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Language and social justice in South Africa’s higher education: insights from a South African university / Munene Mwaniki
// Language and education 2012, Vol26, N.5 2012p. 213-232 The paper interrogates the issue of language and social justice in South Africa’s higher education using quantitative and qualitative data collected at the University of the Free State (UFS). Data were collected using questionnaires. Through purposive sampling based on South African and UFS demographics, 120 questionnaires were administered to UFS students. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The results show that language is a critical component in the conceptualisation and actualisation of social justice in South Africa’s higher education. The results further indicate that language continues to play the role of privileging access to higher education for some, while curtailing access to higher education for others, in South Africa. The paper concludes that this reality is contrary to the principles of social justice and recommends a radical overhaul of the language dispensation in South Africa’s higher education within the framework of social justice
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The ‘problem’ of bilingual children in educational settings: policy and research in England / Kimberly Safford and Rose Drury
// Language and education 2013, Vol27, N. 2013p. 70-81 Is language something to be ‘overcome’? In this discussion of education policy and research perspectives on bilingual children in England, the authors take as their starting point five questions about language diversity posed in 1973 by Dell Hymes. The authors review the history of mainstream school support for young bilingual learners in England and how policies and practices have contextualised the research agenda by framing bilingual learners in a monolingual curriculum and assessment structure. The authors consider how ethnographic studies in non-statutory, complementary schools and early years settings offer vantage points from which multilingualism is seen as a pedagogical resource rather than a problem. It is hoped that the discussion will prompt readers to consider the ‘problem’ of linguistic diversity in mainstream education wherever they are situated, and to consider what kinds of research methods would provide insights and solutions
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Understanding children’s non-standard spoken English: a perspective from variationist sociolinguistics / Stephen Levey
// Language and education 2012, Vol26, N.5 2012p. 405-421 In order for schools to develop systematic and realistic strategies for extending chil¬dren’s linguistic repertoires, it is imperative that teachers and allied professionals have access to scientifically informed accounts of the variable but structured nature of the everyday speech used by children. Because there is insufficient information addressing grammatical variability in school children’s speech, it is easy for teachers to misinter¬pret normal social patterns of variation as the product of error or confusion. This article addresses die lacuna in our understanding of grammatical variation in childhood by presenting a case study of variable subject-verb agreement in the speech of children aged between seven and 11. A detailed quantitative analysis of the co-variation between non-standard and standard variants in children’s discourse reveals a heterogeneous, but intricately patterned, system. Furthermore, socially motivated patterns of variation re¬main stable across the age range examined and are unaffected by increasing exposure to formal education. The tenacity of vernacular norms raises a number of important issues pertinent to the teaching and learning of standard spoken English, including the extent to which children can be expected to substitute standard variants for non-standard ones in spontaneous discourse
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