Multilingual Education for All: Empowering Nondominant Languages and Cultures Through Multilingual Curriculum Development

• In Event: From Reproachment to Rapprochement: International Research Trends in Curriculum, Knowledge, and Society

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse cutting-edge work in multilingual curriculum development as it relates to the empowerment of non-dominant language communities. We qualitatively analyse the theoretical (applied linguistic) and practical (pedagogical) implications of an integrated multilingual curriculum by comparing and contrasting its implementation in two educational contexts where non-dominant languages are the basis for multilingual approaches. The first context is the low-income Nahuatl ethnolinguistic community in Cuetzalan, Mexico, in a school created by an agricultural cooperative to initiate mother-tongue education; the second is the innovative Integrated Plurilingual School model as practiced in the Ikastolas of the Spanish Basque Country, a case of language revitalization in an economically developed country. In both cases, the curriculum is designed to optimize learners’ own languages and identities and re-value the bi- or multilingual practices of their communities, using these languages and literacies as a basis for teaching additional languages.

Authors

• Carol Benson, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Itziar Elorza, University of the Basque Country