Publication details
Menschenrechte versus Effizienz? - Spannungsfelder der Schulsprachenpolitik
| Title in English | Human rights versus efficiency? - Tension in school-based language policy |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | This contribution focuses on fields of tension in language education policy in schools in Vienna (AT) and Brno (CZ). The data (official documents and surveys on the national level presenting data about languages in schools, interview with headmasters, school-based language policy documents, school observations) were collected within in the cooperation project AKTION (77p5, 2017) and analyzed according to their position in the continuum between plurality and uniformity. In the article, three main research questions are discussed: (1) Which data about languages at schools are collected on a national level and how are they interpreted? (2) How do schools position themselves according to languages and language policy? (3) How is language education policy constructed and justified? The results show that national surveys tend to simplify interpretations of languages and language reality. Schools tend to describe themselves as linguistically diverse, at the same time monolingual practices are still the norm, e.g. in cooperation with parents. Insights into argumentative strategies used to describe language policy at one particular site show in how far the plurality-uniformity divide can be associated with human rights versus linguistic performance. |
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