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Conclusion: Multilingualism, Diversity and Equitable Learning: Towards Crossing the ‘Abyss’

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The Multilingual Edge of Education

Abstract

This volume is timely because what multilingualism means has become a pressing educational matter of concern in the first half of the twenty-first century. This concern is currently framed through several different understandings of multilingualism/s and vocabulary associated with the phenomena. While the understandings of multilingualism differ, there is a common purpose, which is how societal multilingualism/s might best be employed to benefit students in education systems of Europe, North America and indeed everywhere in the world. The editors of this volume, van Avermaet, Slembrouck, van Gorp, Sierens and Maryns, make it explicit that they bring together largely European perspectives of multilingualism and the passage of multilingual education because this is where the impact of current mobility of people is most obviously and visibly evident. Its visibility owes much to electronic, digital and printed media that are well-placed in Europe and other North Atlantic countries to reveal the challenges of diversity in administrative systems, including education. The editors expand European perspectives to include contributions of scholars with different experiences of multilingualism/s in education in Canada, the USA, Southern Africa and French Guyana.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I use the Ethnologue data compiled by Lewis et al. (2016) as an indicative proxy of the scope of linguistic diversity in the world.

  2. 2.

    Our field owes a considerable debt to Cummins for his insights on linguistic knowledge and capability that are not partitioned in language-specific silos in the brain (1982).

  3. 3.

    A former third-year undergraduate student of mine, Sarifpah Aisah Wan Marjuki (Wan Marjuki 2015, student Research Project), identified this practice in Sarawak as ‘multilingualism is the medium of education’.

  4. 4.

    Makhudu’s research on urban varieties including flaaitaal and tsotsitaal dates back to the early 1980s. For reasons discussed by Medina (2014) elsewhere, there were few opportunities for southern scholars to disseminate their work through publications of the Academy. Until recently, they have also not tended to claim individual ownership of knowledge production (see also Heugh 2017).

  5. 5.

    It is worth pointing out that Wan Marjuki, who coined the term ‘multilingualism is the medium of instruction’ in Sarawak, had not read Fardon and Furniss (1994) when she did so. So it is interesting that it was her observations that led her to a similar recognition of multilingual practices in which languages are not practiced in isolation from one another in classroom settings, despite any official language policy.

  6. 6.

    I am grateful to Angela Scarino to drawing my attention to Heidegger’s (1991) conceptualisation of ‘attentiveness to language’.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, School of Creative Industries, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Kathleen Heugh

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  1. Kathleen Heugh
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ghent University, Gent, Belgium

    Piet Van Avermaet

  2. Ghent University, Gent, Belgium

    Stef Slembrouck

  3. Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Koen Van Gorp

  4. Ghent University, Gent, Belgium

    Sven Sierens

  5. Ghent University, Gent, Belgium

    Katrijn Maryns

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Heugh, K. (2018). Conclusion: Multilingualism, Diversity and Equitable Learning: Towards Crossing the ‘Abyss’. In: Van Avermaet, P., Slembrouck, S., Van Gorp, K., Sierens, S., Maryns, K. (eds) The Multilingual Edge of Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54856-6_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54856-6_15

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