Multilingualism and Education: Researchers' Pathways and Perspectives

Description

For decades, international researchers and educators have sought to understand how to address cultural and linguistic diversity in education. This book offers the keys to doing so: it brings together short biographies of thirty-six scholars, representing a wide range of universities and countries, to allow them to reflect on their own personal life paths, and how their individual life experiences have led to and informed their research. This approach highlights how theories and concepts have evolved in different contexts, while opening up pedagogical possibilities from diverse backgrounds and enriched by the life experiences of leading researchers in the field. Beyond these questions, the book also explores the dynamic relationships between languages, power and identities, as well as how these relationships raise broader societal issues that permeate both global and local language practices. It is essential reading for students, teacher educators, and researchers interested in the impact of multilingualism on education.

Gail Prasad's research examines social representations of plurilingualism and approaches to teaching for critical multilingual language awareness. She received the 2016 Pat Clifford Award for Early Career Research in Education, Canadian Education Association and the 2016 AERA Second Language Research SIG Dissertation Award, American Educational Researchers Association. Nathalie Auger is a full professor at the University of Montpellier-France. She leads international research in linguistics and didactics. She won a European Commission prize for innovation regarding language teaching in multilingual contexts. She has edited a dozen of books, and various websites including videos, on the subject for more than fifteen years. Emmanuelle Le Pichon Vorstman is a faculty member at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and head of the Centre de Recherches en Education Franco-Ontarienne (CREFO). Since 2009, she has led several international research projects on the inclusion of minority students in education. She works as a consultant, researcher, evaluator and reviewer for several international organizations.