The author of this chapter argues that the failure of Spanish language education policies in the United States to educate both Latinos and non-Latinos has to do with the clash between three positions--(a) the English language, characterized by U.S. educational authorities as the unique and powerful lingua franca; (b) the Spanish language, as…

Life in the contemporary society and ongoing globalisation processes result in growing demands on educators, including language teachers in higher education. The frequently accentuated so-called postmethod approach to foreign language teaching gives teachers a lot of freedom and flexibility but also creates a large space for various types of…

Many multilinguals in Europe habitually use the linguistic strategies often attributed to users of English as a lingua franca (ELF). ELF, in which native speaker norms are not invoked, may be the perfect arena for multilinguals to exploit what Vivian Cook calls "multicompetence", a dynamic multilingual system in which more than one…

The use of the notion of "decolonization", applied to indigenous people's schooling, is somehow misleading. It refers to a certain period, namely the colonial period, which officially ended in New Caledonia in 1946, then a French colony and now a French overseas territory. It also refers to contemporary efforts to address the colonial…

Greater China is used in this article to refer to mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Macao. While a holistic approach is adopted to present and compare the rapid spread of English and development in English language education in these geographically close, and sociopolitically, culturally and economically interrelated but hugely…

Maori language education policy documents reflect an underlying ambivalence about the desired outcomes for non-Maori learners participating in "as-a-subject" Maori language learning. The view of the Maori language as a national language may be in the process of being replaced by a view that identifies the language primarily as a cultural…

This article describes how 16 Mozambican languages--and counting--have been brought into primary education in Mozambique through a 2002 curriculum reform, and how they are faring in light of tensions between general aspirations for dominant languages and public demand for bilingual education. Bilingual education based on learners' home languages,…

Discourses of development, education, gender, feminism and critical linguistics arrive in Africa from usually well-meaning but often opportunistic agents from other contemporary socio-political and economic contexts. Each of these forms a new layer that veils the earlier discourses and practices. Simultaneously, people in Africa are…

In this paper I outline the challenges for feminist language planning in the context of a global lingua franca--English. Drawing upon the views of speakers of "World Englishes" I discuss their reactions as well as reported practices in relation to gender-inclusive language use. This reveals the complexities of managing the tension between the…

This article presents a cognitively-oriented account of the qualitative differences between ENL (English as a native language) and ELF (English as a lingua franca) users. Based on the declarative-procedural model of second language acquisition, it examines the linguistic and sociolinguistic implications of ELF users' dependence on their…

"Review of Research in Education: Vol. 38, Language Policy, Politics, and Diversity in Education" explores the role of educational language policies in promoting education as a human right. There are an estimated nearly 7,000 living languages in the world. Yet, despite the extent of language diversity, only a small number of the…

After Algeria wrenched its independence from France in 1962, the government newly formed decided to achieve Arabization. Standard Arabic became thus the official language of Algeria and the complete Arabization of all public institutions was voted in January 1991. Actually, the Algerian linguistic situation is one of multilingualism where Algerian…

This article presents an overview of language-in-education policy development between 1999 and 2010 in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. In the decade since independence language-in-education policy in this newly independent country has been dominated by debates about the medium of instruction. Over time, policy has shifted from an…

This paper positions local literacy issues against a backdrop of increasing global ethnolinguistic diversity. National language choices are generally influenced by wider debates on the "politics of location," so decisions about language(s) associated with teaching literacy in schools tend to occur at the intersection of national and international…

This regional dossier aims to provide a concise, description and basic statistics about minority language education in a specific region of Europe. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements, and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects, such as the…