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Assimilation or Pluralism ? Changing Policies for Minority Languages Education in Australia and the Philippines:
Abstract
This article examines the changing legislation and education policies towards minority languages of two multilingual countries, Australia and the Philippines. Australia’s emergence from its assimilationist past to embrace a more multicultural approach is analysed with special reference to young Cambodian - Australians’ educational achievements that show the vital importance of school support for minority language literacy in enhancing students’ subsequent professional advancement. Philippines’s transition from dependence on colonial languages is shown to have been only a partial success, with the dominance of English supplemented by the co-officiality of one of the country’s ten major indigenous languages. The downgrading of the remaining nine is examined through an analysis of empirical data from a non-Filipino speaking region, where students are invariably trilingual, but where the rural poor’s educational chances are lessened through being educated in two languages other than their home tongue. The article concludes by re-affirming the need for a supportive community milieu to be supplemented by school literacy programs in minority languages, in that one of these two factors in its own way may not be sufficient to ensure successful language maintenance. The Philippine case-study also shows how long periods of linguistic suppression can breed a degree of diffidence about the value of literacy in the home tongue, without eliminating the emotional ties of speakers to their mother tongue as the core-value of their culture.
... As theorists like Taylor (1994), Kymlicka (1995), and Mowbray (2012) have argued, preservation of culture is enabled by the preservation of the channels through which it is transmitted, including language of instruction in schools. In recent years, the preservation of language, particularly in education environments, has led to an extensive literature on language rights (Smolicz, Nical, and Secombe 2007;May 2012). Given that the focus of this paper is an empirical assessment of the effects of segregated classrooms, a critical review of this literature is beyond the scope of the paper. ...
Governments of ethno-linguistically diverse societies face a difficult dilemma in opting for which language to use in the education system. While allowing each ethnic group to use its own language is seen as vital for cultural preservation and increasingly as a basic human right, it may also inadvertently undermine social cohesion by contributing to de facto segregation of schools. But does educational segregation really beget social segregation, especially in the presence of opportunities for inter-ethnic contact beyond schools? Using social network data from Facebook, we leverage a unique feature of Singapore’s education system to examine that question. We find that alumni from four de facto segregated secondary schools do have less ethnically diverse social networks than their peers from comparable but integrated schools, even years after graduation. This effect exists despite the multitude of intrusive public policies designed to induce inter-ethnic integration beyond the education system in Singapore, suggesting that schooling plays a particularly pronounced role in the identity formation process.
... Despite a rich heritage of an estimated 200 languages representing historical pride and community knowledge, multilingualism has been identified as a possible impediment to the continued educational, social, and economic growth of the Republic of the Philippines (Cenoz & Genesee, 1998;Smolicz, Nical, & Secombe, 2007;Tupas, 2014;Wa-Mbaleka, 2014). Progression in the expansion of educational opportunities has been framed as inseparable from the narrowing of the medium of instruction (MoI), identifying English as the sole language not only capable of offering a promising future to Filipino communities, but also the lone language in which the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are taught at the nation's universities (Tupas & Lorente, 2014). ...
Pakistan emerged in 1947 in a linguistically diverse cultural context. Among other things, the dynamics of politics and power ensured that English and Urdu assumed the role of the dominant languages (see Rahman, 1996; Rashid and Shaheed, 1993). English, as part of the colonial legacy retained its status as the language of the elite. Urdu, too, had been provided greater space by the British, particularly in Punjab, which, though not the majority province, assumed the dominant role in terms of the power configuration in the new country.
... This is also an important component of the autonomy over aspects of public administration that forms the basis of consociational democracy (Lijphart 1977). In recent years, the preservation of language, particularly in education environments, has led to an extensive literature on language rights (Skutnabb--Kangas 2000;May 2006;Smolicz, Nical, Secombe 2007), with arguments that endorse the basic position as expressed by (Skutnabb--Kangas 1994, p. 625): "In a civilized state, there should be no need to debate the right to maintain and develop the mother tongue. It is a self--evident, fundamental linguistic human right. ...
A central dilemma facing governments of linguistically diverse societies is the question of which language to use in the education system. Strong arguments have been advanced for the superiority of both vernacular languages and for the national language. A key element of this dilemma concerns the de facto segregated classrooms that can result when vernacular languages are employed in contexts where ethnic and linguistic lines coincide. We leverage a unique feature of Singapore’s education system to answer a simple question: do de facto segregated classrooms produce alumni with less ethnically diverse social networks than their peers from integrated classrooms, even when students and curriculum are closely matched on other important dimensions? We use unique social networking data to demonstrate that alumni from four elite de facto segregated secondary schools do have less ethnically diverse social networks than their peers from comparable elite integrated schools.
