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 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…

Despite Nepal's huge linguistic diversity, maintaining minority languages and providing the mother tongue-based education to non-dominant language children are Nepal's two major obstacles. Scholars have pointed to a negative consequence of the standard language ideology on non-dominant language maintenance and mother tongue-based schooling. Using…

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…

How does early educational quality affect longer-term academic outcomes? We shed light on this question via a natural experiment in the Philippines--the implementation of a mother tongue education policy in public schools in kindergarten to Grade 3. This policy led to an unexpected decline in educational quality, but differentially in a subset of…

This regional dossier aims to provide concise descriptions and basic statistics about minority language education in a specific region of Europe. Lithuanian is a Baltic language that belongs to the Indo-European family. Most of the Lithuanian-speaking minority in Poland is confined to three municipalities near the Polish-Lithuanian border.…

Integrating emergent bilingual students into K-12 mainstream classrooms where linguistic support is not provided has the potential to lead to their academic underperformance. This is because the content is delivered in English, which may not be understandable to immigrant students with limited English proficiency, possibly leading to psychological…

In this qualitative study, the experiences, training, and challenges of teachers in primary schools in a community in southwest Nigeria were explored. The purpose of this study was to identify the experiences of teachers about their training for mother tongue instruction and how they teach pupils with the mother tongue or local language of the…

In this study we critically investigated English as the language of learning and teaching (LoLT) in the Chivi district (Zimbabwe) and the implications of its use as the LoLT for social justice education. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus-group interviews, observation and document analysis. The results show that social…

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 marks a significant shift in India's educational framework, particularly with its emphasis on multilingual education (MLE) and mother tongue-based instruction (MTI). Recognizing India's vast linguistic diversity, the policy advocates for teaching in the mother tongue or local language until at least Grade…

This study investigated the changing patterns of language use and language attitudes of younger generations of Mauritians over the last two decades. This article discusses the shift in language attitudes of students in secondary education with special emphasis on Kreol, taught since 2012 in primary schools and from 2018 in secondary schools. A…

Language experiences and linguistic knowledge of teenage migrants can be valuable resources for their continued language learning. Yet, home languages and existing plurilingual skills are often framed as obstacles to learning that tag young migrants as at risk of school failure in the context of monolingual education systems. This article draws on…

The aim of the Regional Dossier series is to provide concise descriptions of regional or minority languages in education, mainly in Europe but also in other parts of the world. The majority of the Hungarian-speaking population in Slovenia lives in the bilingual ethnically mixed area of the Prekmurje region, where both Slovene and Hungarian are…

The notion of multilingual students' first language has been advocated as a resource in mathematics learning for some time. However, few studies have investigated how implementing students' L1 in the teaching practice impacts multilingual students' mathematics learning opportunities. Based on a 9-month-long ethnographic study conducted in Iran, we…