Rethinking Bilingual Education in Postcolonial Contexts
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- ISBN 9781847693648
- Weight: 378g
- Dimensions: 148 x 210mm
- Publication Date: 18 May 2011
- Publisher: Channel View Publications Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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This book calls for critical adaptations when theories of bilingual education, based on practices in the North, are applied to the countries of the global South. For example, it challenges the assumption that transitional models necessarily lead to language shift and cultural assimilation. Taking an ethnographically-based narrative on the purpose and value of bilingual education in Mozambique as a starting point, it shows how, in certain contexts, even a transitional model may strengthen the vitality of local languages and associated cultures, instead of weakening them. The analysis is based on the view that communicative practices in the classroom influence and are influenced by institutional, local and societal processes. Within this framework, the book shows how education in low-status languages can play a role in social and cultural transformation, especially where post-colonial contexts are concerned.
Feliciano Chimbutane is Assistant Professor in Linguistics at Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique. His research interests concern languages in education, with special reference to bilingual education. His focus is on policy, classroom practice, and the relationship between classroom discourse, day-to-day talk and the wider social and political order.
