This article explores policy and practice in relation to support for speakers of community languages in Northern Ireland primary schools against the backdrop of the broader UK context, with reference also to the Republic of Ireland and wider European and international experiences. After an initial discussion of the educational, social and…

In the context of an undergraduate program in modern languages that includes the learning of French, Italian, Portuguese, and German in addition to English, this paper problematizes anglonormativity; that is, the dominant discourses of English as the taken-for-granted language of development. From the particular context of Colombia, where the…

This qualitative study investigates the process of family language policy and planning among a group of immigrant mothers with south Asian backgrounds in Hong Kong, and explores the underlying cultural, socio-political and ideological reasons. Moving beyond a discrete analysis of family language policy within the home context to incorporate…

In 1966, the Singapore Government implemented the English-knowing bilingual policy which made it mandatory for all Chinese students to study English as a "First Language" and the Chinese language (CL) as a "Mother Tongue Language" in Singapore schools. Using key literature relevant to Singapore's bilingual educational policy…

Timor-Leste offers a rich case study of the array of discursive influences on medium-of-instruction (MOI) policy in multilingual, post-colonial developing contexts. MOI policy in this young nation is a site of tension between struggles to define national identity in the shadow of colonial language ideologies and the globalised discourses of…

The two different models of bilingual/multilingual education that have been developed in Slovenia since the 1950s in the regions of Prekmurje (minority language Hungarian) and Slovene Istria (Italian) are the result of international agreements, education and language policies, social and demographic factors. The basic aim in both cases is to help…

One of the dangers that we should be aware of when we study issues of language policy and planning is the fragmentary perspective by which they can be approached. Reality, by contrast, is interrelated and overlapping. This is why a complexity perspective stresses the importance of studying the contexts of phenomena, that is to say, their external…

The aim of this paper is to explore the practice of English-medium-of-instruction (EMI) education in Indonesia implemented within the backdrop of a governmental macro-language planning policy known as International Standards Schools (ISSs) between 2007 and 2013. Twelve teachers teaching at two candidates of ISSs were interviewed to examine their…

While advocacy of minority language rights (MLR) has become well established in sociolinguistics, language policy and planning and the wider human rights literature, it has also come under increased criticism in recent times for a number of key limitations. In this paper, I address directly three current key criticisms of the MLR movement. The…