This article starts with an overview of the literature aiming to answer the question of what the knowledge aspect of teacher competence entails in urban schools. The conclusion of the overview identifies five areas of expertise as the most significant: (1) language development; (2) pedagogy; (3) social interaction and identity; (4) parental…

One of the domains most commonly affected by autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is communication (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Language deficits in children with ASD can be as severe as to warrant a label as nonverbal, or characterized by difficulties with the functions of communication. Additionally, deficits in language for children…

A web-based questionnaire was sent to all elementary and middle school teachers in Iceland. The population list, with e-mail addresses, was obtained from the teaching union. The teachers were asked to indicate their major, as well as their experience in teaching Icelandic as classroom teachers or subject teachers. They then rated their competence…

This paper discusses structural and ideological challenges to mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) which has in recent years been gaining ground in many educational contexts around the world. The paper argues, however, that MTB-MLE is set against these challenges - referred to here as inequalities of multilingualism - which prevent…

The current study has aimed to compare the objectives, content, teaching-learning process, and evaluation dimensions of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) Language A1 Course teaching program with those of the teaching programs of high school 12th grade Language and Expression and Turkish Literature courses in relation to…

This article attempts to contribute to our expanding definitions of Indigenous education within a globalized world. Additionally, the article critiques notions of progress modeled by powerful nation-states due to their histories based on the intended consequences of marginalizing Indigenous populations for the purposes of material gain. Last,…

From the perspective of German colonial supporters and authorities, appropriate white education in the settler colony of Southwest Africa (SWA) was essential for maintaining German hegemony in the territory. In order to reach this objective, the German colonial administration in SWA, with assistance from pedagogues and institutions in Germany,…

In the past several decades, educational researchers have asserted that multicultural/multilingual education is a phenomenon which certainly has come into prominence in the world of education and most schools are becoming increasingly diverse; a significant role of teacher preparation programs is to prepare its teachers with the knowledge, skills,…

This article explores the linguistic profiles of heritage speakers of Russian and Spanish. Data from the 2009-2013 ACTFL-UCLA NHLRC Heritage Language Project included biographical information as well as speech samples that were elicited using the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview-computer and were rated according to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines…

Background: Embedding the concept of "international mindedness" in teaching across a range of subject matter is seen as increasingly important in today's education. Understanding the situated challenges that teachers may encounter in doing this is critical to the development of effective professional development in different…

This paper analyses Swedish language-in-education policy and planning in the field of minority language education. In recent years, various criticisms have pointed to the discrepancy between these two processes in mother tongue instruction (MTI) at compulsory schools. The general dissatisfaction expressed by some representatives of language…

In this paper, we present a synthesis of a series of studies, carried out by our research groups, from the Greek educational context on teachers' and immigrant students' views on issues of bilingual acquisition and of heritage language learning and teaching. Albeit including heterogeneous samples and employing quantitative and qualitative…

Research on heritage language (HL) development and education has characterized the unique linguistic, sociocultural, and affective profiles of heritage-language (HL) students, yet foreign-language (FL) education has only begun to understand HL students in relation to non-heritage students (Carreira & Kagan, 2011; Felix, 2008). To deepen our…

Within the last two decades, there has been increased interest in how technology supports Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation efforts. This paper considers the effect technology has on Indigenous language learning and teaching, while conceptualizing how language educators, speakers, learners, and technology users holistically…

The focus in this article is the extent to which the school subject of Swedish in the new national curriculum in Sweden introduced in 2011 (compulsory school) has been updated in relation to ways of discussing mother tongue education. Discourse analysis is used to analyse the syllabus for Swedish from 2011. A comparison is made with the previous…