites. In this qualitative study, utilizing critical…

This study inquires how students of Arab heritage in an urban setting in Denmark interpret Islamic literacy artefacts available in their homes, and how these interpretations reflect broader faith literacy practices in the students' diaspora community. Through a linguistic ethnographic study design students have been invited to photograph literacy…

This paper investigates a monolingual approach to the teaching of linguistic minority pupils in an English primary school at Key Stage Two (7-11 years old). The work is based on a longitudinal case study of one Russian-speaking migrant pupil and her schooled experience. The analysis and discussion explicate the prohibition of the first or home…

The increasing occurrence of multilingualism in the educational sphere is challenging teachers to deal with the coexistence of different languages in the classroom. The present paper presents the analysis of language portraits as a tool to make students' multilingualism visible by using colours to represent their multilingual repertoires. Through…

This article focuses on the pedagogical beliefs, practices and ideological assumptions of 15 teachers who work with mother tongue instruction in Sweden. Despite support through provisions in Swedish laws, mother tongue instruction is clearly a marginalized subject, not least due to its non-mandatory status, the limited time allocated for it and…

In this article, we examine a faith teacher's reflections on faith literacy teaching and learning and how they shaped his pedagogy in the context of Hindu/Saiva religious instruction classes for students of Sri Lankan Tamil heritage. The data are part of a larger multi-site three-year team ethnography of children's faith literacy learning in…

In 2000, voters in the US state of Arizona passed Proposition 203 "English for the Children," effectively abolishing bilingual education services in favor of a submersion approach termed Sheltered English Immersion. In this discussion, I use an ethnographic lens to highlight the logistical complexities involved in the negotiation of…

In this study, data and discourses on immigrant minority groups and languages other than Dutch at home and at school are presented in order to contextualise the status of Turkish and Moroccan communities and their languages in the Netherlands. Patterns of language use, choice and attitudes of Turkish (n = 63) and Moroccan (n = 64) youngsters in…

This study explores the literacy practices that are involved in transnational social and information networking among youths of immigrant backgrounds in the United States. In particular, it investigates the ways in which young migrants of diverse national origins in the United States are utilising digital media to organise social relationships…

This paper explores the social and cultural knowledge embedded in the textbooks for language and literacy education in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo School, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It examines how Chinese language arts textbooks introduce the child reader to cultural knowledge considered legitimate and valued in China as…