In Norway there are two written Norwegian languages, Bokmâl and Nynorsk. Of these two written languages Bokmâl is being used by the majority of the people, and Bokmâl has the highest prestige in the society. This article is about the shift of written language from Nynorsk to Bokmâl among young people in a traditional Nynorsk district in the…

This study investigated the direct and indirect roles of morphological awareness reading comprehension for Spanish-speaking language minority learners reading in English. Multivariate path analysis was used to investigate the unique contribution of derivational morphological awareness to reading comprehension as well as its indirect contributions…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cross-language transfer of the emergent literacy skills of preschoolers who were Spanish-speaking language-minority children in the context of an experimental intervention study. Ninety-four children were randomly assigned either to a control condition (HighScope Preschool Curriculum) or to receive…

In this chapter, the author reviews the legal trajectory of language rights in public schooling in the United States and how language has been intertwined with other policy issues in court cases aimed at expanding access and equity for minority students: desegregation and school finance. Most of these cases originated in the Southwestern United…

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…

Social psychologists have suggested that language-based ideologies related to "stereotype threat" (i.e. variations in performance-based on ability perceptions of language groups) may affect students' academic achievement regardless of school language support. However, it is unclear whether efforts to support students' first language…

This study tested three hypotheses about the direct and indirect contributions of derivational morphological awareness to English reading comprehension in sixth-grade students from differing language backgrounds (n= 952). Students included Spanish-speaking, Filipino-speaking, and Vietnamese-speaking language minority learners as well as native…

This article investigates the position of migrant languages in Northern Ireland's two largest cities, Belfast and Derry/Londonderry. The paper comments on how deliberations around public policy objectives in a post-conflict era have led to a broader understanding of cultural identity and consequently to an "opening-up" of urban spaces…

In this paper, we examine some of the tenets of the current conceptualisations of communicative competence. Drawing on the empirical data collected in linguistically diverse university classrooms, we show that meaning-making in social interaction is considerably more complex and fluid than is envisaged in theoretical models of communicative…

By focusing on different subsequently implemented strategies for literacy teaching in the Norwegian primary and lower secondary schools, this paper offers a historical overview of some important aspects of learning conditions for minority children. On this basis, the paper addresses the interrelationship between different strategies of literacy…

This dissertation explores Bai language use in Jianchuan County, China. On the basis of interviews with 42 language users, transcripts of spontaneous conversation and elicited narratives, excerpts from Bai texts in an alphabetic orthography and Chinese characters, and six months of participant observation, I demonstrate how language users'…

Advocating mother tongue education implies recognising the centrality of linguistic and cultural diversity in quality and accessible education planning and delivery. In minority linguistic settings, this need becomes particularly urgent. Decades of exclusive promotion of foreign languages have rendered the educational system incapable of…

This paper is about narrative and identity in classes of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). ESOL students, adult migrants to the English-dominant West, are positioned by policy and by their institutions primarily as potential employees and as test-takers. The paper considers ways in which ESOL students negotiate and perhaps resist the…

This article addresses the relationships between media, media use and language retention. In pursuing this aim, we explore the utility of ethnolinguistic vitality (EV) as a fruitful conceptual tool. The extant research on the relationship between the media and language retention and development provides an encouragement to pursue in more detail…

This paper examines bilingual education policies and practices in China and the interconnection and influences of the west in the new developments in bilingual education in this country. It focuses on bilingual education in Tibetan areas considering the sociopolitical context, the Tibetan tradition, and the current developments and new knowledge…