In spite of the fact that increased transnational flows of people have altered the social, cultural, and linguistic landscape, education in Zimbabwe still follows a monolingual trajectory. The use of a language of instruction different from the students' home language has been identified as the major factor in students' academic underachievement.…

Linguistically diverse ethnic groups settled in mining towns in Zimbabwe where employment opportunities were high. As a result of this economic-motivated migration which engineered a diverse population, conflict in the language domain characterises primary schools that are administered by mines. This study aimed to investigate how conflict in the…

The voices of the main stakeholders in literacy and schooling--pupils and parents--have seldom been given adequate space in studies of school and classroom discourse in sub-Saharan Africa. The present paper attempts to redress this imbalance by presenting the voices of pupils from a multilingual urban primary school in Ghana and of parents from a…

The theme of this book cuts across disciplines. Contributors to this volume are specialized in education and especially classroom research as well as in linguistics, most being transdisciplinary themselves. Around 65 sub-Saharan languages figure in this volume as research objects: as means of instruction, in connection with teacher training,…

This paper argues for the use of indigenous languages as languages of teaching and learning, focusing on Zimbabwe. It describes the language situation in Zimbabwe, which has three national languages (all of which enjoy some prominence under the current Education Act) and fourteen minority indigenous languages. English plays a central role in…