The process of voting is a fundamental right and privilege of any democracy. In fact, "Merriam-Webster" defines the word democracy as "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free…

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights collects, through its network of observation points, information on discrimination and good practice in the areas of legislation, employment, housing, racist violence, and education. Data on education includes information on: access to education for vulnerable groups, discriminatory practices,…

Frisian, a unique minority language in the Netherlands, is in the middle ranks of threatened European minority languages in Europe. In recent decades a framework for language policy has been developed in which the educational domain is one of the spearheads. This article provides an overview of language policy and language rights for Frisian…

The purpose of this paper is to describe the framework for implementing multilingual language education (MLE) countrywide in Nepal. I outline key tenets of MLE, explain the rationale for implementing it in the Nepali context, and describe the MLE framework that formed the basis of trainer workshops. The framework is divided into 7 topics: 4 of…

A generation or two ago, the achievement of children who came to school knowing little or no English was not a prominent national issue. Today, with the increased focus on school accountability and educational equity, it is. This comprehensive resource explores the research on promoting academic success among language-minority students. The…

This pilot study investigated the effects of a 20-week quasiexperimental vocabulary intervention aimed at improving Spanish-speaking language minority students' English vocabulary and writing outcomes. Participants were two matched samples of fifth graders (N = 49) in a predominantly Latino, low-income urban school. Pre- and posttest analyses…

Providing high-quality education for all students is far more complex than placing students of diverse backgrounds in the same classroom. Hawaii's Kamachamcha Early Education Project (KEEP) takes a group-oriented, culturally responsive approach to improving students' academic achievement while preserving characteristics of more traditional…

Discusses the situation of German Minorities in Old and New Belgium. Describes the process of federalization and its repercussions for East Belgium. Examines linguistic factors vis-a-vis these minorities located along the Germanic-Romance linguistic border. Looks at external linguistic factors and one internal factor and concludes by focusing on…

Introduces this special issue of the journal, which focuses on negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. The articles discuss various aspects of negotiation of identities by linguistic minority speakers. (Author/VWL)

What makes people, in shifting power positions of a post-independence period, plan on disusing an already known L2 or learn a new L2? What are the reasons for such shifts and what outcomes can, therefore, be predicted for the future of societal bilingualism surviving alongside ongoing efforts at monolingual unification in a newly independent…

The Italian-Slovenian border represents a dynamic vantage point from which to observe how cultural and linguistic contact takes place and how minority groups have created educational strategies to preserve their cultural and linguistic diversity while striving for respectful coexistence with the dominant society. Slovene-medium schools have been…

Globalisation processes, often accused of imposing uniformity the world over, also open up opportunities for minorities (including linguistic ones) to exploit a variety of spaces for self-definition and self-expression. The expansion in the use of minority languages in public signage is one consequence of this present phase of reorientation in…

Two-way immersion is a model for bilingual education designed to help language-minority students develop additive bilingualism while at the same time offering language-majority students a chance to learn a second language. There is a great deal of rhetoric around two-way immersion that claims these programs aim to improve overall equity among…

Appropriate models for understanding the dynamics of language use in society are essential to effective language policy and planning. Particularly in African contexts, such models must speak to the unique features of multilingual environments, and they must account for the differences in prestige and value which occur between languages in these…

Using a sequential mixed-methods design, this study examined the differences between two native language groups--those with an East Asian language background and those with a Romance language background--in regard to reading subskills as represented in the Michigan English Language Assessment Battery (MELAB) reading test, so as to provide…