Mother Tongue Education (MTE), despite being the most reliable method of learning, is a challenge for the African countries that fail to implement MTE policies due to lack of resources, stakeholders' attitudes towards mother tongues, and lack of political will. Keeping in view the plight of the primary implementers of such policies, hence, this…

This article seeks to understand the challenges of literacy acquisition under the Thematic Curriculum reform in Uganda, which introduced Mother Tongue instruction in lower primary. We compare teachers' perspectives from two central districts using Luganda and two peripheral districts using Ateso, drawing on a multi-layered approach to understand…

This article focuses on the ever-increasing stress on multilingual education (MLE) in policy documents, especially its pairing with mother tongues in education (MTE). This focus brings into relief the relationship between MTE, the preservation of linguistic diversity and social democracy. We argue that the outcome of this relationship crucially…

This paper explores the efficacy of implementing bilingual education in the Foundation Phase in South Africa. Doctrinal analysis was used as a data collection tool wherein English and Xitsonga were both used as mediums of instruction in the Foundation Phase. To acquire empirical evidence used to add doctrinal data, eight contact sessions were…

Sweden is often commended for the inclusion of home languages in the formal education system: both mother tongue instruction (where a pupil's home language is taught as an optional school subject) and study guidance (where a pupil is given content support in their home language or prior language of schooling) are offered. Still, while many…

This is the first international and interdisciplinary handbook to offer a comprehensive and an in-depth overview of findings from contemporary research, theory, and practice in early childhood language education in various parts of the world and with different populations. The contributions by leading scholars and practitioners are structured to…

This Regional Dossier focuses on the Austrian federal province of Carinthia, where the vast majority of the Slovene-speaking minority in Austria lives. The Slovene language belongs to the South Slavic language group. It was the official language of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia in former Yugoslavia and has been the state language of…

This critical systematic review of Australian research literature provides insights into the aspirations of Indigenous communities to collaborate with schools in establishing local Indigenous language and cultural programmes. This systematic review investigates the body of Australian research into the cultural, social and educational impacts on…

This paper proposes a framework for multilingual language-in-education policy implementation, offered as a critically constructive response to India's recent "National Education Policy 2020" (GOI, 2020). Rooted in India's existing educational language policy, our linguistically inclusive 'Languages for Learning' (LFL) framework is, we…

One in three children enrolled in US early childhood programs is a dual language learner. While dual language learners have been the target of sweeping educational reforms under the guise of justice, these reforms--which pathologize dual language learners as problems to be remediated rather than assets to be developed--have largely ignored the…

In Alaska, where Alaska Native students constitute the largest racial/ethnic group of English learner (EL) students, it is an open question whether and how EL policies and services meet the unique needs of Indigenous EL students. A stronger understanding of how Alaska Native students experience EL identification, classification, service provision,…

Despite research evidence showing that home language maintenance is important both individually and societally, the task of managing and encouraging it has traditionally fallen to minority language communities and families, tending to lead to inter-generational language shift. Teachers' discourses about responsibilities for language maintenance,…

The aim of the Regional dossiers series is to provide a concise description of European minority languages in education. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects such as the number of schools, teachers,…

Language policy and planning in Nepal has been contested due to the co-existence of multiple contradictory discourses concerning teaching and learning of local, national, foreign, and international languages. Recently a multilingual policy was issued to create space for the once-banned ethnic/indigenous languages in public schooling, further…

With an increase in multilingual learners in U.S. public schools, there is an imperative to understand the language practices, ideologies, and pedagogies within culturally and linguistically sustaining heritage language programs inside schools. Building on principles of translanguaging as a theory of practical language (Garcia, 2009; Li, 2018),…