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 narrative autoethnography examines the complexity of experience in teaching Yoruba online as a grassroots Heritage Language (HL) with keen attention to families' efforts in maintaining and revitalizing Yoruba not only as a HL but also as a Less Commonly Taught Language (LCTL) in the national, international and transnational contexts. Inspired…

Since the beginning of the 21st century, heritage language studies have drawn unprecedented attention from language-related research areas. Despite the flourishing research on heritage language learning, relatively few studies have examined the motivational profiles of L1 English speakers engaged in heritage language learning. Theoretical…

This paper reports on a survey conducted in Australia among parents raising their children with a heritage language (HL). We found strong awareness of the importance of HL maintenance (95%), but only moderate levels of engagement (37-44%) with community initiatives for HL support. There were significantly more primary school-aged children reported…

Thomas Babington Macaulay's 1835 minute on Indian education is widely held to be representative of the views which underpinned the English East India Company's replacement of Persian with English as the official language of administration in India in 1837, and the promotion of English and Indian vernacular languages as part of colonial educational…

This study approaches multilingualism on Phuket Island by means of a linguistic landscape (LL) analysis. The data in this study consists of 185 photographs of shop signs taken from popular streets on the island. They were analyzed via a mixed-methods approach. It was found that different languages were purposely chosen to indicate or showcase the…

This article describes how young children and their families and community members came together with researchers to co-create books in children's languages about their worlds in Fiji, to foster children's multilingual literacies. The co-creation of these books in children's and families' Fijian homes and community settings connected with their…

Based on Spolsky's (2004) tripartite framework for language policy, this study explores language practices, language ideology, and language management in relation to minority languages, Putonghua, and English in ethnic minority families in Yunnan, China. Through observations of and interviews with nine interethnic marriage families in Kena Village…

Due to the increased mobility and linguistic and cultural diversity internationally, there has been a renewed interest in the linguistic practices of immigrant families. Earlier scholarship focused on the difference between parenting in monolingual contexts and bilingual parenting conceptualised as management of more than one language in a family.…

Storytelling passes down traditions and values while preserving languages and serving as a natural site for linguistic innovation and creativity. This article describes an approach to creating multilingual, multimodal stories that were developed for an after-school club at a rural Tanzanian secondary school. Club members told stories, wrote…

Language is a contextual factor of an education system as it determines the Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT). In order to provide for diversity in South Africa, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, makes provision for 11 official languages and the Language in Education Policy (LiEP) promotes respect for not only these…

The study of family language policy has emerged as a significant domain for multilingual development, language maintenance and cultural continuity. Family Language Policy seeks to connect the studies of child language acquisition with the field of language policy research in its approach to understand language maintenance and shift among different…

Indigenous peoples have rightful aspirations for their languages and cultures, supported under international conventions, jurisdictional treaties, laws, policies and enquiry recommendations. Additionally, the inclusion of Indigenous languages in education can impact positively on Indigenous students' learning, engagement, identity and well-being,…

The paper deals with the issues of the cultural and linguistic diversity of Indian schools. The influence international policies and national policies, provision to preserve the linguistic and cultural diversity in classroom and schools. The role of education to preserve the linguistic and cultural diversity needs in schools. Based on various data…

This paper investigated linguistic practices and choices of Australian children of Indian descent, an under-researched group, who are studying Hindi in primary education. Data was collected using a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with sixty participants across 3 primary schools in the Sydney area. The findings revealed, as expected,…