Diversity in education

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En provenance du cours de National Research University Higher School of Economics

Introduction to Multilingual and Multicultural Education

11 notes

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Introduction to Multilingual and Multicultural Education

11 notes

The processes of globalization are highly complex and influence the multi-layered structures of societies: economic, socio-cultural, political, linguistic and education aspects among others. A remarkable increase in global migration flows, especially over the last decade, required from the host countries to pay particular attention to the provision of equal education opportunities. Children of migrants, frequently not being (fluent) speakers of the official/national language(s) of the host country, need, and above all, have the right, to get access to good quality education. In addition, in today’s highly competitive labour-market, learning global/international languages (e.g. English) is seen as a necessity. How and at what age should children start learning an additional language (or languages)? Do bilingual/multilingual children perform better at school than their monolingual peers? Which language/education policies are successful and which are not? What challenges students and teachers face in a multilingual/multicultural classroom? What measures do educators, schools, communities need to take in order to make the multilingual and multicultural learning space more effective? The course Introduction to Multilingual and Multicultural Learning makes an attempt to provide answers to these and other related questions with reference to the latest research and discussion of different case studies. By the end of this course, you will be able to: - critically evaluate various teaching practices in multilingual and multicultural settings; - critically evaluate various language policies and planning programmes implemented in multilingual education settings; - obtain valuable insights to better understand the learning needs of students in a multilingual/multicultural classroom; - apply the knowledge you will have gained in this course, in multilingual/multicultural classrooms; - obtain essential skills to deal with immigrant/minority language students.

À partir de la leçon

Diversity and education: culture and language in a global world

This module will present you the historical background of multilingual education in the UK, USA, and Canada and show the way it is realized in the modern era.

Diversity in education6:14

Rencontrer les enseignants

Denis Zubalov
Assistant Professor
School of Philology, HSE

Hello and welcome to the Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

This week we'll look at the development of multilingual and multicultural education

in relation to the United States, Canada and the European Union.

We'll also look at the specificities and different approaches to multi-lingual and

multicultural education in these countries.

This week, we'll focus on the United States.

And we'll look at the main points in bilingual education development.

The linguistic and cultural diversity has long been present in the United States.

There are around 300 languages spoken, some of which survive even today.

But let's take a look at the 16th century.

The arrival of Europeans in America brought new languages,

they brought different languages and the different regional varieties with them.

Apart from languages and cultures,

Europeans brought slaves, slaves from West Africa.

These slaves had their own cultures and spoke their own languages.

And this contributed even more to the linguistic and

cultural diversity in the United States.

Let's take a look at the 19th and the 20th century

when a large number of immigrants started arriving in the United States.

They arrived from all over the world, bringing in more languages and

more cultures.

So the plethora of languages and cultures were mixed,

evolved, forming or shaping new ways of communicating.

Despite the linguistic and cultural diversity, the nation in the United States

has been ambivalent in terms of attitudes towards diversity.

For example, certain places show more acceptance of diversity and

willingness to incorporate otherness.

In this way, embracing more pluralist discourses.

Other places, however, show less tolerance of diversity,

focusing on common language as part of the identity construction.

In this way, asserting more assimilationist discourses.

Let's take a look at the beginning of the 19th century with a focus on education.

See what's happening in terms of education and

the different languages that are spoken in the United States.

So linguistic communities bring children to school in large numbers and,

as one would expect, the language of instruction was usually the languages

of those communities, and in combination with English, of course.

For example, German and Dutch were taught in Pennsylvania,

French in Louisiana, and in Texas usually Spanish and German languages prevailed.

But let's take a look at the end of the 19th century and

see what had happened by the end of this century.

So we witness a kind of shift towards monolingualism, so

public schools have become more English-speaking,

whereas the teaching of other languages was discouraged.

And there are primarily two reasons responsible for this.

First is the industrial revolution and

second is the influx of new immigrants to the United States.

So these new immigrants didn't speak the English language and it was necessary for

the educational system to assimilate the newcomers.

So the primary purpose of schooling was

the Americanization of the newcomers, of the new settlers.

And some scholars point out that the extreme assimilation was triggered by,

first, two world wars, which implied

the immigration of Europeans from the European continent to the United States.

And, second, the political and

economic isolation in the first half of the century.

It's important to note that the languages of the indigenous population

in the United States as well as those of immigrants were discouraged and

de-emphasized.

And these languages were relegated primarily to the home.

In this respect, English only education becomes

rigid policy in schools throughout the United States.

Speaking and using exclusively the English language had become

inextricably linked with the American identity construction.

It should be pointed out that during the Cold War era, the state had to

unite the population and language was an important part of this process.

In conclusion, it's important to know that handling diversity was not an easy task.

I'm not sure whether I'm pronouncing this correctly,

[FOREIGN] which meant out of many one.

And this implied that the American nation must be both supportive of pluralism and

dedicated to unity.

But the main question is how to keep this balance between the two.

So controversy in bilingual education emphasized the assimilationist strategies

in education, imposing English-only policy as part of the nation-building process.

So what's happening in the bilingual educational

sphere today in the United States?

I will be talking about this in the next video.

That's all for now.

Thanks for watching.

See you later, bye bye.

[SOUND]

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