A multi-dimensional conceptualisation of dialogue was used to examine how university tutors valued dialogic interaction in higher education seminars. Values were evidenced in tutors' stimulated recall interviews based on reflections of their seminar practice. As would be expected, the reflective accounts revealed different orientations towards…

The right to share the social heritage of a nation is an element of citizenship closely associated with education. Social heritage is understood as the negotiation of understandings within a dialectical understanding of social practice across multiple timescales. In this paper the meaning-making practices of one young child concerned with beavers…

Increasing rates of migration to the global West are focusing attention on the experiences of young migrants in schools. Too often, these young people are identified in terms of linguistic deficiency but this obscures the skills, experiences and expectations of formal education that they have developed before or during their migration. This…

The use of home languages has previously been advocated in highly multilingual UK classrooms. However, drawing on the home languages and cultural insight of children who use English as an Additional Language (EAL) may also have important social and academic benefits in contexts where monolingualism is the norm. Conducted in a small local authority…

In the context of increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in Australian schools, it is important to consider the value of students' multilingual resources for learning. This paper reports on an ethnographic case study conducted in an Australian metropolitan secondary school where the student body represented more than 40 cultures and…

This qualitative study investigates immigrant mothers' beliefs and practices toward supporting maintenance of their children's heritage language (HL) in the context of transnationalism. The data are primarily drawn from formal and informal interviews and observations of six mothers who immigrated to the United States from Japan and Korea. The…

Many in the field of language policy have called for studies that connect policy texts at the macro level with their interpretations in districts, schools, and classrooms at the micro level. The purpose of this study is to trace Washington's educational language policy through the layers of interpretation to educational practice to see how the…

Through a case study of a first-language English teacher's approach to teaching writing, the significance of conceptual and affective beliefs about grammar for pedagogical practice is explored. The study explores a perceived dichotomy between grammar and creativity, examining a belief that attention to grammar is separate and secondary to the…

Research in educational linguistics is now challenging the efficacy of monolingual approaches that often dominate educational practices in multilingual settings. In most African nations where multilingualism is the norm, there remains a persistent reluctance by educational stakeholders (principals, teachers, parents, and students) to embrace…

This paper is derived from a wider small-scale study of digital literacy practice that explores the ways in which a multilingual seven-year-old child, Bablu, interacts with his grandmother during Internet activities connected to Qur'anic literacy. The study aims to reveal how intergenerational learning support was given to Bablu by his…

This article examines the use of the national language, Setswana, as the language of instruction in linguistically and ethnically complex primary schools in Botswana, and the dilemmas it presents. The current language-in-education policy in Botswana requires the use of Setswana as a language of instruction at standard 1 in public schools. The…

Much of the debate regarding outcomes of various types of dual-language programs has focused on linguistic and academic results, and with good reason: improving the educational outcomes of language minorities and supporting societal multilingualism are vital goals. More rarely explored, however, are these programs' ethnolinguistic outcomes: the…

In this paper, we present excerpts from ethnographic data collected when a diverse classroom of children, some of whom were multilingual and others monolingual in English, used iPads to make videos. We discuss the practices, social relations, objects and material conditions that emerged as the children engaged in this production, with special…

Uganda introduced the use of mother tongue as medium of instruction in primary schools in 2007. This was meant to promote interaction and participation in the learning process and improve children's proficiency in reading and writing. Drawing elements of interaction and participation from the socio-cultural theory, the child-centred pedagogy was…

Literacies are always learned in particular social places and spaces, and the nature of a site shapes the experiences people have of learning literacies there. This paper considers the experiences of staff in two contrasting workplaces: an early years centre, and an adult education college. Both are educational workplaces, and staff are engaged in…