Ángel Huguet - Böcker

This book explores how different European education systems manage multilingualism. Each chapter focuses on one of ten diverse settings (Andorra, Asturias, the Basque Country, Catalonia, England, Finland, France, Latvia, the Netherlands and Romania) and considers how its education system is influenced by historical, sociolinguistic and legislative and political processes and how languages are handled within the system, stressing the challenges and opportunities in each area of study. The chapters provide the reader with insights around three key aspects: the management of the guarantee of the rights of regional language minorities; the incorporation of the language background inherited by immigrants living in Europe (whether they are European citizens or not) and the need to promote the learning of international languages. Individually, the chapters offer deep insights into a specific education system and, together, the studies allow for a comparison and holistic understanding of multilingualism in European education.

To say that multilingualism is the norm and monolingualism the exception has become a truism. In fact, the European Union is clearly committed to a multilingual Europe in which all its educational systems are advised to include two Community languages. It is in this context where this volume analyses the language use and attitudes of would-be teachers, as they will play a paramount role when it comes to keeping multilingualism as one of the key features of the European identity. There are four main reasons why this volume can make a contribution to this field of research. Firstly, it is a transnational study involving nine different bilingual states/areas which allows the reader to compare contexts that, despite sharing some similarities, do have their own pecularities. Secondly, it considers not only the minority and majority languages, but also the different foreign languages. Thirdly, it relies on the same instrument and methodology. And last but not least, the participants will have an enormous influence on their different educational systems and on their students’ linguistic perceptions.