This edited book attempts to foreground how challenges and complexities between policy and practice intertwine in the teaching and learning of the STEM subjects in multilingual settings, and how they (policy and practice) impact on educational processes, developments and outcomes. The unique feature of this book, thus, lies in its combination of not just language issues in the teaching and learning of the STEM subjects, but also in how these issues relate to policy and practice in multilingual contexts and how STEM research and practice may inform and shape language policies and their implementation in multilingual contexts. This book is of interest to stakeholders involved in STEM education such as researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, tertiary level teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers as well as other professionals with responsibilities in STEM education subjects. The book is written in a way that is accessible to a wide range of backgrounds, including those who are in language education.

Exploring multilingualism as a complex, context-related, societal and individual phenomenon, this book centres around perspectives on how multiple languages are made (in)visible within educational settings in the Global North. The authors of each chapter compare and contrast findings across geographical contexts with the goal of understanding the facets of multilingualism that, on the one hand, conform across contexts, and on the other, diverge context-specifically. The chapters range from contributions with a focus on national/state planning for the development of sustainable multilingual and intercultural educational policies, to chapters that deal with multilingual practices and identities of students and student teachers as well as the consequences for language practices, strategies and policies in diversifying societies. This cross-contextual, comparative and interdisciplinary exploration of multilingualism will be of great interest to researchers, administrators, practitioners and students within the fields of multilingual education, sociolinguistics, youth culture and identity studies. The book is open access under a CC BY NC ND licence.

Spanning scholarly contributions from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, this edited volume seeks to capture and elucidate the distinct challenges, approaches and possible solutions associated with interpreting, adapting and applying language-in-education policies in a range of linguistically complex teaching and learning environments across South Asia. Centring on-the-ground perspectives of scholars, practitioners, pupils, parents and the larger community, the volume offers new insights into one of the most complex, populous, and diverse multilingual educational contexts in the world. Language-in-education policies and practices within this setting represent particularly high stakes issues, playing a pivotal role in determining access to literacy, thereby forming a critical pivot in the reproduction of educational inequality. The broad aim of the collection is thus to highlight the pedagogical, practical, ideological and identity-related implications arising from current language-in-education policies in this region, with the aim of illustrating how systemic inequality is intertwined with such policies and their associated interpretations. Aimed at both academics and practitioners - whether researchers and students in the fields of education, linguistics, sociology, anthropology or South Asian studies, on the one hand, or language policy advisors, curriculum developers, teacher educators, teachers, and members of funding bodies, aid providers or NGOs, on the other - it is anticipated that the accounts in this volume will offer their readership opportunities to consider their wider implications and applications across other rich multilingual settings – be these local, regional, national or global.

Biliteracy - the use of two or more languages in and around writing- is an inescapable feature of lives and schools worldwide, yet one which most educational policy and practice continue blithely to ignore. The continua of biliteracy featured in the present volume offers a comprehensive yet flexible model to guide educators, researchers, and policy-makers in designing, carrying out, and evaluating educational programs for the development of bilingual and multilingual learners, each program adapted to its own specific context, media, and contents.

This book includes the work of 20 specialists working in various educational contexts around the world to create comprehensive and multidimensional coverage of current bilingual initiatives. Themes covered include issues in language use in classrooms; participant perspectives on bilingual education experiences; and the language needs of bi- and multilingual students in monolingual schools.

This book promotes linguistically responsive foreign language teaching practices in multilingual contexts. It advances a discussion of how best to connect the acquisition of subsequent foreign languages with previous language knowledge, and how to strengthen the connection between research and foreign language teaching practice.

Multilingual Approaches for Teaching and Learning outlines the opportunities and challenges of multilingual approaches in mainstream education in Europe. The book, which draws on research findings from several officially monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual countries in Europe, discusses approaches to multilingual education which capitalise on students’ multilingual resources from early childhood to higher education. This book synthesises research on multilingual education, relates theory to practice, and discusses different pedagogical approaches from diverse perspectives. The first section of the book outlines multilingual approaches in early childhood education and primary school, the second looks at multilingual approaches in secondary school and higher education, and the third examines the influence of parents, policy-makers, and professional development on the implementation and sustainability of multilingual approaches. The book demonstrates that educators can leverage students’ multilingualism to promote learning and help students achieve their full potential. This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of language education, psychology, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

This volume focuses on research in bilingual and multilingual education. It discusses the results of research conducted in different multilingual educational contexts and particularly in Basque schools and universities where Basque, Spanish and English are used as subjects and as languages of instruction.

The principles for enabling children to become fully proficient multilinguals through schooling are well known. Even so, most indigenous/tribal, minority and marginalised children are not provided with appropriate mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MLE) that would enable them to succeed in school and society. In this book experts from around the world ask why this is, and show how it can be done. The book discusses general principles and challenges in depth and presents case studies from Canada and the USA, northern Europe, Peru, Africa, India, Nepal and elsewhere in Asia. Analysis by leading scholars in the field shows the importance of building on local experience. Sharing local solutions globally can lead to better theory, and to action for more social justice and equality through education.

In the sociopolitics of language, sometimes yesterday’s solution is tomorrow’s problem. This volume examines the evolving nature of language acquisition planning through a collection of papers that consider how decisions about language learning and teaching are mediated by a confluence of psychological, ideological, and historical forces. The first two parts of the volume feature empirical studies of formal and informal education across the lifespan and around the globe. Case studies map the agents, resources, and attitudes needed for creating moments and spaces for language learning that may, at times, collide with wider beliefs and policies that privilege some languages over others. The third part of the volume is devoted to conceptual contributions that take up theoretical issues related to epistemological and conceptual challenges for language acquisition planning. These contributions reflect on the full spectrum of social and cognitive factors that intersect with the planning of language teaching and learning including ethnic and racial power relations, historically situated political systems, language ideologies, community language socialization, relationships among stakeholders in communities and schools, interpersonal interaction, and intrapersonal development. In all, the volume demonstrates the multifaceted and socially situated nature of language acquisition planning.