This paper explores the role English and isiZulu play in the identity construction of a group of black South African university students from disadvantaged backgrounds enrolled in a bridge programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. I will discuss how, in post-apartheid South Africa, language practices continue to foster inequality, despite a…

In this paper, the on-going process of language policy-making in Suriname is dealt with using quantitative data obtained from students as well as teachers in primary and secondary schools. The Republic of Suriname is a former Dutch colony on the Caribbean coast of South America. Suriname shelters around 20 languages. Dutch is the official language…

This overview identifies some common features of macro-level language planning and briefly summarises the changing approaches to the analysis of macro-planning in the field. It previews six cases of language-in-education planning in response to linguistic diversity presented by the contributors to this issue. The cases show how macro-planning can…

Russia's secondary school populations are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of ethnicity, culture, language, and religion. The growing diversity makes a considerable impact on the functions and goals of schools, the realization of which requires the implementation of an equitable language policy. In this article, I briefly represent Russia as…

This article focuses on the work of cultural and language maintenance and fortification with Indigenous youth populations. Here, the idea of work represents two strands of thought: first, research that is partnered with Indigenous youth-serving institutions and that prioritizes Indigenous youth perspectives; and second, the work of cultural and…

In this paper, we try to unravel some of the unintended and intended academic effects associated with post-Soviet educational reforms by focusing on three cases: Estonia, Latvia and Russia. We have chosen this comparison because a unique "natural experiment" in the three countries allows us to compare the changing academic performance on…

In this paper, we analyse the cultural models (or folk theory of language) that the Mapuche intellectual elite have about Mapudungun, the native language of the Mapuche people still spoken today in Chile as the major minority language. Our theoretical frame is folk linguistics and studies of language ideology, but we have also taken an applied…

This article suggests a theoretical framework for re-examining the complex relationship of language, literacy, and cultural practices, across multiple generations in the context of community-based Indigenous language revitalization. In the scholarship of Indigenous language revitalization and education, researchers have shifted from viewing…

This paper studies the relationship between language attitudes and the involvement of Sabaot stakeholders in the implementation of the Kenyan language-in-education policy (mother tongue [MT] as subject). Attitudes were vitally important for how the policy was interpreted, the extent to which stakeholders invested their time and the way in which…

In this chapter, the authors offer a critical examination of a growing field of educational inquiry and social practice: the reclamation of Indigenous mother tongues. They use the term "reclamation" purposefully to denote that these are languages that have been forcibly subordinated in contexts of colonization. Language reclamation…

IsiZulu is one of the 11 official languages of South Africa and has the highest number of speakers in the country. While the South African Language Policy for Higher Education (2002) emphasizes the need to use African languages at universities, not many universities' isiZulu-speaking students prefer to be taught in isiZulu. Research has revealed…

The author analyses tendencies presented in recently launched EU reports claiming that newly published data reveal a need to rethink approaches to individual and social multilingualism. In the first part of the article approaches to individual as well as to societal multilingualism are discussed from a historical perspective. In the second part…

Although multilingualism is the norm in Africa the degree of linguistic complexity varies from one specific national context to another. While some countries are highly multilingual, others have fairly few languages. Similarly, whereas in some countries a good number of languages enjoy majority status; in others, we have a myriad of primarily…

Language policy is generally seen as a national-level decision regarding which languages the state will support, and in which public domains. However, the reality is that language policy plays out at regional and local levels as well. In fact, it could be argued that the most important instantiations of language policy are those which directly…

After Namibian independence, the government introduced an education system aimed at providing equal education to all and fostering the establishment of a nonracial society. The formulation of the language policy was one of major initiatives of the democratically elected government of Namibia after independence. The goal of this policy is to foster…