This volume brings together research carried out in a variety of geographic and linguistic contexts including Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States and explores efforts to incorporate linguistic diversity into education and to 'harness' this diversity for learners' benefit. It challenges the largely anachronistic ideology that promotes exclusive use of an educational monolingual standard variety and advocates the use in formal education of aboriginal/indigenous languages, minority languages, nonstandard varieties and contact languages.

The contributors examine both historical and current practices for including linguistic diversity in education by considering specific bidialectal, bilingual and multilingual educational initiatives. The different geographical and linguistic settings covered in the volume are linked together by a unifying theme: linguistic diversity exists all over the world, but it is very rarely utilized effectively for the benefit of students. When it is used, whether in isolated studies or through governmental initiatives, the research findings point systematically to the many educational advantages experienced by linguistically-diverse students. This book will be of interest to teachers and language practitioners, as well as to students and scholars of language and education.

Contents: Androula Yiakoumetti: Rethinking Linguistic Diversity in Education - Stephen May: Educational Approaches to Minorities: Context, Contest and Opportunities - Ofelia García/Nelson Flores/Heather Homonoff Woodley: Transgressing Monolingualism and Bilingual Dualities: Translanguaging Pedagogies - Suresh Canagarajah/Madhav Kafle/Yumi Matsumoto: World Englishes in Local Classrooms - Sandra Lee McKay: English as an International Language, Multilingualism and Language Planning - Linda Tsung: Rethinking Multilingual Education for Minority Students in China - Peter Garrett/Josep M. Cots/David Lasagabaster/Enric Llurda: Internationalization and the Place of Minority Languages in Universities in Three European Bilingual Contexts: A Comparison of Student Perspectives in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Wales - Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu: The Medium-of-Instruction Conundrum and 'Minority' Language Development in Africa - Jessica Ball/Barbara May Hanford Bernhardt: Standard English as a Second Dialect: A Canadian Perspective - Ian G. Malcolm/Adriano Truscott: English Without Shame: Two-Way Aboriginal Classrooms in Australia - Jeff Siegel: Educational Approaches for Speakers of Pidgin and Creole Languages - Androula Yiakoumetti: The Dangers of Dialects: Debunking (or Substantiating) the Myths.