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…

Using transnational literacies as the theoretical framework, this qualitative case study explores the transnational language and literacy practices of one female China-U.S. transnational adolescent, Meiyi, and her family. The data corpus includes critical ethnographic data generated over 3 years. Through data generation and analysis guided by…

This paper analyzes Nepal's language education policy from a decolonial perspective, examining how rights-based (neo)liberal ideologies and policies do not necessarily contribute to creating space, either ideological or implementational (Hornberger, 2005), for Indigenous languages in education. Drawing on the theory of "decoloniality"…

This article offers a critical appraisal of "educación intercultural bilingüe," an educational model with at least five decades of implementation. When this term was coined, Indigenous populations were mostly monolingual and their settlements mostly rural and distant from the seats of cultural hegemony and power. The situation is now…

How does multilingualism affect thinking and behavior? Recent findings demonstrate that multilingualism influences executive functioning, as well as personality traits and dimensions. Concordant outcomes show that multilingual individuals are more likely to be successful at inhibiting certain types of conduct (e.g., impulsivity) than monolinguals.…

Many metropolitan cities have undergone rapid demographic changes in recent years, and such changes hasten and widen linguistic diversities. Similar changes are happening in Sydney, Australia and Hamburg, Germany. These changes are most acutely felt and observed in the classrooms where multiple languages are spoken, despite a prevalent monolingual…

This article investigates how two Pacific language programmes in secondary schools outside of the broader region of Auckland, New Zealand, enabled an exploration, celebration, and deepening of va (relational space) through language, and contributed to identity construction of students of Samoan and Tongan heritage. As the relational lens is rarely…

To examine the specific education challenges that minority language-speaking parents encounter in teaching their children heritage language, this study conducted in-depth interviews with ten Chinese immigrant parents in Korean-Chinese multicultural families. Textual analysis of the interviews revealed that 'One Parent One Language' is a natural…

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…

America's strength lies in its inherent diversity--an enduring truth that makes the Eurocentric nature of our educational curricula troubling. Despite this foundational reality, curricular materials remain predominantly Eurocentric, often excluding authentic representation and inclusion of Black/African American experiences in children's and young…

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,…

Globally many minority and Indigenous communities are searching for ways to reclaim languages that have been marginalized by socioeconomic and political processes. These efforts often involve novel literacy practices. In this article, we draw from ethnographic data in Mexico and Nepal to ask, what are the opportunities and constraints of teaching…

One of the bilingual communities surviving today in Mongolia, which is the cultural heritage site of the ancient communities that left their mark on the history of Central Asia, are the Tuvan and the Dukha, which is considered a branch of them. In this study, it is aimed to reflect the language teaching practices carried out for the young…

The chapter is a reflective discussion of an educator who has made efforts to incorporate heritage language practice in child play in the real-world everyday setting of early childhood education. This combination between heritage language and child play has hardly been explored before in the relevant discourse. As children in Australia possess…

Second language research has traditionally been characterized by the cognitive perspective which focuses on how the individual processes language. There has been an emerging trend over the past few decades on taking into consideration the social influences on second language learning based on diverse theoretical frameworks. Research on second…