Subtractive education through the medium of a dominant language often transfers Indigenous and minority (IM) children to the dominant group linguistically and culturally within one or two generations. It may lead to the extinction of Indigenous languages, thus contributing to the disappearance of the world's linguistic diversity. A partial result…

In Ratanakiri province, northeastern Cambodia, the majority of the local people are native speakers of ethnic minority languages. Primarily subsistence farmers, they use their own language to communicate with others in their villages, and as they work in their rice fields. A baseline survey taken between 1996 and 1998 in five such villages showed…

Currently, we lack a viable indigenous language education framework for reservation public schools with mixed Native and non-Native student populations. Can stakeholders holding different and often conflicting points of view agree to accept and nurture Native language education programs in the public school arena? In search of a workable framework…

This paper focuses on how latent knowledge of an ancestral or heritage language affects subsequent acquisition by adults. The "latent speaker" is defined as an individual raised in an environment where the ancestral language was spoken but who did not become a speaker of that language. The study examines how attitudes, latent knowledge and…

Recently throughout Africa, there has been an increase in mother tongue primary education in minority language communities. There are many reasons for justifying this innovation, one of which is that local cultures are strengthened by mother tongue literacy. This paper examines the link between literacy and culture through the outcomes of a series…

This paper presents the root causes of the resistance of mainstream European educational institutions to implementation of minority language programmes (bilingual programmes with both an official/dominant language and an immigrant minority language as media of instruction). Differential treatment of different minority languages in the mainstream…

Through case study methodology, this study examined how a second-generation bilingual child developed his two languages and associated literacies, the role of the parents' and child's goals as well as the family's daily effort to attain those goals, and the influences of environmental, social, and cultural factors. Based on sociocultural…

This article contributes to our knowledge of endangered language revitalization by offering a case study of a Cherokee Nation (CN) preschool immersion program named Tsalagi Ageyui, "Our Beloved Cherokee." A naturalistic inquiry into the micro- and macrosociocultural dimensions of reversing Cherokee language shift reveals that, of all CN language…

This article describes a journey and a rediscovery of what it meant and means to speak from a Cree worldview. The way I was raised created my identity as a "nehiyaw" and to my having a Cree worldview; however, I lost these concepts when I started school and moved to the city. Later, in my adult years, I began re-learning my own history and…

English-only policies and the expiration of the "Bilingual Education Act," which is now replaced by "No Child Left Behind," make it clear that English is the official language of schools in the United States with the emphasis moved from the goal of maintaining students' home languages while learning English to a focus of ignoring minority…

Throughout the English-speaking world, children from bilingual backgrounds are being educated in mainstream classrooms where they have little or no opportunity to use their mother tongue. Second and third generation children, in particular, are assumed to be learning sufficiently through English only. This study investigated how British…

This paper explores the social and cultural knowledge embedded in the textbooks for language and literacy education in a Chinese heritage language school, the Zhonguo School, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It examines how Chinese language arts textbooks introduce the child reader to cultural knowledge considered legitimate and valued in China as…

This article considers the current debate in Australia into the learning of literacy and foreign languages. It examines not only the literacy levels attained by Australian students in their national language (English) in comparison to these in other countries, as well as between Australian states, but also theories involved in school learning and…

This article presents an interview with Andrew W. S. In, professor and dean in the University of Hawai'i's College of Education from 1951 to 1984. Born and raised in Honolulu, In attended Royal Elementary, Central Junior High, and McKinley High schools, graduating from McKinley in 1938. He then attended the University of Hawai'i Teachers College…

This paper provides a historical account of post-war state language policy within education in France, examining in particular the position and status of Corsican, one of the country's regional heritage languages. This paper outlines the treatment of Corsican by the French State and how this language management impacted upon the language beliefs…