Languages and Educational Development at Teachers College

Language Issues in Comparative and International Education is a growing field that focuses on languages, literacies and learning in education in multilingual contexts. We are a community of professors, graduate students, alumni and associates who are committed to supporting the use of learners’ own languages in bi- and multilingual education (MLE) programs. Our research projects explore educational opportunities for speakers of non-dominant languages using multi-level, comparative, mixed-method analyses of student outcomes, school retention and passing rates, classroom interaction, teacher agency and advocacy, community participation and stakeholder attitudes. We also explore language-in-education policy change and the conditions that promote or constrain language choices in education.

Questions central to our research are: 1) How are languages and literacies important for educational access, equity and empowerment? 2) How are language-in-education policies developed, adopted and implemented in different educational systems? 3) How do we understand the place of languages in education in neocolonial, global, and neo-liberal contexts? In answering these questions, we demonstrate our commitment to seeing languages as resources for learning and promoting a multilingual habitus.