Monolingual Policies in Multilingual Schools

This book shows that teachers at monolingual schools in Brussels approach their multilingual pupils in quite ambivalent ways (severely imposing the school language, but also recognizing pupils' multilingualism). Underlining this ambivalence is important because the scientific literature typically prefers a focus on teachers who either support or suppress their pupils' multilingualism. Much ordinary, inconsistent, teacher behavior thus falls off the radar, while those teachers who...
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This book shows that teachers at monolingual schools in Brussels approach their multilingual pupils in quite ambivalent ways (severely imposing the school language, but also recognizing pupils' multilingualism). Underlining this ambivalence is important because the scientific literature typically prefers a focus on teachers who either support or suppress their pupils' multilingualism. Much ordinary, inconsistent, teacher behavior thus falls off the radar, while those teachers who appear in the literature are either praised (as critical) or blamed (as ideologically deceived). This book thus explores uncharted territory, it explains teachers' inconsistency as a type of thinking, and it suggests that we can evaluate their behavior in more complex terms than simply good or bad.