Chapter 12: Perspectives on Language Policy and Literacy Instruction

Countries throughout the world have citizens within their borders who speak diverse languages and who claim diverse cultural heritages. For example, Europe has multicultural populations in the Alsace-Lorraine territories of France and Germany, in the Sudetenland territory of Czechoslovakia, in the Basque territory of France and Spain as well as in Belgium and Switzerland. North America had multicultural localities long before the first Europeans settled here. Multicultural and multilingual education has existed for centuries in these and other countries, although it is relatively new in American schools. Concern for the education of multilingual/multicultural populations has influenced language policy and literacy instruction.