Diaz, Adriana and Cordella, Marisa and Ramos, Fabiane ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0690-1681
(2021)
Resistance to Monoligualism: School Principals and Head of Languages’ Voices on Factors that Promote and Deter Languages Education in Queensland, Australia.
In:
Language Learning in Anglophone Countries: Challenges, Practices, Ways Forward.
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd., Cham, Switzerland, pp. 485-502.
ISBN 9783030566531
Abstract
Despite ever-increasing multicultural and multilingual diversity in Australia, the learning of languages, as a curriculum area, has long struggled to achieve recognition and stability. This could not be more true than in the state of Queensland, where despite mandatory language learning in the middle years, the percentage of high school students graduating with a language has consistently hovered around 8% for the last three decades. In this chapter, we draw on analysis of 18 semi-structured interviews with School Principals and Heads of Languages departments in ten metropolitan state high schools whose language programmes may be considered counter-examples to the current state of play in the Australian languages education landscape. These interviews explored participants’ views regarding the factors that may contribute to enabling the development and maintenance of language teaching in their schools as well as potential deterrents leading to discontinuation of programmes in other school contexts. The data provide evidence that resistance to the prevalent ‘monolingual mindset’ in these specific contexts is achieved through the interaction of several elements within the ecology of the school community, and specifically, through key stakeholders’ exercise of agency in a concerted effort to ensure the sustainability of languages programmes.
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Item Type: | Book Chapter (Commonwealth Reporting Category B) |
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Refereed: | Yes |
Item Status: | Live Archive |
Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | No Faculty |
Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | No Faculty |
Date Deposited: | 11 Mar 2022 05:20 |
Last Modified: | 10 Apr 2022 09:25 |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | Languages, Secondary schools, Principals, Heads of language departments, Queensland, Australia |
Fields of Research (2020): | 39 EDUCATION > 3901 Curriculum and pedagogy > 390108 LOTE, ESL and TESOL curriculum and pedagogy |
Socio-Economic Objectives (2020): | 16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1601 Learner and learning > 160105 Secondary education 16 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 1602 Schools and learning environments > 160299 Schools and learning environments not elsewhere classified |
Identification Number or DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56654-8_24 |
URI: | http://eprints.usq.edu.au/id/eprint/47065 |
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