Democracy in a multilingual and multicultural society

1
Democracy in a multilingual and
multicultural society

• Key-note lecture at the conference on mother
  tongue, bilingualism and democracy, myths,
  realties and consensus held in Copenhagen 28 -30
  November 2007
• by Birgit Brock-Utne
• University of Oslo
• http//folk.uio.no/bbrock/implan.html

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• Introduction
• Democracy in an affluent country for immigrants
  from poorer countries
  
• Language and Culture
• Democracy and language in multilingual and
  developing countries
  
• Elimu ya Siasa

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Democracy in an affluent country for immigrants
from poorer countries

• You do not accept a child when you convey a
  message saying that one of the central
  characteristics of the child, her or his
  language, is of no worth. When the Norwegian
  school enables the existence and further
  development of the minority child's vernacular it
  signals the following Your language is important
  and precious and so are you ( Wold 1992247). (my
  translation

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Bok

• Brock-Utne,Birgit og Liv Bøyesen (red) 2006 Å
  klare seg i utdanningssystemet i nord og i sør.
  Innføring i flerkulturell og komparativ
  pedagogikk, utdanning og utvikling. Bergen
  Fagbokforlaget.

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The four LOITASA books. Published in 2003 (in
Tanzania), 2004 (in South Africa), 2005 (in
Tanzania), 2006 (in South Africa).All four books
have been edited by Birgit Brock-Utne,UiO
,Zubeida Desai,UWC and Martha Qorro, UDSM..The
first book has been translated into Kiswahili.
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Loitasa editors at the LEA conference 21 June 2006
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Language and Culture
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Not understanding what the teacher is saying

• It has always been felt by African educationists
  that the African child's major learning problem
  is linguistic. Instruction is given in a language
  that is not normally used in his immediate
  environment, a language which neither the learner
  nor the teacher understands and uses well enough
  (Obanya l980 88)
• I can recall from my school days about my
  Chemistry teacher who every ten minutes or so he
  would ask us "Any question students?" Nobody
  answered and he would conclude "If there are no
  questions, then you have understood everything!"
  We did not understand him at all, not only
  because he taught in English only, he spoke
  American English!- he was a Peace Corp. The issue
  was language, as it is in our contemporary
  schools(Mwinsheikhe 2001).

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Democracy and language in multilingual and
developing countries

• there can be no doubt that the exclusive
  by-passing of indigenous languages in enacting
  laws and conducting legal proceedings create
  enormous obstacles for the native speakers of
  those languages (Ailola and Montsi 1999135).
• the developmental transformation needed to
  eradicate poverty in Africa is only possible if
  we can take knowledge and modern science to the
  masses in their own languages (Prah 2000ii).

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Elimu ya Siasa

• Changes from Civics to Elimu ya Siasa (1970)
• Changes from Elimu ya Siasa back to Civics (1993)
• Mada za somo lililokuwa likiitwa Elimu ya Siasa
  zimerekebishwa ili kuendana na mfumo wa
  demokrasia chini ya vyama vingi vya siasa nchini.
  Somo hili sasa litaitwa Civics katika shule za
  sekondari na litafundishwa kwa kiingereza

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• Asanteni sana
• Enkosi kakhulu
• Mange takk
• Thank you so much
• Vielen Dank
• Merci bien
• Muchas gracias