bilingualism

Language Policy, (Anti-)Racism, and Change

This session begins with findings from a policy genealogy (Gale, 2001) of the Heritage Languages Program (HLP) in Ontario and the racialized conflicts over it between 1977–1987. Heritage-language education policies emerged across Canada in the 1970s, just after federal policies for official bilingualism (1969) and multiculturalism (1971) were established. As Haque (2012) argues, official bilingualism was only possible by excluding demands of Indigenous and other racialized communities for their own linguistic and cultural rights. The HLP challenged the logic of official bilingualism, and thus became the site of extended, racialized conflicts over fundamental questions of (1) whose language and culture ...

Bilingual Community-Based Language Pedagogy: An Arab-Jewish Language Café in Jerusalem

The Good Neighbors – Abu Tor/Al-Thuri project is a grassroots, volunteer-based initiative that started in 2014 in order to promote a shared life approach and to build a joint community between Jews and Palestinians who live side by side in Abu Tor, a binational neighborhood, which is located on the seam between East and West Jerusalem. This unique project, which is extraordinary given the long geopolitical and national conflict and the explosive daily tension between Arabs and Jews, includes initiatives such as language courses in Arabic and in Hebrew; a community organic garden; “Abu-Job” – a job placement project; a bilingual ...