Coordinating, communicating, and combining languages in local immersion education policy reform in Finland

The aim of this article is to examine local enactment of new curriculum policy, paying special attention to combining the language of instruction in the school (Finnish) and the immersion language (Swedish) in an early total one-way Swedish immersion programme in Finland at a programmatic level. The study combines ethnography with educational language policy by focusing on coordinative and communicative discourses surrounding local immersion curriculum. The participatory observation data consist of 36 hours of audio-recorded curriculum working group meetings with immersion teachers and researchers. The findings showed that the curriculum task assigned to municipalities and cities providing immersion education was extensive. They also revealed how discursively oriented policy research on immersion education opens up new ways to develop immersion education. The actual curriculum decisions implied that the Swedish portion of the immersion programme is multilingual and rich in connections between multiple languages, contesting the common belief of monolingual practices in immersion instruction.

Educational Language Policy in Massachusetts: Discourses of the LOOK Act

Within the United States, equity for English learners, while essential, has remained elusive. As such, language policy in education is a central issue. When An Act Relative to Language Opportunity for Our Kids (LOOK Act) was passed in 2017 in Massachusetts, it was celebrated as a victory for bilingual education after a 15-year period of mandated English-only education. This study thus aims to analyze the language and intertextual discourses of the LOOK Act to inform its interpretation and appropriation by agents at various levels and investigate how language, language use, and language users are positioned in the Act.

Educational language policy in an African country: Making a place for code-switching/translanguaging

In Ghana, plurilingual language use is the norm rather than the exception. It follows that the multilingual linguistic practices of bilingual and multilingual Ghanaians should be reflected in language planning and languages-in-education policies. The study explores the nature of Ghana’s complex sociolinguistic ecology and details the shifts in language-in-education policies from the colonial era to the present. A closer look at the policies presents two opposing models: policies that draw on monolingual ideologies involving the use of English only as a medium of instruction from pre-school to higher levels, and policies that promote a bilingual approach where Ghanaian indigenous languages and English are used concurrently in the lower grade classes (grades 1–3), with a transition to English-only instruction from grade 4 onwards. The paper argues that instabilities in languages-in-education policies occur through the effects of ideology and policy formulation that do not take into account the linguistic ecologies of different communities, or indeed, the linguistic ecology of the Ghanaian classroom. It is proposed that rigid policies can be productively modified by recognizing the reality of code-switching in classrooms and shifting focus to the creative learning possibilities that translanguaging opens up.

Plurilingualism in Morocco: Issues and Challenges to Language Policy

The purpose of this article is to analyze the multilingual situation in Morocco in the face of the challenges encountered by language policies undertaken by the state since independence in 1956. The Moroccan society is characterized by ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity. This multidimensional richness has created competition amongst the linguistic varieties in the country, which has prompted the state to undertake several reforms and language policies including Arabization and the development of the National Charter in 1999, with a view to managing linguistic diversity in the country. Before tackling all these issues, a presentation of the linguistic landscape in Morocco is provided. Then, drawing upon the work of researchers specializing in the field, this review addresses the obstacles that have hindered the success and effectiveness of the enacted policies thus far. A sociological approach is also privileged in this study by referencing the work of the sociologist Bourdieu and emphasizing the importance of identity, cultural, and social considerations in developing an effective educational language policy that is capable nurturing citizens with adequate proficiency in national, local, and foreign languages.