When Soviet forces entered the Kovno Ghetto (Lithuania) on 1 August 1944 they found a scene of mass destruction. What happened at Kovno was a reflection of the extent of the Final Solution, where the goal was to extinguish not only the Jews, but their entire culture. While the Final Solution was instituted throughout Europe, this paper will focus…

The article discusses the importance of sociohistorical context which is the foundation of variation studies in sociolinguistics. The studies on variation in spoken and signed languages are reviewed with the discussion of geographical and social aspects which are treated as external factors in the formation and maintenance of dialects and those…

The article illustrates a sociolinguistics of language vitality that accounts for "minority" and unofficial languages across multiple localities in dispersed communities of multilingual speakers of Zambia where only seven out of seventy-three indigenous languages have been designated official and "zoned" for use in specified…

The creative comparisons prospective chemistry teachers make about "chemistry" and the "chemist" may reflect how they perceive these concepts. In this sense, it seems important to determine which creative comparisons prospective teachers make with respect to these and how these can change after the history of chemistry is…

The Syilx Language House has completed two years of a four-year, 2,000-hour program to create new adult Nsyilxcn speakers, based on Syilx communities' specific priorities. Our critically endangered status requires radically decolonizing teaching techniques. Nsyilxcn (Okanagan) teachers are learners, trained to deliver sequenced curriculum in full…

Relatively little research has focused on the experiences of students and families of Yucatec-Maya origin in the U.S., and even less has focused on Yucatec-Maya youth and resilience, a normative process of positive adaptation despite exposure to adversity. Using Critical Latinx Indigeneities, which centers on Indigeneity across multi-national…

One in three children enrolled in US early childhood programs is a dual language learner. While dual language learners have been the target of sweeping educational reforms under the guise of justice, these reforms--which pathologize dual language learners as problems to be remediated rather than assets to be developed--have largely ignored the…

This study examined the use of an instructional package consisting of structured criteria, extrastimulus prompts, prompt delay, and reinforcement contingencies to improve decision making based on visual analysis of case-study (A/B) design data. Four participants without backgrounds in behavior analysis received training under two experimental…

Although human beings communicate mainly through talking and listening, schools tend to spend little classroom instruction time helping ELLs develop their English oral language skills, writes Wayne E. Wright. In reviewing the research on ELLs' oral language development, Wright concludes that bilingual programs give ELLs the best opportunities to…

This study focuses on one Truku (Indigenous) village in eastern Taiwan and aims to understand the processes and possibilities of bottom-up language policy formation and implementation. In 2012, the first author assisted the villagers to start a community-driven language revitalization initiative. Drawing on scholarship guided by critical…

We make sense of experiences of our own and others through different forms of stories -- movies, TV dramas, documentaries, books, songs, as well as stories that are told and re-told within our families and cultures. Our experiences are fragmented and happen in different places over the course of our lives. By putting stories together in a plot, we…

Education systems are crucial social and cultural apparatuses. They are designed to homogenize at least to a large extent the discourses and praxis of the citizens of a nation by channelling them as much as possible through a unified educational system. However, in ethnically and culturally diversified societies, these homogenizing social…

In today's autistic-support classrooms, paraeducators are tasked with working with our neediest students yet report that they are unprepared for their roles despite attempts at training. The special education teachers who are tasked with coaching and supervising several paraeducators at a time in their classrooms report that they too are…

This conceptual paper reports the rare and unprecedented mother tongue based schooling of Tibetan children in exile in India as a success story that can serve as a model for displaced and indigenous peoples. A brief historical development of Tibetan language is offered to highlight the circuitous journey of Tibetan language from the indigenous to…

This paper presents results from an ethnographically informed study based on focus group discussions where rural Ngoni farmers in the southern highlands of Tanzania voice their ideas about their cultural heritage, with a special focus on attitudes towards Ngoni culture and cultural changes. With a model based on Ehala [2009. "Connecting the…