Turbulence and dilemma: implications of diversity and multilingualism in Australian education

Facilitating agency and engagement: Visual methodologies and pedagogical interventions for working with culturally and linguistically diverse young people

“…Historically, Australian language policy has been pioneering in its support and promotion of the maintenance and acquisition of languages other than English (Lo Bianco & Slaughter, 2009). However, since the late 1980s, languages policy and education has predominantly been characterized by a relentless move towards monocultural and monolingual conceptualizations of language and literacy in curriculum, pedagogy and assessment across the Australian education systems (Coleman, 2012; Eisenchlas, Schalley & Guillemin, 2015; Heugh, 2014). This is despite Australia’s increasing cultural and linguistic diversity, whereby Australia’s 120 surviving Indigenous languages (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2018) have been joined by more than 200 languages, all of which are spoken by over 20% of Australians as the primary home language.…”

Polylingual education: foreign experience in implementing multilingualism in the studying process

“…Canagarajah illustrates most impressively the history of monolingual orientation, which may underpin plurilingual ideologies, beginning with Herder (Canagarajah 2013: 19-34). For the linkages worked on as part of PlurCur, the concept, which arose with the formation of the European nation states, of languages as being clearly delineated from one another and belonging to specific territories is particularly interesting -a concept which has spread to and influenced extra-European regions as well, as Heugh shows in her portrayal of the dilemmas in Australian language teaching policy (Heugh 2014). Heugh's observations on Australia contain distinctions that provide insights into the European and Austrian context discussed here.…”

17 Language policy and planning for language maintenance: The macro and meso levels

“…Liddicoat and Curnow argue that there are three prevailing discourses that threaten the place of minorities' languages in school education: discourses about social cohesion, about competition between languages in the school curriculum, and discourses about language maintenance as a private matter. The discourse of language maintenance as contrary to social cohesion is a manifestation of an enduring one nation-one language ideology on understandings of national identity and citizenship (see also Chiro 2014;Heugh 2014). Linguistic diversity can be seen as a threat to national unity and stability and thus language maintenance programmes can be perceived as in conflict with the nation-building role of schooling.…”