Taking a language-ideological approach, I discuss the roles played by various languages in Luxembourgish society and education. I focus on the three officially recognised languages (Luxembourgish, French and German), and consider how their roles have changed over time. Yet, despite these changes, the Luxembourgish language-in-education policy has remained a highly fixed and rigid one. I discuss the recent initiatives of the Ministry of Education as a first step in the direction of greater educational equity and social justice. I also present some examples of (more) flexible education systems from across the world and argue that Luxembourg has much to learn from the experiences of these other multilingual countries.
Dr Jean-Jacques Weber has been Professor of English and Education at the University of Luxembourg until his retirement last year. He has published widely in the areas of discourse analysis, sociolinguistics
and multilingual education. Recent book publications include: Flexible Multilingual Education: Putting Children’s Needs First (Multilingual Matters, 2014), Language Racism (Palgrave, 2015) and Introducing Multilingualism: A Social Approach (2nd edition, with Kristine Horner; Routledge, 2017).
Contact : peter.voss@uni.lu | http://dtucalidie.uni.lu