... As theorists like Taylor (1994), Kymlicka (1995), and Mowbray (2012) have argued, preservation of culture is enabled by the preservation of the channels through which it is transmitted, including language of instruction in schools. In recent years, the preservation of language, particularly in education environments, has led to an extensive literature on language rights (Smolicz, Nical, and Secombe 2007;May 2012). Given that the focus of this paper is an empirical assessment of the effects of segregated classrooms, a critical review of this literature is beyond the scope of the paper. ...
Extensive research has associated ethnic diversity with a range of negative outcomes. But ethnic diversity only affects outcomes when it forms the basis of social or political division. Can public policy shape identity in ways that reduces the divisiveness of ethnic difference? This paper provides evidence that suggests Singapore’s National Service program has altered the attitudes and behaviors of conscripts in a way that may achieve that goal. I leverage exogenous variation in the intensity of two unit types in the National Service program for causal identification. Indirect measures of identity are employed to reduce the risk of measurement bias. While additional data through ongoing work is necessary to reach final conclusions, existing findings demonstrate the potential of public policy to shape identity and offer insights on necessary conditions.
Despite a rich heritage of an estimated 200 languages representing historical pride and community knowledge, multilingualism has been identified as a possible impediment to the continued educational, social, and economic growth of the Republic of the Philippines (Cenoz and Genesee, 1998; Smolicz, Nical, and Secombe, 2007; Tupas, 2014; Wa-Mbaleka, 2014). Progression in the expansion of educational opportunities has been framed as inseparable from the narrowing of the medium of instruction (MoI), identifying English as the sole language not only capable of offering a promising future to Filipino communities, but also the lone language in which the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are taught at the nation’s universities (Tupas and Lorente, 2014).
What effect does the experience of a coeducational boarding school education have upon a student's life? The aims of this study were to define an Australian boarding school and report upon the findings of a small-scale qualitative investigation of students' views in a co-educational boarding school. The personal documents-based humanistic approach of the Polish-American sociologist Znaniecki, as developed for the analysis of personal and group social systems in the culturally diverse context of Australia by Smolicz, was employed to interpret the personal documents data.
Since the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948, the Hebrew language has been transformed within the cultural, political, and historical fabric of global Jewish consciousness into a communicative language and a salient symbol of Jewish ethnic identity (e.g., see Fellman, 1973, 1985; Fishman, 1977, 1991; Herman, 1970; Katz, 1985; Kutscher, 1982; Shaffir & Weinfeld, 1981). Identities are shaped by location as well as dislocation. Throughout history, the Jewish case is a very clear one of rootedness in the land of Israel, in the religious teachings of Judaism, and in the use of the Hebrew language. Indeed, to invest in Jewish ethnicity is to invest in a specific cluster of identifications: to region, Israel as the national homeland; to kinship, a location within a social, moral, and ancestral community; to Judaism, as a secular culture and/or as a religion; and to language, Hebrew as the sacred and ancestral/resurrected tongue (Feuerverger, 1989, 2001, 2006).
Thomas Ricento (2006) noted individuals speaking one language only do not appreciate the complexity of other languages and the way they influence one 's perception of cultural pluralism:
Language is something most of us take for granted most of the time; it is usually when we discover that our language (or language variety) is different from, and perhaps less valued than, the language of others, or that our options are somehow limited either because we don't speak/understand a language or language variety … that we begin to pay attention to language. (p. 21)
Taking language for granted is, of course, easiest for those who speak a language of power and influence such as English, or for those living in relative isolation. However, in a globalized world, isolation is decreasing. Issues of language are incredibly sensitive given their connection to personal and national/ethnic identity. Recently researchers in the area (Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson, 1994; Zajda, 2005 a,b; May, 2006; Ozdowski, S. 2006; Smolicz, Nical, & Secombe, 2007; Makropoulos, 2007) have argued passionately for language rights. For example, May (2006) has observed that the Linguistic Human Rights (LHR) paradigm argues that minority languages and their speakers should be accorded at least some of the protections and institutional support that majority languages already enjoy (p. 265).
The cultural aspects of globalisation are often overshadowed by its economic impact, although both impinge upon the pattern of interaction among national and ethnic cultures within the state (see Smolicz & Secombe, 2005; Zajda, 2005, 2007, Zajda et al. 2008). In this chapter, Australia is taken as an example of a multi-ethnic state which is in the process of building a nation based upon a multicultural, rather than monocultural framework. The Australian case study is discussed as a possible model for other multi-ethnic countries in their search for a solution to the pluralist dilemma of how to achieve a resilient and stable nation state which does not negate the persistence of cultural pluralism along ethnic lines. Such a search has universal significance, since it calls for stability based upon the interdependence of peoples and cultures, and ultimately of whole regions and civilisations. The key lies in a global interculturalism that transcends national/ethnic affiliations by overcoming borders that have a cultural meaning, as well as those of solely political and administrative significance.
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