Languages and Learning in South African Classrooms: Finding Common Ground with North/South Concerns for Linguistic Access, Equity, and Social Justice in Education

Abstract

At first glance, the term “heritage language” as applied in North America and Europe does not appear to relate directly to the postcolonial multilingual scenario in South Africa. Here the term “heritage languages” is applied narrowly to languages not declared official languages, such as minority indigenous languages, nonindigenous languages from Asia and Europe, and languages used for religious purposes. Such “heritage languages” are protected in terms of the South African Constitution. In addition, the linguistic ecology in South Africa is very different in that multilingualism is considered a defining feature of being South African, and there are 11 official languages, nine of which are indigenous African languages and two are the former colonial languages of English and Afrikaans. However, the global hegemony of English has meant that despite it being the home language of less than 9% of the population, it continues to dominate the political economy and, as such, skews choices in education away from using indigenous languages as media of instruction, beyond the first 3 years of schooling. This has the unintended consequence of limiting epistemic access for the majority of African language students in township and rural schools. In addition, research has shown that in urban multilingual schools that were desegregated postapartheid, the hegemony of English persists, and the linguistic resources that African language students bring to school are ignored and even suppressed. Thus the underlying concerns of the advocates of bilingual or heritage language education in the global north do find common ground with the concerns around language and education for African language speakers in South Africa. This paper explores language-in-education policy (LiEP) and classroom languaging practices in South Africa within the context of a shared North/South commitment to linguistic access, equity, and social justice in education.