Examines South Africa's Language in Education Policy in the context of historical and recent developments. Focuses on how it affects curricula, classroom practices, school restructuring, subject choices, and the rights of parents and students. Addresses factors inhibiting implementation; offers models of effective change of policy. Contains 25…

Clarifies the history and status of Macedonian in the various areas where it is spoken by providing a summary account of its history as a language of instruction in primary education in the Balkans from the nineteenth century to the present. (Author/VWL)

For Hong Kong high school students (n=12,784), late immersion in English as the language of instruction had large negative effects on science, geography, and history achievement. English immersion had small positive effects on English and Chinese achievement. Effects of language of instruction did not vary substantially over the first 3 years of…

Examines statistics on minority illiteracy from the 1990 Chinese national census across age groups in relation to China's changing language policy among three types of minority communities: those with writing systems of historically broad usage; those with historically limited usage; and those without functional writing systems. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the functional range of English and its penetration into Hungarian society and shows that in just a few years English has become an essential tool for modernization and economic development and a significant medium in the tourist and entertainment industries as well as education. The need for and use of English in the workplace has had a…

Argues against Richard S. Prawat's (1995) assertion that Dewey did not favor an activity-oriented, child-centered approach to learning. Also, it disagrees with Prawat's belief that meaning, for Dewey, was not just between people, but was also between events and people. Dewey's theories on the importance of language to meanings and the problem of…

Contends that Garrison (1996) overlooks evidence that points to the transactional nature of Dewey's theory on learning and uses Dewey's reconstruction of William James's theory of emotion to support the author's claim that Dewey emphasized activity. Following a brief discussion on intellectualism--that ideas represent the only mode of knowing--the…

Describes a survey in and around Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, which focused on the steady trickle of speakers of Xhosa into English-medium schools in the area. Examined the underlying reasons to send Xhosa children to these schools and the subsequent socio-psychological effects of the move on children. (Author/VWL)

Describes the student interactions of second-year medical students at the University of Natal (South Africa), until recently an historically black institution. Notes student associations are predominantly along racial/ethnic and gender lines, and offers an analysis from historical, political, and cultural perspectives. Also discusses the impact of…

Interviewed ten Hong Kong secondary school teachers to highlight the difficulties caused by the recent influx of children from China into Hong Kong. These include difficulties for the immigrants themselves, for the teachers, and for the schools. (Author/VWL)

Principal component analysis of indicators from the 1991 Census was used to characterize the social context of school-age Welsh speakers in south east Wales. The growth of Welsh-medium education was responsible for net gains in numbers of younger Welsh/English bilinguals. The interrelationships between figures for Welsh speaking in the Census and…

Examines how the evolution of Cantonese dialect is continually influenced by contact with English and Putonghua, as well as by the internal dynamic of language change. Concludes that the wish to preserve a Hong Kong cultural identity distinct from that of mainland China, may be a factor in also retaining a unique linguistic identity. (Author/VWL)

The international literature suggests the use of indigenous knowledge (IK) and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) contexts in science education to provide motivation and self-esteem for indigenous students is widespread. However, the danger of alienating culture (as knowledge) from the language in which the worldview is embedded seems to have…

"As far as all the universities in today?s Chinese societies are concerned, the fundamental problem of universities operated by Chinese is that basically there can be no mention of cultural self-confidence or cultural consciousness; or in other words, they have far from established a Chinese idea of university." The fundamental mission…

This paper is an examination of the pedagogical and cultural impact of the PROPELCA (Operational Research Project for the Teaching of Cameroonian Languages) mother-tongue education program being implemented in the Bafut, Kom and Nso' language communities of the Northwest Province of Cameroon. Using research carried out in 2002-2003, the author…