Through a comparison of France and Germany, this article investigates why the overall conception of multilingualism promoted by the education systems of the two countries favours the teaching of "useful" European standard languages over that of minority and migrant languages that are conceived in merely cultural terms. Adopting a…

This 5-month ethnographic comparative case study of two culturally and linguistically diverse U.S. elementary classrooms juxtaposes restrictive educational language policies with the theoretical principles of culturally sustaining pedagogy to explore a gap in our understanding of how teachers reflect educational language policies in the range of…

Motivations of Maori heritage language learners are explored within this qualitative study. "Te reo" Maori (the Maori language) is currently classed as endangered (Reedy et al., 2011), which calls for the exploration of the motivational experiences of Maori heritage language learners. A total of 19 interviews with beginner, intermediate…

Our first generation children face a loss of heritage in today's public schools. Unfortunately, the assets that one's bilingual ability brings into the classroom are difficult for educators to fully understand. Often this may happen because professionals in the field of education lack the knowledge about the need for children to maintain their…

The present study analyses bilingual conversations taking place in binational families living in the UK. The focus is on two Polish/English stepfamilies, where the Polish mothers' concern with preserving and developing their children's linguistic and cultural identity collides with the English partner's limited knowledge of Polish. While the paper…

The goal of this research was to explore thoroughly the perceptions of dispersed immigrant professionals and their bilingual and bicultural children regarding the place of new media technology in their lives. Open-ended interviewing and autoethnography were used to explore families' perceptions of the role of media technology in their children's…

In the context of Cyprus's accession to the European Union and a huge wave of immigration towards the country, teachers are called upon to teach within more diverse educational settings. In consideration of the substantial role teachers play in implementing intercultural education, this study explores their perceptions of the reform of…

Latino immigrant parents were interviewed in an urban California school district post Proposition 227. Approximately half had placed their English-learner children into bilingual classes. The others had children in English-only classes. Guided by sociohistorical psychology, the study explores the parents' motivations for the goal of preserving the…

This paper examines the connection between heritage language and culture and the construction and maintenance of social and personal identities of the Cora, an indigenous people of the Mexican Sierra del Nayar, in Northwestern Mexico. Using the frameworks of the socially and linguistically mediated mind (Dennet, 1991; Harre & Gillet, 1994;…

Papahana Kaiapuni is a K-12 public school program in which the Hawaiian language is the medium of instruction. In 1987, parents and language activists started the program in response to the dwindling number of speakers that resulted from a nearly century-long ban on the indigenous language. This study examined how participation in this indigenous…

Latino immigrant parents were interviewed in a transnational urban community in California after passage of a law intended to abolish bilingual education (BE). Approximately half had English learner children in bilingual classes; the others in English-only classes. Guided by a macrocultural psychological interpretive framework, the study used a…

This qualitative research looks at the effects that language choices and cultural practices have on identity development in the education of minority students in the United States. It examines the educational journey of Irma, a Latina educator. Through the analysis of interviews with the participant, this paper intends to show the effects of…

This is a qualitative interpretive study that explores the past and present experiences of heritage learners (HLs) of Mexican descent who were studying or had recently studied advanced Spanish in institutions of higher education. All of the participants had been exposed to Spanish in the home and began their studies in elementary or middle school…

The community is an important stakeholder in language education, and community views are critical for the successful implementation of new language policies. This article reports on a study on multilingual language policies conducted in two primary schools in two communities in eastern Uganda, one rural and one urban, from 2005 through 2006. The…

This study addresses one central issue: How do Taiwan's teacher education programs promote future teachers' knowledge that fosters bilingualism in children? Three bodies of knowledge were included in this study. The first reviews the theory of second-language acquisition and bilingualism. The second involves the literature of early childhood…